"What? A subway to Red Hook? Why? So, the people of Brooklyn have another way of getting into Manhattan? What about a subway From Brooklyn to Staten Island? I forgot. We are the Forgotten Borough.

Cuomo proposes subway extension from Lower Manhattan to Red Hook

Governor Andrew Cuomo is hoping to bring major changes to Red Hook, just one of the proposals he will talk about in his 2018 state of the state address. The changes he wants to bring about focus on extending a subway line to Red Hook, and opening up more of its waterfront for community activities.

From article, (Governor Andrew Cuomo is hoping to bring major changes to Red Hook, just one of the proposals he will talk about in his 2018 state of the state address. The changes he wants to bring about focus on extending a subway line to Red Hook, and opening up more of its waterfront for community activities.

Cuomo will ask the MTA to study the potential of extending subway service from Lower Manhattan to Red Hook via a new underwater tunnel. While this proposal is still in the very early stages, it comes in the midst of a subway crisis for the city—the MTA has proposed a $836 million to fix the ailing system.

Separately, Cuomo is calling on the Port Authority to relocate maritime operations from the Red Hook Container Terminal to the South Brooklyn Marine Terminal in Sunset Park. This would potentially consolidate shipping activities in South Brooklyn, and free up waterfront space in Red Hook.)

Me, ""What? A subway to Red Hook? Why? So, the people of Brooklyn have another way of getting into Manhattan? What about a subway From Brooklyn to Staten Island? A borough that has no direct subway access. I forgot. We are the Forgotten Borough.

Staten Islanders are told again and again that there is no money to pay for a subway connection from the SIRT to the R. Yet, Cuomo finds money for a new tunnel and station in Red Hook? This is all politics. Who donated a great deal of money to get this idea approved by the Governor? Art the rate of how new subway projects are approved, the only way a subway connection will be made is if someone wins the Powerball or Mega Millions lottery, and funds the connection." 

Me, "This is the Subway connection Staten Islanders has been begging for From Bay Ridge to..

To Clifton or some new station on the SIRT.

Maps curtsy http://jpwright.net/subway/

This is sort of what the Governor wants. An extension of the 1 line into Red Hook.

Probably a Subway stop in Governors Island.

Ending here in Red Hook.

Me, "Notice the fare amounts? While an R to SIRT barely changes the base fare. A Subway 1 line extension adds to the General Fare.  This is probably to show that construction costs could sky rocket by having to buy buildings to put in entrance and exits in Red Hook while the R to SIRT uses existing station entrance and exits."

Electric Car Driving Ranges Continue To Go Up

Fisker Claims New Solid-State Battery Patents Could Lead to 500-Mile EV Range, 1-Minute Charge Times

The future could be here before we know it. On Monday, Fisker Inc.- the company behind the Tesla Model S-fighting EMotion picture above-announced that it had filed patents for a new type of battery technology that could put electric cars with 500-plus mile ranges and one-minute recharging times on the roads as soon as the year 2024.

From article, (The future could be here before we know it. On Monday, Fisker Inc.—the company behind the Tesla Model S-fighting EMotion picture above—announced that it had filed patents for a new type of battery technology that could put electric cars with 500-plus mile ranges and one-minute recharging times on the roads as soon as the year 2024. 
While Fisker's press release was, unsurprisingly, a tad cagey about the details of this potentially paradigm-shattering technology, the company did reveal a few bits about what its new inventions and discoveries could do. Fisker's new power storage technology, according to the company, would allow it to build solid-state batteries packing far more surface area than existing flat thin-film solid-state electrodes can do, while also allowing for greater conductivity, allowing the batteries to work better in cold weather and charge faster overall. (Low levels of conductivity has been one of the key problems preventing the widespread adoption of solid-state batteries so far, so this could potentially be, as Michael Scott might say, a B.F.D.)

Due to the complexities of bringing the new technology to market, such as developing supply chains for some raw materials and setting up property quality control measures for them, Fisker says the technology isn't likely to reach cars and trucks until sometime after 2023. Once it does, however, the company claims the batteries—2.5 times more power-dense than their lithium ion equivalents—could lead to electric vehicles capable of recharging in less time than it takes to fill a modern car's gas tank, then driving more than 500 miles before needing to power up again. Oh, and the carmaker says the batteries would cost about one-third as much as li-ion ones, to boot.) 

