Philip Bethge

Tag: automobile

  • Selber töten

    Warum das vollautonome Auto gar nicht erst entwickelt werden sollte

    Ein Kommentar von Philip Bethge, DER SPIEGEL 26/2016

    Es könn­te bald Au­tos ge­ben, die un­ter be­stimm­ten Be­din­gun­gen voll­au­to­ma­tisch ent­schei­den, Fuß­gän­ger zu über­fah­ren. Möch­ten Sie in ei­nem sol­chen Auto sit­zen? Ich nicht.

    Das Sze­na­rio ist kei­nes­wegs so ab­surd, wie es klingt. For­scher der Uni­ver­si­tä­ten Tou­lou­se und Ore­gon so­wie des Mas­sa­chu­setts In­sti­tu­te of Tech­no­lo­gy ha­ben jetzt durch­ge­spielt, was ge­schä­he, wenn voll­au­to­no­me Au­tos durch die Stra­ßen roll­ten. Die gute Nach­richt: Die Zahl der Un­fäl­le näh­me um bis zu 90 Pro­zent ab. Die schlech­te: Bei den ver­blei­ben­den 10 Pro­zent stün­de das Auto häu­fig vor ei­nem ent­setz­li­chen Di­lem­ma. Wie soll es re­agie­ren, wenn fünf Pas­san­ten plötz­lich auf die Stra­ße stür­men und der Brems­weg nicht reicht? Die Fuß­gän­ger über­rol­len oder ge­gen die nächs­te Wand rau­schen und die In­sas­sen tö­ten?

    Die meis­ten Men­schen, so das Er­geb­nis der Stu­die, ent­schei­den sich da­für, die Pas­san­ten zu scho­nen, und wün­schen sich Au­tos, die im Zwei­fel die Pas­sa­gie­re op­fern. Wer­den sie dann je­doch ge­fragt, ob sie ein sol­ches Auto kau­fen wür­den, ver­nei­nen sie. Am Ende wür­den wir, so die For­scher, un­se­re Mo­ral eben doch über Bord wer­fen und uns für Ge­fähr­te ent­schei­den, die nicht uns selbst, son­dern die Fuß­gän­ger tö­ten.

    Aber das kann ja nicht die Lö­sung sein. Auch wenn er den Fort­schritts­a­po­lo­ge­ten und Tech­nik­t­räu­mern nicht in den Sinn kom­men mag – ein gänz­lich an­de­rer Aus­weg aus dem Di­lem­ma bie­tet sich an: Wir soll­ten ein­fach auf die Voll­au­to­ma­tik ver­zich­ten. Sie ist eine In­ge­nieurs­fan­ta­sie, die die Welt nicht braucht. Wenn halb­au­to­no­me Wa­gen uns da­bei hel­fen, die Ödnis der Au­to­bahn zu meis­tern, ist da­ge­gen nichts zu sa­gen. Dem Fah­rer je­doch noch das letz­te Stück sei­nes We­ges durch die Stadt oder die Dör­fer ab­neh­men zu wol­len pro­du­ziert Ma­schi­nen, die uns das Maß un­se­res Mit­ge­fühls dik­tie­ren.

    Die IT- und Au­to­fir­men soll­ten vom Kon­troll­wahn ab­las­sen und ih­ren In­tel­lekt dar­auf ver­wen­den, neue Ver­kehrs­kon­zep­te jen­seits des In­di­vi­du­al­ver­kehrs zu ent­wer­fen. Da­mit wäre der Welt tat­säch­lich ge­hol­fen.

     

  • Michio Kaku: ‘Eternal Life Does Not Violate the Laws of Physics’

    In his best-selling book “Physics of the Future,” American professor Michio Kaku lays out his vision for the world in 2100. Kaku, the son of Japanese immigrants, spoke to SPIEGEL about a future in which toilets will have health monitoring sensors and contact lenses will be connected to the Internet.

    SPIEGEL: Professor Kaku, in your book you write about how we will be like gods in the future. Are you saying that our grandchildren will be gods? Isn’t that a bit immodest?

    Kaku: Just think for a moment about our forefathers in the year 1900. They lived to be 49 years old on average and traveled with horse-drawn wagons. Long distance communication was yelling out the window. If these people could see us today with mobile phones at our ears, Facebook on our screens and traveling with planes they would consider us wizards.

    SPIEGEL: It’s still a big step to go from wizards to gods.

