Sorted by date Results 76 - 100 of 175
If Americans are to receive all of their electricity without coal and natural gas by 2035, they will need nuclear power. Even if Washingtonians, who already procure over 70 percent of their electricity from the hydro, are to be completely devoid of fossil fuel generation by 2045, they must have nuclear. Washington’s Clean Energy Transformation Act passed earlier this year by the legislature leans heavily on renewable fuels, particularly wind and solar. It calls for e...
Far too few people remember the 1972 Seattle billboard: “Would the last person who leaves Seattle please turn out the lights?” The reference was to the massive job losses at Boeing when the supersonic transport project collapsed and the company, then headquartered in Seattle, was on the ropes. That was a painful time especially for working families and local government leaders. Those who lived through it have no interest in a repeat performance. However, given the dir...
In early June, the financial website WalletHub released its rankings of “Best and Worse State Economies” and Washington led the field of 51 as best by a healthy margin. WalletHub economists viewed the states from three key dimensions — economic activity, economic health and innovation potential. Then the analysts from Dartmouth and Carthage colleges and the University of Texas-Austin looked a 28 key indicators of economic performance and strength when comparing all 50 state...
While the coronavirus pandemic and civil unrest are front page news, China’s unrelenting push to leap over our country in critical technology and hoarding of strategic metals should alarm us. Since the coronavirus pandemic broke out, there has been an unprecedented worldwide demand for personal protective equipment (PPE). Tensions between our countries fueled the widespread fear that Chinese imports would disappear. China provided 48 percent of our PPE imports in 2018, but C...
Solar power is getting a lot of attention these days as our country strives to reduce greenhouse gases. Sunny cities like Honolulu, Los Angeles and San Antonio have ramped-up solar power production; however, in cloudy coastal municipalities such as Seattle, investments in “sun power” have been lagging. One reason is Washington is blessed with an abundance of low-cost and carbon-free hydropower which accounts for three-fourths of our electricity generation. Electricity fro...
In recent years, papermakers in Pacific Northwest have been losing ground. However, today there is a ray of hope. Surprisingly, that optimism results from the COVID-19 pandemic. In the first days of the pandemic, grocers couldn’t keep toilet paper on store shelves even though paper mills were running 20 percent higher than normal capacity. Cardboard plants also were operating full bore making shipping boxes for medical supplies and personal protective gear. As Amazon and onlin...
As we get deeper into the COVID-19 pandemic, we are finding more Americans to thank. Until recently, truckers have been behind the scenes just doing their jobs, but as shoppers learn how groceries and necessities reappeared on shelves, they join the list of unsung heroes. Business Insider (BI) reported truckers are the reason America’s grocery stores, online retailers, hospitals, gas stations, and even ATMs have remained stocked. They number 1.9 million. It’s estimated tha...
Nobody knows how deep the impact of the coronavirus will be, but one thing that it is destined to test is how effectively people will work from home. Washington is at the point of the spear. Of the 22 U.S. deaths attributed to COVID-19, there are 19 in our state. To avoid further exposure, employers are encouraging telecommuting, canceling meetings, events and travel, and, taking extra caution to sanitize work locations. Seattle-based Alaska Airlines is among the carriers...
Washington and Oregon lawmakers want to end their legislative sessions; however, accounting for the costs of carbon emissions is a major road block. In Salem, rural Republican senators are boycottingsession and thereby denying majority Democrats a quorum to vote on a “cap and trade” bill. The measure calls for an 80 percent state reduction in greenhouse gases (GHG) by 2050. The system would be similar to existing programs in California and some Canadian provinces. The sta...
Last week, we visited the Grand Canyon National Park in northern Arizona. It is part of our National Parks “bucket list.” The trip was a real eye-opener. The Canyon is spectacular. It is hard to believe over a billion years ago it was flat ground and covered by ocean waters. In ancient times, there was too much water. Today, it is a deep gorge with a ribbon of water running through it. The Grand Canyon is 277 miles long, over a mile deep and 10 to 18 miles across. The fam...
Keeping hospitals and health workers healthy is key to fighting diseases. With new and more deadly viruses, the job is more challenging. Although the coronavirus has captured the world’s attention, it is important to note the Center for Disease Control estimates that 80,000 Americans died of flu and flu complications in the winter of 2017-2018 — the highest flu-related death toll in at least four decades. The coronavirus outbreak is very serious. According to the New York Tim...
Government leaders, doctors, and medical researchers worldwide are working feverishly to stop the spread of the coronavirus and keep it from becoming a global pandemic. Wuhan, one of China’s major transportation hubs whose population approaches 11 million, is the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak which is spreading like wildfire. Wuhan was put on lockdown. The fear is widespread prompting China’s government leaders to build a 1,000 bed hospital within a week. Pro...
A year ago, much of America’s heartland was inundated by Missouri River flood waters. At least 1 million acres of U.S. farmland in nine major grain producing states were under water. More than 14 million people were impacted. Damage exceeded $1 billion. With 11 dams on the Missouri, why was the flooding so severe? Why didn’t the dams absorb the excess waters? Its dams are above the flooded areas. The last impoundment is at Gavins Point Dam in South Dakota and heavy rai...