China Plans to Land a Greenhouse/Ecosystem on the Dark side of the Moon

China Seeds Space Colonization With Plan to Grow Plants on the Dark Side of the Moon

Did you know that profits from Pink Floyd's famous album, Dark Side of the Moon, helped fund Monty Python and the Holy Grail? How about the fact that Paul McCartney was originally supposed to sing on the album? Congrats! You now know more about that album than most people know about the actual dark side of the moon.

 From article, (Sure, NASA has photographed the far side of the moon in the past, but no one has ever landed on it, much less explored it. That's supposed to change this year if China's ambitious new Chang'e 4 mission is successful.

The mission comes in two parts: the first part will launch in June and put a relay satellite into orbit 60,000 km behind the moon (meant to overcome the long-running difficulty of communication on the far side of the moon), while the second mission will launch a rover and lander to explore the surface. Included in this second launch will be a canister containing vegetables and insects—according to Zhang Yuanxun, who designed it:

"The container will send potatoes, arabidopsis seeds and silkworm eggs to the surface of the moon. The eggs will hatch into silkworms, which can produce carbon dioxide, while the potatoes and seeds emit oxygen through photosynthesis. Together, they can establish a simple ecosystem on the moon."

Chang'e 4 will be the first time anyone has ever landed on the far side of the moon. The planned location of the landing will be close to the Von Karman crater, the oldest (and largest) impact feature on the moon. The area around Von Karman also has abnormally high levels of thorium, which could serve as a potential nuclear fuel source in the future.) 

Earth may have a Finite Life, but Human Life, and the Life we bring with us, Could Conceivably spread out into the Universe.

How humans might outlive Earth, the Sun, and even the Universe itself

Nuclear war. Runaway climate change. A global pandemic. Today our world faces all manner of existential threats. But scary possibilities like these are nothing compared to what astronomers say lies in store for Earth. Our planet's ultimate destiny is to be baked, blasted, and eventually disintegrated.

 From article, (Nuclear war. Runaway climate change. A global pandemic. Today our world faces all manner of existential threats. But scary possibilities like these are nothing compared to what astronomers say lies in store for Earth. Our planet’s ultimate destiny is to be baked, blasted, and eventually disintegrated.

There’s nothing we can do to prevent this cataclysm. Yet according to scientists who study the far future, including University of California astronomer Gregory Laughlin, the prospect for life is, oddly, rather bright. Given technological advances and the continuing evolution of our species, humans should be able to survive — in some form — long after Earth has ceased to exist.

But our distant descendants are going to have to do some planet-hopping.

The first major cosmic crisis will strike in about 1.5 billion years. At that point, according to projections by environmental scientist Andrew J. Rushby at the University of East Anglia in England, the brightening sun will set off what might be termed “super-global” warming. Earth will be heated until the oceans boil.

By then, though, will we care? We already have the technology to establish bases on the moon and Mars. So a billion and a half years from now, we’ll likely have colonized the whole solar system — and perhaps other star systems in our Milky Way galaxy.

Fortunately, Laughlin points out, there are 200 billion other stars in the Milky Way, most with planets of their own. Perhaps our descendants will have mastered near-light-speed travel. Even with current technology, however, interstellar travel is conceivable on the kind of timescales we’re talking about.

The fastest spacecraft built to date, Voyager 1, is racing away from the sun at 38,027 miles per hour. At that speed, it would take 70,000 years to reach the nearest star. But future humans might build interstellar arks, giant ships on which generations of travelers would live and die before delivering colonists to a new destination. Such star-hopping colonists could spread across our entire galaxy before Earth overheats, even assuming no advances in rocketry.)

Sensing What Is Under Or Around Our Feet: Underground

DARPA launches subterranean challenge to improve underground ops

It can seem as though every square inch of planet Earth is colonized, cultivated, or otherwise utilized by humans and our endless variety of projects and needs. Even Earth's orbit is rife with our creations, our presence, and our detritus.

 From article, (It can seem as though every square inch of planet Earth is colonized, cultivated, or otherwise utilized by humans and our endless variety of projects and needs. Even Earth’s orbit is rife with our creations, our presence, and our detritus. Of late, Elon Musk and the Boring Company have delved underground to develop the little that is usually left alone — and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has recently joined in.

At the end of December, the agency announced its latest contest, called the Subterranean or “SubT” Challenge. Contest participants will develop systems that could help humans to map, traverse, and search through underground locations that would otherwise be too difficult and dangerous to enter or explore.

