Current Facts 31

The Most Watched City
The people of London England are photographed 300 times a day by closed-circuit television cameras (CCTVs). The UK is home to an estimated 5 million surveillance cameras, 1 for every 12 citizens. Some CCTVs talk too, with watchers politely chastising the public (to pick up trash, etc). Radio Frequenc Identification Technology (RFID) uses radio waves to detect small implanted chips (already found in English passports, and travel cards Londoners swipe when using public transit). Experts fear they may be used to monitor purches and employees. They may some day be available implants as they are already available for pets.
Armchair Reader, The Colossal Reader, Oct 2008, p.314.

If the US stopped importing oil, used stockpiled and drilled domestically;
Following the energy crisis of the 1970’s, the US Department of Energy started storing oil in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve – a network of salt-dome cavers located around the Gulf of Mexico. Meant to safeguard against a major shortage, it currently holds more than 700 million barrels of crude oil. The US currently consumes more than 20 million barrels a day (more than any other country in the world). Factoring in the 5 million barrels a day we currently produce domestically, estimates suggest that our stockpile would last 58 days. The United States Geological Survey noted that drilling the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Northern Alaska could bring 4.3 to 11.8 billion barrels of oil. Which would keep the current rate of consumption going for one year, even though extraction would take a period of years. All told, including offshore oil (there are at least 23 billion barrels of oil under US territory that we know of) and sustain the current consumption rate, we would have three years of oil.
Mental_Floss, Jan-Feb 2009, v.8, i.1, p.46.

Fuel Economy
In 1975, Congress passed the Energy Policy & Conservation Act, which established corporate average fuel economy (CAFÉ) standards that required the gradual doubling of passenger vehicle efficiency for new cars – to 27.5 miles per gallon within ten years. By 1985 American passenger vehicle mileage went from about 13.5 to 27.5 while light truck increased from 11.6 to 19.5. The oil glut weakened OPEC and helped unravel the Soviet Union, then the world’s second-largest oil producer. President Reagan rolled the requirements back to 26 mpg instead of continuing the reduction of dependency. He also slashed budgets for alternative energy programs, let tax incentives for solar and wind start-ups lapse, and even stripped off solar panels from the White House roof. In 1989 Bush Sr moved the fuel economy back to the 1985 level of 27.5 mpg. The Michigan congressional delegation, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Big Three automakers and the United Auto Workers, pressured in a bill that expressly prohibited the use of appropriated funds for any rule making by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to tighten fuel economy standards for American cars and trucks – thereby freezing the whole process and banning mileage improvement standards through 2003. Bush Jr made a tiny adjustment upward in the mileage standard of light-duty trucks. At this point, China leaped ahead of the US standards. In late 200, 32-years after Congress ordered mileage improvements to 27.5, the standard was moved to 35 mpg (roughly where Europe & Japan are already) to be attained by 2020 – 12 years away! Sports-utility vehicles (introduced in 1979) were successfully lobbied to be labeled as light trucks so they would not have to meet the 27.5 mpg standard, but the light truck standard of 20.7.
Hot Flat & Crowded, Thomas L. Friedman, 2008, p. 14-17.

Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac
Fannie Mae was founded in 1938 as a government agency, part of President Roosevelt’s effort to help Americans gain access to mortgage funds during the Great Depression. In 1968 Congress released it as a private company. Owned by stockholders, but regulatory power was retained by the government. In 1970 Congress chartered a second company, Freddie Mac, to provide competition in the mortgage market. In general, they were set up to buy individual home loans from banks, then group them together and resell the bundled mortgages as securities to institutional investors. In turn, this gave banks the cash to make other mortgage loans, creating what is known as the secondary mortgage market. In theory, this was supposed to keep the American housing market stable, liquid and affordable.
Mental_Floss, Jan-Feb 2009, v.8, i.1, p.48.

Forests & Air
20 percent of the world’s oxygen is produced by the Amazon Rainforest. 1.5 acres of rainforest are burned cut or otherwise destroyed every second. At this rate, experts predict the Amazon rainforest will be gone in 50 years. There are 2,500 distinct fish species discovered in the Amazon basin – more than have been identified in the entire Atlantic Ocean. Imagine you are driving in your car and every mile you drive you throw a pound of trash out your window, and everyone else on the freeway in their vehicles is doing the exact same thing. People in Hummers are throwing two bags out at a time. That’s what we are doing, but you can’t see it. We are throwing out a pound of carbon dioxide into the air every mile we drive. Conservation International notes that in 20 minutes 1,200 acres of forests will be burned and cleared for development. The carbon dioxide emissions from deforestation are greater than emissions from the world’s entire transportation sector (cars, trucks, planes, trains, and ships combined).
Mental_Floss, Jan-Feb 2009, v.8, i.1, p.15. Hot Flat & Crowded, Thomas L. Friedman, 2008, p. 34, 148.

Food to Curb Hunger
Avocados, nuts, olive oils and other foods rich in unsaturated fats can curb hunger pangs between meals. The oleic acid in these foodstuffs elicits production of a hunger-fighting compound in the small intestine called oleoylethanolamide.
Science News Magazine, 11.8.08, p.4.