    Kaku: So what do gods do? Apollo has unlimited power from the sun, Zeus can turn himself into a swan or anything else and Venus has a perfect body. Gods can move objects with their mind, rearrange things, and have perfect bodies. Our grandchildren will be able to do just that.

    SPIEGEL: Let’s do a little time traveling. Close your eyes and imagine waking up on a September morning in the year 2112. What do you see?

    Kaku: More important than what I see, is what will be omnipresent. Intelligence will be everywhere in the future, just like electricity is everywhere today. We now just assume that there’s electricity in the walls, the floor, the ceiling. In the future we will assume that everything is intelligent, so intelligence will be everywhere and nowhere. As children, we will be taught how to manipulate things around us just by talking to them and thinking. Children will believe that everything is alive.

    SPIEGEL: We’ll ask the question in a different way. What will we experience on this morning in 2112?

    Kaku: When we wake up, the first thing we want to know is what’s going on in the world. So we put in our intelligent contact lenses and with a blink we are online. If you want information, movies, virtual reality, it is all in your contact lenses. Then we’ll drive to work.

    SPIEGEL: Driving? How boring!

    Kaku: Aw, you want to fly? Cars may even fly, but we will also be able to manipulate our cars just by thinking. So, if you want to get into your car, you simply think, and you call your car. The car drives itself, and boom, there you are.

    SPIEGEL: So our grandchildren will fly to work. And what will change there?

    Kaku: If you are a college student, you blink and you can see all the answers to the final examination by wearing your contact lenses. Artists will wave their hands in the air and create beautiful works of art. If you’re an architect, you will see what you are creating and just move towers, two apartment buildings around as you construct things.

    SPIEGEL: Why do we have to even bother leaving the house if all of our needs, questions and desires are played out virtually on our grandiose contact lenses?

    Kaku: Well, you will want to go outside because we are humans, and our personality hasn’t changed in 100,000 years. We’re social creatures. We like to size each other up, figure out who’s on first, who’s on second. But technology will be able to help with that. In 2100, for example, when you talk to people, you will see their biography listed right in front of you. If you are looking for a date, you sign up for a dating service. When you go outside and people walk by you, their faces light up if they’re available. If someone speaks to you in Chinese, your contact lens will translate from Chinese to English. We will still resist certain technologies, however, because they go against who we are.

    SPIEGEL: What’s an example of that?

    Kaku: The paperless office. The paperless office was a failure, because we like tangible things. If I give you a choice between tickets to see your favorite famous rock star or a video of a close-up of your favorite rock star, which would you choose?

    SPIEGEL: The concert tickets naturally.

    Kaku: That’s the caveman in us. The caveman in you says, “I want direct contact. I don’t want a picture.” The caveman in our body says once in a while, we have to go outside. We have to meet real people, talk to real people, and do real things.

    SPIEGEL: Speaking of real things, we were fascinated by the toilet of the future described in your book.

    Kaku: Yeah. You will still have to go to the bathroom because our biology hasn’t changed. But your toilet will have more computer power than a university hospital does today.

    SPIEGEL: The toilet as a supercomputer?

    Kaku: Your toilet will have a chip in it called a “DNA chip.” It will analyze enzymes, proteins and genes for cancer. In this way we will be able to fight cancer long before a tumor even has a chance to develop. We will be able to also detect other illnesses early and fight them. But we will still have the common cold. There are at least 300 different rhinoviruses and you need to have a vaccine for each one. No company is going to do that, because it is going to bankrupt a large corporation to make a vaccine for each of them.

    SPIEGEL: What a defeat! Comfort us — did you not just refer to the perfect body of Venus?

    Kaku: The nature of medicine will shift away from basically saving lives to perfection. We will be able to rearrange our own genome.

    SPIEGEL: I assume that you mean to make ourselves prettier, stronger and generally better?

    Kaku: Those ambitions will be there.

    SPIEGEL: As we get a better handle on genetic technologies, won’t there be more of an urge to create designer babies?

    Kaku: We need a debate about these issues. This is going to create societal problems. You have to have an educated public democratically debating how far to push our beautiful children and the human race.

    SPIEGEL: Will we eventually be able to conquer death?

    Kaku: Eternal life does not violate the laws of physics, surprisingly enough. After all, we only die because of one word: “error.” The longer we live, the more errors there are that are made by our bodies when they read our genes. That means cells get sluggish. The body doesn’t function as well as it could, which is why the skin ages. Then organs eventually fail, so that’s why we die.

    SPIEGEL: What can we do about that?