According to Timothy Chung, program manager in DARPA’s Tactical Technology Office (TTO) in a recent statement, “One of the main limitations facing war fighters and emergency responders in subterranean environments is a lack of situational awareness; we often don’t know what lies beneath us. The DARPA Subterranean Challenge aims to provide previously unimaginable situational awareness capabilities for operations underground.”)

Life Finds A Way

Astronauts Have Identified Unknown Microbes in Space For The First Time

Wheresoe'er humans roam, there you will also find microbes. It's just a fact of life - we contaminate everything we touch. Which means, hundreds of kilometres above the Earth, there are trillions of bacteria predicted to be living on the International Space Station.

From article, (If we can sequence these microbes in space, it could help diagnose astronaut ailments, study how microbes survive in microgravity, and even identify extraterrestrial life - if there is any floating around up there.

Now, thanks to the Genes in Space-3 project, NASA astronauts and biochemists have done just that. They've identified microbes aboard the space station for the very first time.

These turned out to be ordinary microbes that are commonly found where humans live. But now that the technique has been shown to work in space, there's no telling what astronauts might find next. 

Previously, the only way to identify microbes on the International Space Station was to send them back to Earth for testing. Microbes had been sequenced on board the ISS, but those samples had been prepared on Earth. There was no way to find something in space and genetically identify it straight away.

"We have had contamination in parts of the station where fungi was seen growing or biomaterial has been pulled out of a clogged waterline, but we have no idea what it is until the sample gets back down to the lab," Wallace said in April.

There are a lot more microbes out there in space than you may think.

We do our best to sterilise space equipment here on Earth before launch, but even the most extreme techniques can only reduce the number of microbes to 300 per square metre (compared to billions for a clean kitchen floor).

Given that microbes have demonstrated the ability to survive in the vacuum of space, having been found living outside the ISS, being able to quickly identify them will help rule out - or confirm - whether they're Earth microbes or not. (So far, all microbes found in and on the ISS have been terrestrial in origin.))

Me, "What this means is: that as soon as we step off onto Mars, with our first Human mission, we are going to bring life (Microbes) from Earth to Mars. No matter how clean Humans are, Microbes follow. They coat the outside of the International Space Station (In space). Why wouldn't they coat the outside of a Mars base in a limited atmosphere? Sure, you have radiation from the sun, hitting Mars soil, but radiation can destroy life or make it grow even faster."

Offshore Wind Projects Get A Boost From Cuomo.

Cuomo calls for more wind power, new cap on plant emissions

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) -- New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo is calling for more offshore wind energy projects and new caps on carbon emissions from smaller power plants.The Democratic governor announced the measures on Tuesday, the day before he delivers his state of

 From article, (New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo is calling for more offshore wind energy projects and new caps on carbon emissions from smaller power plants.
The Democratic governor announced the measures on Tuesday, the day before he delivers his state of the state address to lawmakers.
Specifically, Cuomo wants the state to seek 800 megawatts of new offshore wind projects in 2018 and 2019, enough to power 400,000 households.)

China Stops Accepting Paper For Recycling, From the U.S., Because It Has Your Food Still On It.

Mountains of U.S. recycling pile up as China restricts imports

After you collect your cans, bottles and paper, then put them out by the curb, do you ever think about where everything goes after the truck picks things up? Largely, it goes to China. Every day, nearly 4,000 shipping containers full of recyclables leave U.S. ports bound for China.

 From article, (After you collect your cans, bottles and paper, then put them out by the curb, do you ever think about where everything goes after the truck picks things up? Largely, it goes to China.
 Every day, nearly 4,000 shipping containers full of recyclables leave U.S. ports bound for China. China sends the U.S. toys, clothes and electronics; in return, some of America’s largest exports back are paper, plastic and aluminum.
 But that equation is changing as of Jan. 1 — China is enforcing its new “National Sword” policy, which bans 24 types of solid waste, including various plastics and unsorted mixed papers, and sets a much tougher standard for contamination levels.
China notified the World Trade Organization about the ban in July, essentially saying the country would no longer act as the world’s trash dump. Currently, China consumes 55% of the world’s scrap paper and is a major destination for other recyclables.