At Christmas, millions watch the 1946 movie classic, “It’s a Wonderful Life.” While it is labeled “fantasy drama”, the show gives us a glimpse of reality and reminds us of the importance of caring local business owners. The setting is mythical Bedford Falls, N.Y., on Christmas Eve. George Bailey, a family man with a wife and four children, was dogged by a greedy banker, Henry Potter, who wanted to shut Bailey Building and Loan Association down. (George inherited the strugglin...
Bridges shouldn’t have to sink to be replaced. However, at times that’s what it takes. Too often new projects succumb to years of fighting among interest groups and endless political bickering. In 2013, opposition killed Columbia Crossings project which was formed to construct a replacement I-5 bridge across the Columbia River connecting Vancouver and Portland. We all want more roads and a bridge as long as they are in the other persons’ neighborhood and someone else pays....
In America, our Thanksgivings range from large family-gatherings to Good Samaritans volunteering in soup kitchens serving turkey dinners to the hungry. Now think about what it is like in other parts of the world where people are lucky to have a few slices of bread and some rice to eat. For example, before the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, it was that way for people living in Poland and Eastern Europe. Communist dictators tightly controlled everything from the farm to kitche...
Just before Veterans Day, the last known survivor of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor died at age 98. With the passing of George Hursey of Massachusetts, it closed that chapter of World War II — the world’s most deadly conflict in which over 60 million people perished. President Franklin D. Roosevelt called Dec. 7, 1941, “the date which will live in infamy.” During the surprise attack, 350 Japanese aircraft descended on Pearl Harbor and nearby Hawaiian military installation...
Traditionally, media coverage of the Paris Air Show focuses on the battle between Boeing and Airbus over market share for newer large commercial jets. However, this year Mitsubishi shared the spotlight with its state-of-the-art "SpaceJet." SpaceJet is not the latest aircraft to join British billionaire Sir Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic suborbital space fleet. It is a new regional passenger aircraft designed to compete head-to-head with Brazil's Embraer E-175 for routes...
Our nation is on an unsustainable borrowing trajectory and it could get much worse unless voters start asking politicians: “How are taxpayers going to pay for what they promise!” We now owe over $22.5 trillion to lenders of which nearly half are off shore. (China $1.11 trillion). At the rate which we are selling treasury notes, the deficit will balloon to $24 trillion by 2020. That means when the presidential election rolls around next year, each taxpayer’s share of the debt...
Hopefully Puget Sound Energy (PSE) will receive final permit approval so it can complete its Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) plant currently under construction on Tacoma’s Tide Flats. For background, LNG is natural gas chilled to a liquid state, (-260° Fahrenheit), for shipping and storage. The volume of natural gas in its liquid state is about 600 times smaller than in its gaseous state. The comparison is similar to condensing air in a beach ball to a ping-pong ball. In its li...
More battery operated cars and trucks are making their way on to streets and highways, so why not trains? That may not be too far off if Burlington Northern Santa Fe (BNSF) tests are successful. BNSF and Wabtec (formerly GE Transportation) are developing a battery-electric high-horsepower road locomotive — the type that moves freight trains between Seattle and Chicago. Once all the equipment and support systems are in place, the plan is to run tests between Stockton and B...
Shortly, after Apollo 11 landed on the moon and astronaut Neil Armstrong took his famous first steps on the dusty lunar surface, some comedian in our army unit at Ft. Knox, Ken., posted a sign in our barracks: “Sorry, Drill Sgt., No Green Cheese!” Our basic training drill instructor was already “highly agitated” because President Richard Nixon ordered a “training holiday” so we could watch live television coverage of landing. On July 20, 1969, our unit was supposed to...
What happens in China doesn’t always stay in China. In fact, when it comes to tough new garbage and recycling restrictions, they may migrate elsewhere sooner than you might think. For example, Shanghai is one of the world’s largest cities with 26.9 million people. It is suffocating under mountains of trash its residents generate daily. It lacks an effective recycling and disposal system. “Instead, it has trash pickers to sift through the waste, plucking out whatever can be re...
There are dams that should come down and those that shouldn’t. Hopefully, as the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers conducts its review of the 14 federal dams on the Columbia and Snake rivers, that will become abundantly clear. That review is expected to be ready for public comment in late 2020. Here is the difference. Demolishing the two dams on the Elwha River west of Port Angeles was a good thing. They were built in the early 1900s to bring electricity to the Olympic Peninsula a...
“One of the biggest challenges of the 21st Century is dealing with the progress of the 20th Century — especially old computers, monitors, cellular phones and televisions. These appliances depend on potentially hazardous materials, such as mercury, to operate. After a five-to-eight year useful life, many are tossed into dumpster and sent to landfills where they can leach into the soil and groundwater.” That was the opening paragraph of a column I wrote 20 years ago. Howev...