    Kaku: We know the genes that correct these things. So if we use genetic repair mechanisms, we might be able to repair cells so they don’t wear out, so they just keep on going. That is as real possibility. We will also be able to regenerate organs by growing new ones. That can already be done now.

    SPIEGEL: Then we will get rid of death?

    Kaku: In principle, yes.

    SPIEGEL: Then how will we decide who gets to live and who must die? Who will be allowed to have children?

    Kaku: I don’t think children or overpopulation are going to be a problem. When people live longer, they have fewer children. We see that in Japan, the US and in other countries where prosperity, education and urbanization are on the rise.

    –> Read original interview at SPIEGEL ONLINE International

    ‘It’s Nice to be Superman for an Afternoon’

    SPIEGEL: Okay, back to the toilet. What do I do when the toilet tells me that I have cancer cells?

    Kaku: You talk to the wallpaper, and you say…

    SPIEGEL: Excuse me, but you talk to the wallpaper?

    Kaku: As I mentioned, everything will be intelligent, even the wallpaper. You talk to the wallpaper, and you say, “I want to see my doctor.” Boom! A doctor appears on the wall. It’s a RoboDoc, which looks like a doctor, talks like a doctor, but it’s actually an animated figure. It will tell you what is going on in your body and answers all medical questions with 99 percent accuracy, because it has the medical histories of everyone on the planet available.

    SPIEGEL: Will we also have robot driving instructors and robot cooks?

    Kaku: Yes, of course.

    SPIEGEL: But aren’t robots still rather dumb, even after 50 years of research into artificial intelligence?

    Kaku: That’s true. ASIMO, the best robot around today has the intelligence of a cockroach. However, that will change. In the coming decades, robots will be as smart as mice. Now, mice are very smart. They can scurry around, hide behind things, look for food. I can see that in 10, 20, 30 years, we will start to have mice robots, then rabbit robots, cat robots, dog robots, finally monkey robots maybe by the end of the century. They will do dirty, dull and dangerous jobs for us. That means they have to feel pain too.

    SPIEGEL: Are you talking about machines with the ability to suffer?

    Kaku: We will have to build robots with pain sensors in them, because we don’t want them to destroy themselves.

    SPIEGEL: Then won’t we have to start talking about robot rights?

    Kaku: Once we design robots that can feel pain, that’s a tricky point. At that point, people will say, “Well, they’re just like dogs and cats.”

    SPIEGEL: When will machines become a threat, like HAL from the movie ‘2001?’

    Kaku: At some point we can plant a chip in their electronic brains that shuts them down when they start to develop dangerous plans.

    SPIEGEL: But won’t they be intelligent enough to take the chip out themselves?

    Kaku: Sure, but that won’t happen until after 2100.

    SPIEGEL: How comforting.

    Kaku: Then we always have the option of making ourselves even smarter.

    SPIEGEL: Are you referring to the old science fiction idea that our brains are immeasurably smart?

    Kaku: Exactly, and spending the whole day calculating Einstein’s theory of relativity. I don’t seriously believe that. It goes back to the caveman in us. What do cavemen want? Cavemen want to have the respect of their peers. They want to look good to the opposite sex. They want prestige. If we’re stuck inside a computer calculating Einstein’s theory of relativity, who wants that?

    SPIEGEL: The idea that one day we will all be Supermen or Superwomen sounds really tempting though.

    Kaku: I think what’s going to happen is we will have avatars. They will have all these powers that we want — to be perfect, superhuman and good looking.

    SPIEGEL: Great! Does that mean we can send our avatars to meetings that we don’t want to attend?

    Kaku: You will send your avatars to the Moon or on virtual trips or whatever. But you also have the option of shutting it off and getting back to normal again. The average person will not necessarily want to be Superman, but they may want the option of being Superman for an afternoon. It’s nice to be Superman for an afternoon, but then to say, hey, “let’s go out and have a beer with friends.” Do you see what I’m saying?

    SPIEGEL: Yes, of course. Atavism beats out the avatar. But just how strong are these caveman impulses? Could there one day be a movement against all of this new technology?

    Kaku: Such movements always accompany technological changes. When the telephone first came out, it was very controversial. Throughout history, we only talked to friends, relatives, kids. That’s it, period. Then comes the telephone. There were many voices denouncing it, saying we had to go back to talking to our families, so on and so forth.

    SPIEGEL: You claim in your book that we are the most important generation that has ever lived. Doesn’t every generation think that?

    Kaku: Out of all the generations that have walked the surface of the Earth, we’re the only ones to witness the beginning of the process of becoming a planetary civilization. We decide whether humanity survives.