 The National Sword policy follows China’s “Green Fence,” a 10-month policy the country enacted five years ago, which set initial standards for lower contamination levels for recycling.
The ban will undoubtedly hurt recycling operators in China that rely on the import of raw materials. But delivering a cleaner China is paramount for Communist Party politicians.
The National Sword is also already being felt throughout the U.S. About a 45-minute drive west of Boston in the city of Westborough, Massachusetts, bales of paper are stacking up in a parking lot.
“We’re looking at 150 to 200 tractor trailer loads of paper. It’s stacked approximately 12 feet high, and it goes for quite a distance,” says Ben Harvey, president of E.L. Harvey & Sons, a family-run business since 1911. 
To be clear: This situation is not normal.
“No, our business is to bring it in, process it and move it out as quickly as we can,” says Harvey.
Harvey can’t sell the 2,000-pound bales to China because the contamination levels — the trash that’s accidentally mixed in, something like the remnants of a greasy pizza box that gets thrown in with the recycling — almost certainly exceed China’s rigorous new standards. If he had continued putting bales on ships a few weeks ago, they wouldn't have reached China until the ban would've already been in effect on Jan. 1. 
Harvey is hoping that China and the U.S. can work out a deal or he can find other processing mills in Vietnam or Thailand. Selling the material in the U.S. simply isn’t an option.“Because everything was going offshore, the mills have been slow to develop in the United States to handle this material,” Harvey says. “With the tightness in the marketplace, there might be mills that will be built, but that takes four to five to six years to put in a mill that will handle the capacity that we’re currently looking at.”
In the meantime, he’s growing increasingly concerned as the bales of paper take over more and more of his parking lot.
“If this stuff doesn’t move, and we don’t know what to do with it, we can’t keep it forever," he says. "At some point, it’s going to start to degrade. The other thing that could happen is that if we can’t find outlets — and I’m not talking about just E.L. Harvey & Sons, I’m talking about the industry as a whole — we’re going to stop bringing material into our facilities. And that’s going to impact recycling programs throughout the country.”
In other words, trucks could stop collecting our curbside recycling.)

Amazon Shows That Each New Marketing Idea Brings It More Rewards.

Amazon shipped more than 5 billion Prime items in 2017

Amazon's quest for world domination continued in 2017, and today (Jan. 2) it gave us a peek at how ubiquitous it already is. The company said in a press release that it shipped over 5 billion items from its Prime membership service to subscribers in 2017.

 From article, (Amazon’s quest for world domination continued in 2017, and today (Jan. 2) it gave us a peek at how ubiquitous it already is.

The company said in a press release that it shipped over 5 billion items from its Prime membership service to subscribers in 2017. It added that there are roughly 100 million items eligible for expedited free shipping through Prime, and research suggests Amazon has around 90 million Prime members. (The company has never disclosed how many members it has or what the service’s retention rate is, though it’s estimated to be ridiculously high.)

Amazon also said its most-purchased items over the year were its own Fire Stick streaming device, its Echo Dot smart speaker, AmazonBasics cables, and, oddly, bananas. (Americans really, really love bananas and Amazon has a bit of a thing for them.)

The release rattled off all sorts of other impressive stats, including Amazon’s fastest delivery (8 minutes through its Prime Now delivery service); that it delivered instant pots (the internet’s favorite cooking appliance) to nearly two-thirds of all US zip codes; and 17 million people tuned in to Amazon Prime Video to watch the 10 NFL games it had rights to on Thursday nights. It also mentioned that its most popular clothing lines are its own brands, and that 5 million games had been bought with a Prime discount through its videogame-streaming service, Twitch.)

Me, "Amazon really is providing all kinds of selling ideas."

A Plan To Stop Car Driving Maniacs

New York City to install 1,500 protective barriers after vehicle attacks

NEW YORK -- Hundreds of new protective barriers will be permanently installed in Times Square and other locations around New York in an effort to block vehicles from hitting pedestrians after deadly attacks last year on crowds.

From article, (Hundreds of new protective barriers will be permanently installed in Times Square and other locations around New York in an effort to block vehicles from hitting pedestrians after deadly attacks last year on crowds. The city is spending $50 million on protective measures including the installation of 1,500 metal barriers, or bollards, in key locations around the city, Mayor Bill de Blasio said Tuesday.

 The rollout will begin in March. Meanwhile, the temporary blocks already set up will remain in place. "People have to be able to get around but they have to be safe at the same time," de Blasio said.)

Me, "This is a very smart idea. There needs to be a way of protecting pedestrians. This is not a new type of technology. It is used to protect Fire hydrants from being run over by trucks, around the city. If it works for fire Hydrants it will work for pedestrians. While it may seem bland to have short metal poles sticking out of the sidewalk, this is better than cars driven by maniacs into people."

