News Cut: December 31, 2008 Archive

One giant leap for biofuels

Posted at 9:17 AM on December 31, 2008 by Bob Collins (3 Comments)
Filed under: Science

In a slow news week, this should've gotten bigger play.

Fuel from the weed jatropha powered an Air New Zealand jet on a two-hour flight today--the world's second flight of a commercial jet on biofuel. One out of the four Rolls Royce engines on an Air New Zealand Boeing 747-400 burned a 50-50 blend of regular jet fuel and a bio-version made from jatropha.

The flight more than doubled the air time of the first biofuel flight--a 40 minute jaunt between London and Amsterdam in February. The plane climbed to an altitude of 35,000 feet and the engine performed normally, according to chief pilot Capt. David Morgan.

Details are in Scientific American.

Of course there remains a big problem:

Biofuels don't contain the oil necessary to help seals and rings in engines swell. So the lief of an aircraft engine would be reduced. That's a big deal. The GE engine on a 777 could go for as high as $10 million apiece.

This issue is playing out in all forms of aviation, including general aviation. I have this thing sitting in a hangar -- a new airplane engine.

It runs on fully leaded gasoline, which is being phased out. It may be a huge paperweight in a short period of time. These engines can run on auto fuel, but Minnesota's ethanol content will rot the seals and reduce its life.

Researchers are trying to solve problems like this but so far there doesn't appear to be a solution. Most of the small airplanes you see in the air are flying on borrowed time.

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Media layoffs

Posted at 10:51 AM on December 31, 2008 by Bob Collins (10 Comments)
Filed under: Disasters, Energy, Media

The axe is falling on more media personalities.

Nat Hentoff was let go yesterday by the Village Voice, so everyone pretty much knew firings were coming at City Pages, which is owned by the same company.

Bingo.

James Norton and Assistant A-List editor Ben Palosaari have been let go, according to media analyst David Brauer at Minnpost. He also notes that WCCO-AM has dismised overnight talk host Al Malmberg and his fill-in, Brad Walton.

One of the questions for 2009? Is there any local media that will escape the budget-cutting axe?

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Whose year was it?

Posted at 3:39 PM on December 31, 2008 by Bob Collins (9 Comments)
Filed under: The Quiz

Over the next few hours, as in the last few days, we are likely to be told -- again -- that 2008 is a year to forget. I recognize the news has been bad -- the news is always bad -- and many people are hurting. But whose year are we talking about? If I say to you, "2008," what do you think of? The election? The recount? The economy?

Those may be events in our lives, but are they our lives? Are they our years? I have a hard time saying "2008 was a bad year" to someone who, for example, watched their kid walk across a stage to get his or her high school diploma this year? Or the person whose biopsy showed the tumor was benign.

But we don't do news stories about high school graduations or medical test results for people who aren't from Hollywood. And yet, that's the way we live our lives. Personally. Individually. Quietly. It stands to reason that it's not up to people like us to review and define 2008; it's up to you.

As the old question goes: How was it for you?

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