    SPIEGEL: What do you mean by “planetary civilization?”

    Kaku: We physicists rank civilizations by energy. A Type 1 planetary civilization uses all the energy that is available on the planet. In a hundred years, we’ll be Type 1. We’re on our way there. We will control the weather. We will control earthquakes and volcanoes eventually. Anything planetary, we will control. Type 2 is stellar. We will control stars, like Star Trek. Then Type 3 is the entire galaxy, where we’ll control the Milky Way galaxy.

    SPIEGEL: Hold on a second. We aren’t even close to that now!

    Kaku: No, we are in a transition. We still get our energy from dead plants, oil and coal. Carl Sagan did a more precise calculation. He figured out that we’re actually Type 0.7. So we’re on the threshold of being Type 1. We will have two planetary languages, English and Mandarin. Look at the Olympics. That’s planetary sports. Look at soccer, another planetary sport. The European Union is the beginning of a planetary economy, if it ever gets off the ground correctly.

    SPIEGEL: We are having a few tiny problems with that last one.

    Kaku: Well, nevertheless, when I look at the larger sweep of things, I see that we are already coming together. We’re entering the birth of a planetary fashion and we are already seeing the birth of planetary culture. Democratization of the world marches on.

    SPIEGEL: What is one thing from the world you imagine that you would like to have today?

    Kaku: Well, I wouldn’t mind having a few more decades to live and, for example, to see the first starship. Also, it’s a shame that I cannot live in the 11th dimension.

    SPIEGEL: What do you mean by that?

    Kaku: The energy of wormholes, black holes and of the Big Bang. You would have to be a Type 3 civilization before you can begin to manipulate that energy. That’s the province of my field of research, string theory.

    SPIEGEL: I think that’s where we can no longer keep up. Professor Kaku, we thank you for this interview.

    Interview conducted by Philip Bethge and Rafaela von Bredow

    –> Read original interview at SPIEGEL ONLINE International

  • Oozing Biofuel: Algae Could Solve World’s Fuel Crisis

    Genetically modified blue and green algae could be the answer to the world’s fuel problems. Bioengineers have already developed algae that produce ethanol, oil and even diesel — and the only things the organisms need are sunlight, CO2 and seawater.

    Biochemist Dan Robertson’s living gas stations have the dark-green shimmer of oak leaves and are as tiny as E. coli bacteria. Their genetic material has been fine-tuned by human hands. When light passes through their outer layer, they excrete droplets of fuel.

    “We had to fool the organism into doing what I wanted it to do,” says Robertson, the head of research at the US biotech firm Joule Unlimited. He proudly waves a test tube filled with a green liquid. The businesslike biochemist works in a plain, functional building on Life Sciences Square in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

    His laboratory is sparsely furnished and the ceiling is crumbling. Nevertheless, something miraculous is happening in the lab, where Robertson and his colleagues are working on nothing less than solving the world’s energy problem. They have already created blue algae that produce diesel fuel.

    Scientists rave about a new, green revolution. Using genetic engineering and sophisticated breeding and selection methods, biochemists, mainly working in the United States, are transforming blue and green algae into tiny factories for oil, ethanol and diesel.

    Betting Millions on Algae

    A green algae liquid sloshes back and forth in culture vats and circulates through shiny bioreactors and bulging plastic tubes. The first tests of algae-based fuels are already being conducted in automobiles, ships and aircraft. Investors like the Rockefeller family and Microsoft founder Bill Gates are betting millions on the power of the green soup. “Commercial production of crude oil from algae is the most obvious and most economical possible way to substitute petroleum,” says Jason Pyle of the California-based firm Sapphire Energy, which is already using algae to produce crude oil.

    The established oil industry is also getting into the business. “Oils from algae hold significant potential as economically viable, low-emission transportation fuels and could become a critical new energy source,” says Emil Jacobs, vice president of research and development at Exxon Mobil. The oil company is investing $600 million (€420 million) in genetic entrepreneur Craig Venter’s firm Synthetic Genomics.

    (-> read original interview at SPIEGEL ONLINE international)

    The technology holds considerable promise. Indeed, whoever manages to be the first to sell ecologically sustainable and climate-neutral biofuel at competitive prices will not only rake in billions, but will also write history.

    Do-it-yourself diesel barons launched the biofuel industry decades ago when they used old French-fry grease to fuel modest agricultural machines. Today, hundreds of thousands of cars run on ethanol derived from grain. In the United States, for example, more than 40 percent of gasoline contains ethanol additive. The fuel is produced in huge fermenters the size of blimps, by fermenting a mash of corn or rye with yeast.