A Plan for Funding Mass Transit

Break the speed limit and boost mass transit (commentary)

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. - New Yorkers should just pony up more money. That's the solution to all our problems, particularly when it comes to mass transit. The latest salvo comes courtesy of the Independent Democratic Conference, the Democrats in the state Senate who parlay with the Republicans there.

Me, This has always been the problem. Howe do you raise money for public transit? [Read my comments below article snipet.]"


From article, (Under one part of the IDC's "Rider Relief Plan," the number of speed cameras around city schools would be massively expanded, with the funds generated going toward cutting transit fares, including express bus fares, which could be halved under the plan.

Sounds good. Who doesn't want cheaper fares?

But who wants more speed cameras? For Staten Islanders, the plan would give with one hand while taking with the other. We're big users of express buses, so we'd like some relief. But we're also the most car-dependent of the boroughs, so anything that increases traffic penalties is going to affect us disproportionately.

Current law caps the number of speed cameras in school zones at 140. Under the IDC plan, that number could explode to between 1,000 and 1,400. The IDC estimates that the increase would generate between $425 million and $500 million annually, up from the $59 million that the cameras generated in 2016.

Also under the plan, the IDC would look to use some city sales tax revenue to fund improvements to the subway system. Mayor Bill de Blasio has already pushed back against that one.

Everybody's got an idea about how we can make generate more funds for mass transit.

For instance, Gov. Andrew Cuomo is expected to throw his support behind congestion pricing in his State of the State address on Wednesday.)

Me, "How do you raise money for mass transit? How? HOW. lol. That's the conundrum. Fares, Taxes, Tolls, DMV registration fees, Police Ticket Fines, passive means (ads, etc).

That's the basics. We know fares have reached their limits. Taxes? No one wants to pay any more increases. DMV registration fees can only go so high before they crash from people refusing to own a car or registering them in another state. Police Ticket fines (Including red light cameras and speed cameras)? No one wants to pay fines. Its why everybody looks out for cops or cameras. So, that's a no go. 

Ads, are a lucrative income. Either on the side of a local bus or express bus, give the MTA, (Google, Bus wraps vary greatly in cost depending on design and coverage. The pricing can range anywhere from $8,000 – $12,500 this price would include all installation and removal costs as well.) and (Google: Bus Stop / Bus Shelter Ads: Range of $150 - $600 for small to medium size markets and $3,000 to $6,500 for high-income areas -- per ad per 4 week period. Bus Interior Ads: Range of $25 - $125 per ad per 4 week period. Bench Ads: $75 - $400 per ad per 4 week period. Range of rates depends on the timing and market.  and inside local buses and trains. Google: This is outdated, but in a New York Magazine article in 2005, the following rates were given: Static subway-entrance ads: $3,000. Subway cars: $44,000 to cover 25 percent of a train's interior ad spaces.)

I have one question has anyone sat down and figured out how much ad income is making for the MTA. It seems to me, at these prices they should be making a lot of money. If the MTA isn't? they need to raise their prices on them. Just like Fares have gone up so should Ad prices. A lot of people see these ads. That should be factored into the cost. I am not sure it is. Also, there are no inside ads on Express buses. Seems to me this is a lost Ad space. Any new Express Buses should be built with the capability of showing ads.

Still this Ad money is not enough money for MTA services.

Tolls? If the congestion Plan (Move NY) or the one by Cuomo goes into affect, maybe instead of lowering the cash toll on the Verazzano from 17 dollars to half $8.50, Why not leave it a few dollars more? and use that money for direct borough transit projects decided on by Staten Island current and future borough presidents?

In fact each bridge, the Triboro, Throgs Neck, Gil Hodges, Henry Hudson, Cross Bay, Whitetone, Verazzano, each borough should be granted a little extra for their own Borough President's mass transit projects by leaving the toll a little higher. 
This is on top of money they might receive from The Move NY congestion plan. Every toll giver is still getting a toll cut (Not as much) but the comforting idea that their toll will go to a home town project.

These are my ideas. Obviously, our elected politicians will have more."

Tax cuts in 2016. Haunt voters in 2018.

Watch your wallet, NY: Cuomo wants to 'restructure' taxes

When Gov. Cuomo gives his State of the State Address on Wednesday, he'll have a chance to explain his plan to "restructure" New York's tax code. Want to bet the "cure" turns out to be worse than the disease? Cuomo says the overhaul is needed in the wake of Washington's tax reform, which caps the state- and local-tax deduction.