Thinning Fuel for Efficiency
Aplying a strong electric field to fuel a moment before it was injected into the engine's cylinders boosted fuel efficiency of a Mercedes-Benz 300D from 32 to 38 miles per gallon, and increase of more than 18 percent (others say it may be closer to 5-10 percent in real-world scenarios). If applied to all the cars and trucks in the United States, that fuel savings would add up to more than 300 million barrels of gasoline and about 150 million barrels of diesel per year. The field-generating device, which costs about $50 per cylinder could be retrofitted to many existing engines, applies 1,000 volts per millimeter accross the fuel line as it enters the fuel injector and makes the suel 10 percent thinner. Thinner liquids break into smaller droplets in the combustion chamber (like spraying water, instead of molasses) providing more surface area. Droplets of fuel burn at their surfaces, where the fuel meets oxygen in the air, so having more surface area means the fuel will burn more cleanly and efficiently.
Science News Magazine, 10.25.08, p.9.

Asphalt Energy
Rajib Mallick, an engineer at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, has devised a way to harness heat from baking blacktop surfaces and turn it into electricity. Water is pumped through copper pipes embedded in the asphalt. The water pulls the heat and produces steam to drive a turbine that cranks out electricity.
Popular Science, Jan 2009, p.40.

Growing Plastic
Researchers from Metabolix have found a way to affordably grow biodegradable petroleum-free plastic within the leaves of genetically engineered switchgrass. One day they could be grown to make thermal foam, food packaging and plastic bags - while consming less energy than current manufacturers do. The leftover switchgrass can be processed into biofuel.
Popular Science, Dec 2008, p.28.

Better Drywall
Serious Materials created EcoRock, a drywall that congeals without heat, uses recycled materials that don't require mining, and holds up better. The oven free process uses 20 percent of the energy used in the typical method (roasting ground-up rock in 500 degree F kilns, spewing 20 billion pounds of greenhouse gasses), and it is impervious to termites and mold. It is even about the same cost as high-end drywall.
Popular Science, Dec 2008, p.54.

Electric Grid Access
The World Bank estimates that roughly 1.6 billion people (1 out of every 4 people in the world) don't have regular access to an electricity grid.
Hot, Flat & Crowded, Thomas L Friedman, 2008, p.155.

Wheat & the US
The US is the biggest importer of wheat in the world, 6 million tons a year. So many American farmers were planting corn for ethanol, in place of wheat, that the price of wheat had gone up from $180 a ton at the end of 2006 to $390 at the end of 2007.
Hot, Flat & Crowded, Thomas L Friedman, 2008, p.197-198.

Gofers MPG
The average American golfer walks about 900 miles a year. On average, American golfers drink 22 gallons of alcohol a year. That means, on average, American golfers get about 41 miles to the gallon.
Hot, Flat & Crowded, Thomas L Friedman, 2008, p.203.

GMs Yellow Caps
GM put yellow gas caps on its flex-fuel cars (cars that could run on a mix of gasoline and ethanol). For years they never bothered to highlight or include it as a sales point with customers, because the only reason GM made a certain number of flex-fuel cars was that if they did so, the government would allow them to build more Hummers and pickup trucks and still remain under the CAFE fuel economy standard.
Hot, Flat & Crowded, Thomas L Friedman, 2008, p.205.

Geothermal Producer
Cheveron is the world's biggest private producer of electricity from clean geothermal sources (steam, heat, and hot water produced underground by volcanic material, providing the force to spin turbine generators).
Hot, Flat & Crowded, Thomas L Friedman, 2008, p.209.

Nuclear Power
An average nuclear power plant today produces about a billion watts (one gigawatt) of electricity at any given time. So if we tried to get all the power we would need between now and 2050 (almost 13 trillion watts) just from nuclear power, we would have to build 13,000 new nuclear reactors, or roughly one new reactor every day for the next 36 years starting today.
Hot, Flat & Crowded, Thomas L Friedman, 2008, p.214.

Vending Machines
noticed vending machines everywhere. There is now one soda machine for every hundred Americans. Humming away 24 hours a day 7 days a week, they use ten times more energy than the average household refrigerator (to cool the soda, lights and mechanics). Noah Horowitz met with store owners to improve them for efficiencies, then big companies met with him. They improved efficient compressors, fans, lighting, etc and the resulting design used half the energy of the old ones, saving 5 billion kilowatt hours a year - enough to run refrigerators in 10 million homes. Noah also worked with manufacturers to tighten performance standards for computer monitors - by 2010 EPA estimates this agreement will save $14 billion in electricity costs, and prevent almost 40 billion pounds of carbon dioxide out of the sky.
Hot, Flat & Crowded, Thomas L Friedman, 2008, p.280.

Coal During Elections
Of the 5 swing states (during election time) Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, West Virginia & Florida, the first 4 have one comonality - coal. Iowa and the Midwest bring biofuels - and by now you can see why terms like "clean coal" come up along the campaign trail.
Hot, Flat & Crowded, Thomas L Friedman, 2008, p.376.