From article, (When Gov. Andrew Cuomo gives his State of the State Address on Wednesday, he’ll have a chance to explain his plan to “restructure” New York’s tax code.
Cuomo says the overhaul is needed in the wake of Washington’s tax reform, which caps the state and local tax deduction. That will mean much of New York’s sky-high taxes will no longer be deductible on the federal 1040. Cuomo sees that as a “political” hit on high-tax states like New York.

But the only way to soften the blow would be to lower New York taxes, particularly those on the wealthy, who will be hit hardest. Yet something tells us Cuomo, who’s veering to the left as he eyes a White House run, has something else in mind.

Meanwhile, the state Senate’s Independent Democratic Conference wants to ditch the city’s income tax for residents who earn less than $50,000 a year. It also hopes to shift $431.5 million of the city’s sales tax to fund MTA transit fixes. As if city revenue is there for the taking.

The trouble with all of this is that none of the politicians want to address the real source of New York’s tax and budget woes: spending.

Yes, Cuomo has mostly kept the growth in state outlays to 2 percent a year (with notable exceptions). But New York’s tax burden is the nation’s heaviest. And the only way to bring it down is to pare spending even more.)

Me, "I direct the reader to this New York Times article that warned back in 2016 that a tax cut then would come back to haunt tax payers in 2018. Are lawmakers nuts? There is no forward thinking. Its just what can they do to please voters at present."

Cuomo's Tax Cuts, Boon for Middle Class, Come With Risk

And further reducing revenues could cause those gaps to widen over the years, Mr. Friedfel said, potentially "necessitating tax increases or service cuts." Worse yet, he said, those gaps could become unmanageable if revenues do not continue to grow or if the state falls into another recession.

From 2016 article, (It has become a phenomenon as common in Albany as Monday night fund-raisers or legislators under indictment: a new year, and a new round of tax cuts from Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo.

That trend continued when Mr. Cuomo, a Democrat, announced a deal on March 31 to reduce the personal income taxes of an estimated five million New Yorkers who earn $300,000 or less a year. The first phase of those cuts will take effect in 2018 — when Mr. Cuomo is up for re-election — but could be felt long after he leaves office.

Indeed, while initially described as a “billion-dollar tax cut,” the plan will save taxpayers — or deprive tax rolls, depending on one’s point of view — some $4.2 billion in 2025, when it is fully enacted. All told, the cuts are projected by the state to amount to more than $20 billion by that year.

And while that largess is likely to be celebrated by many of New York’s taxpayers, it could also leave the state open to pitfalls, both financial and political.)

High Speed Charging Powering Up In Europe.

Europe takes the lead in very fast electric-car charging

Europeans will soon have the opportunity to enjoy quiet, emission-free, long-distance motoring with far shorter charge times when driving electric cars along Germany's autobahns. The charging network Allego has rolled out its first 175-kilowatt ultra-fast charging stations-dubbed "Ultra E"-at its first location in Kleinosthei, along the A3...

 From article, (Europeans will soon have the opportunity to enjoy quiet, emission-free, long-distance motoring with far shorter charge times when driving electric cars along Germany's autobahns.

The charging network Allego has rolled out its first 175-kilowatt ultra-fast charging stations—dubbed "Ultra E"—at its first location in Kleinosthei, along the A3 motorway near Frankfurt.

The four fast-charging stations represent the first ultra-fast chargers publicly available in Europe, and Allego plans to upgrade half of them to 350-kilowatt service later this year.

The company plans to roll out numerous ultra-fast charging stations along a corridor of highway connecting the Dutch coast to the Austrian border starting this summer.

The station locations will be installed 150 to 200 kilometers (95 to 125 miles) apart along the corridor, as described in a ary by ChargedEVs.

“The ultra-fast charging stations are designed to accommodate many current and future types of e-car,” said Allego COO Ulf Schulte.

“They are particularly suited to the new long range e-cars that will be available from 2018," he said.

"Interoperability comes as standard at Allego. We support all the current charging cards and access apps, enabling anyone to charge their e-car at Allego and quickly be on their way.”

The Ultra-E project is supported by Allego, local utilities, auto manufacturers, and suppliers.

Still, Allego won't be without competition.

Earlier this year, a consortium of automakers announced they would launch a charging network called Ionity with the goal of installing about 400 charging stations across Europe, some ultimately offering 350-kilowatt charging.)

Electric cars, will start in cold temperatures, more reliably, than Internal Combustion Engines.

Electric car range is affected by extreme cold, but at least the cars can start

Sorry for the snarky headline and the swipe at internal combustion engines, but I have seen so much misinformation spread about electric cars in cold weather lately that I had to clarify something. Yes, electric cars are negatively affected by the extreme cold, but it's perfectly manageable and arguably as manageable if not more easily manageable than gas-powered cars.

From article, (Sorry for the snarky headline and the swipe at internal combustion engines, but I have seen so much misinformation spread about electric cars in cold weather lately that I had to clarify something.

Yes, electric cars are negatively affected by the extreme cold, but it’s perfectly manageable and arguably as manageable if not more easily manageable than gas-powered cars.

In case you are not aware, North America has been hit by a massive wave of extremely cold weather over the last 2 weeks.

In Quebec here, it results in temperature often going down to -25C (-13F) before accounting for wind chill. It’s not unusual for a Canadian winter, but it’s fairly extreme for December and now early January.

Following this cold weather, Le Journal De Montreal, one of the biggest newspapers in Quebec, made a front page out of electric vehicles being affected by the cold with a headline translating to ‘Electric vehicles are Freezing” all based on the experience of one Nissan Leaf owner and one Chevy Bolt EV owner.

Of course, that headline ran on the same day that hundreds if not thousands of gas-powered cars wouldn’t even start in our little province.

To be fair, they did briefly mention that EVs have a better chance to start than internal combustion engines at the very end of the article, but that brief mention on page 5 did nothing compared to this anti-EV propaganda on the front page.

Now, there’s no doubt that EVs are negatively affected by the cold both due to heavier use of the heating system that can’t take advantage of an inefficient engine that loses most of its energetic potential through heat and due to batteries being less efficient at low temperatures.

But EVs don’t just “freeze” in cold weather like they claim. That should be obvious just from the fact that there’s no better EV adoption rate than in Norway, but here’s a quick personal experience from a road trip I took last weekend just as an example. [Check out full article for details.])

Crewed Dragon Gets Closer to Flying

SpaceX leases Cape Canaveral location for capsules to take crews to space station

CLOSE MELBOURNE, Fla. - In a sign that astronaut launches from Florida are growing nearer, SpaceX recently leased an Air Force facility where it will prepare Dragon capsules to fly crews to the International Space Station.

 From article, (In a sign that astronaut launches from Florida are growing nearer, SpaceX recently leased an Air Force facility where it will prepare Dragon capsules to fly crews to the International Space Station.

The 45th Space Wing said work on the capsule called Crew Dragon or Dragon 2 would take place in Area 59, a former satellite processing facility on Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.
“This summer, they should be receiving their first Dragon 2 capsule, which will directly support NASA and the return of astronauts (launching into orbit) from U.S. soil,” said Brig. Gen. Wayne Monteith, the Wing commander, at a recent transportation summit in Port Canaveral.
It’s unclear when SpaceX or Boeing will be ready to launch test flights of astronauts under NASA contracts.

The most recent public schedules show unmanned test flights of SpaceX’s Dragon in April and Boeing’s Starliner in August. Test flights with two-person crews would follow in August and November, respectively.

Those dates, however, are considered optimistic and likely to slip, maybe even to 2019.

Until then, NASA will continue to rely exclusively on Russian Soyuz spacecraft to ferry astronauts to and from the space station, as it has since the space agency retired the shuttle program in July 2011.)

SpaceX proves, in 2017, it know how to reuse rockets.

SpaceX may perfect reusable rockets in 2018: Evolution in the Falcons' Nest

2017 has in almost every respect been an unrivaled halcyon year for SpaceX: over the course of its twelves months, SpaceX has returned to flight, begun reusing Falcon 9 boosters, and overall completed 18/18 successful launches and 15/15 first stage recoveries - five of which were commercial reuses of 'flight-proven' boosters.

 From article, (While 2015 and 2016 both saw their own hints of potential successes to come, 2017 is the first year that SpaceX managed a truly impressive launch cadence for Falcon 9 without a serious vehicle failure. Every 2017 launch flew on either a Block 3 or Block 4 iteration of Falcon 9 1.2. Esoteric model numbers aside, this simply means that Falcon 9’s design, manufacture, and operation are all maturing rapidly; SpaceX has clearly learned from the CRS-7 and Amos-6 failures and responded accordingly with a more cautious and tempered perspective.

From a historical perspective, it is extraordinarily impressive that Falcon 9 and Cargo Dragon have experienced such a tiny number of failures over their short but active existences. Both Falcon 9 and Dragon have experienced several miscellaneous teething issues and technical difficulties over their ~7 years of launches, but only three anomalies resulted in failures that catastrophically impacted customer payloads: CRS-1, CRS-7, and Amos-6. Thus, out of a total of 46 Falcon 9 launches, approximately 94% have been complete successes. For perspective SpaceX’s first orbital rocket, Falcon 1, experienced total failures during its first three launch attempts, for a success rate of 40%.

Barring further flight hardware anomalies in the Falcon family, however, 2018 is likely to be even more of a boon for Falcon 9 (and Falcon Heavy). While Falcon Heavy is set to ring in the new year sometime in January 2018, just a few weeks away, far more significant for SpaceX’s launch business is the debut of the “final” iteration of Falcon 9, dubbed Block 5 or ‘V5,’ likely within the next several months. Block 5 has been heavily modified almost entirely for the sake of more efficient reuse, and will feature titanium grid fins (most recently spotted on Falcon Heavy) and several other changes. Altogether, SpaceX’s public goal is to be able to reuse Falcon 9 Block 5 as many as a dozen times with relative ease, and each booster’s lifespan could potentially be lengthened by a factor of 5-10 with more extensive periodic maintenance.

This ‘final’ version of Falcon 9 will almost undoubtedly go through its own period of tweaks, changes, and iterative improvements once it debuts and begins to gather flight experience. Nevertheless, it’s plausible that once its minor problems are ironed out, SpaceX will choose to “freeze” the design and begin to aggressively transfer large sections of its engineering and manufacturing base over to the company’s Mars rocket, BFR. Ultimately, the highly reusable Block 5 evolution of Falcon 9 will allow SpaceX to transfer over its customers to reused rockets and thus recoup the cost of reusability R&D far faster than ever before, both by lowering the material cost of launch and enabling a considerably higher frequency of launches.)

Low Cost Reusable Space Transport

Will Blue Origin Beat SpaceX to Manned Space Flight This Year?

Jeff Bezos's rocket company is poised to take one giant leap. Blue Origin Elon Musk's SpaceX hogged the space-related headlines in 2017, and for good reason.

From article, (Elon Musk’s SpaceX hogged the space-related headlines in 2017, and for good reason. It shot a record number of rockets (18) into orbit this year—many with re-used hardware; it caused an uproar in Los Angeles during its particularly spectacular launch from Vandenberg Air Force Base on December 22; and last week, it moved the most powerful current rocket in existence, the 27-engine Falcon Heavy, onto the famed pad 39A at Kennedy Space Center for an anticipated launch in January. All spectacular stuff.

But while Musk has been busy showing off...er, innovating in the world of low-cost, reusable rocketry, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos has been flying a bit further under the radar with his own space launch program, Blue Origin. His first rockets—much smaller and stubbier, and launched from a humble locale in west Texas—are designed to carry passengers and payloads just 62 miles (330,000 feet) above the ground, crossing the line into what’s technically space without going high enough or fast enough to actually reach orbit the way Musk’s rockets do. His suborbital launches typically last just over 10 minutes, from blastoff to touchdown. 

Blue Origin’s launch vehicle, dubbed "New Shepard," has only flown a handful of times in several versions, and only once in 2017, in a test flight on December 12. But that flight was as significant as anything SpaceX has done this year—if for no other reason than the flight demonstrated the performance of the new Crew Capsule 2.0, signaling that the Bezos rocket could realistically be the first of the two companies to carry living humans into space. The company expects its first engineers and pilots to fly in the craft some time this year, possibly beating Musk to the manned space flight stage. SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule—the passenger-carrying version of the cargo capsule it’s been using to shuffle gear to the International Space Station—hasn’t flown yet at all, let alone with people aboard.

Both companies have said that they expect to start taking paying passengers on flights in 2019, so they both need to get moving this year vis-à-vis their own test crews taking the flights. Blue Origin expects an uncrewed flight will happen in April, followed by a crewed launch in August. The other player in the mix—Boeing, with its CST-100 Starliner capsule, competing with SpaceX for NASA’s Commercial Crew Program—also expects both uncrewed and crewed flights in the second half of this year, though it won’t be offering seats to space tourists.

Ultimately, SpaceX and Blue Origin are working toward the same thing—low-cost, reusable space transport. Blue Origin sees New Shepard as a steppingstone to its orbital launcher, New Glenn, which will be even larger than SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy. Musk, on the other hand, sees his launchers as steppingstones to Mars,which can also be adapted for suborbital flights as high-speed point-to-point transports. (Say, New York to London in 22 minutes.))