    But ethanol as a biofuel has a bad reputation. One hectare (2.47 acres) of corn produces less than 4,000 liters of ethanol a year, and 8,000 liters of water are required to produce a liter of ethanol. Besides, crops grown for ethanol take away valuable farmland for food production. The last growing season marked the first time US farmers harvested more corn for ethanol production than for use as animal feed. One of the adverse consequences of the biofuel boom is that it is driving up food prices.

    Astonishingly Productive

    For this reason, many environmentalists now believe that growing energy plants is the wrong approach. Algae, on the other hand, do not require any farmland. Sun, saltwater, a little fertilizer and carbon dioxide are all the undemanding little organisms need to thrive. And because they consume about as much CO2 during photosynthesis as is later released when the oil they produce is burned, algae-based fuels are also climate neutral.

    Algae are also astonishingly productive. A hectare of sunny desert covered with algae vats can yield almost eight times as much biofuel per unit of biomass in a year than corn grown for energy purposes.

    Sapphire is one of the pioneers of the industry. CEO Pyle has a vision of transforming desert areas into fertile, energy-producing land. “We have to grow algae like rice, in shallow patties of water on thousands of hectares,” he says. This, he says, is the only way to produce algae-based oil in large quantities and at competitive prices.

    Sapphire expects one barrel of its green petroleum to cost between $70 and $100 in the future, which is significantly cheaper than petroleum. However, as with grain production, this requires the use of high-performance varieties. According to Pyle, his company has optimized the yield, resistance to disease and “harvest capability” of the green algae it uses. Sapphire’s engineers are already testing their green miracle algae at a small plant in New Mexico. Together with Monsanto, which produces agricultural chemicals, and industrial gas company Linde, the algae makers plan to explore commercial opportunities at a 120-hectare site soon.

    ‘We Simply Have to Build It’

    But the Sapphire algae can only be a beginning, because they merely enrich the oil internally. To obtain the oil, the algae must be harvested and the oil extracted in a costly and complex process.

    To overcome this obstacle, other scienty way to produce algae-based oil in large quantities and at competitive prices.

    Sapphire expects one barrel of its green petroleum to cost between $70 and $100 in the future, which is significantly cheaper than petroleum. However, as with grain production, this requires the use of high-performance varieties. According to Pyle, his company has optimized the yield, resistance to disease and “harvest capability” of the green algae it uses. Sapphire’s engineers are already testing their green miracle algae at a small plant in New Mexico. Together with Monsanto, which produces agricultural chemicals, and industrial gas company Linde, the algae makers plan to explore commercial opportunities at a 120-hectare site soon.

    ‘We Simply Have to Build It’

    But the Sapphire algae can only be a beginning, because they merely enrich the oil internally. To obtain the oil, the algae must be harvested and the oil extracted in a costly and complex process.

    To overcome this obstacle, other scientists are developing algae that don’t even have to be harvested. Instead, they essentially ooze the fuel of the future. Evolution has not yielded anything that produces biofuel from CO2 on a large scale, explains biologist Venter, “which is why we simply have to build it.”

    The first of these miracle organisms can already be admired in the Joule laboratory. The bioengineers’ tools include culture mediums, incubators and, most importantly, databases containing the DNA sequences of thousands of microorganisms. Robertson and his team search the databases for promising gene fragments, which they then isolate and inject into the genetic material of blue algae.

    ‘You Could Put Our Product in Your Car’

    Dozens of varieties of the microorganisms, also known as cyanobacteria, bob up and down in bulbous beakers at Joule. A green brew fills small photobioreactors, which are used to test the blue algae under various environmental conditions. “Here we simulate for example the day-and-night rhythm of Texas,” says Robinson, explaining one of the experiments. The company has a pilot plant in Texas.

    The program is as complex as it is costly. Nevertheless, success appears to be proving the genetic engineers right. The microbiologists at Joule have created blue algae strains that pump so-called alkanes outward through their membranes. Alkanes are energy-rich hydrocarbons contained in diesel fuel. “You have to persuade the cell that it stops growing and makes the product of interest and does it continuously,” Robinson explains. In contrast to ethanol, the end product is not a low-quality fuel, but a highly pure product that contains no sulfur or benzene. “You could put our product in your car,” says Robinson.

    The laboratory algae are now doing their work in high-tech bioreactors, where carbon dioxide is constantly bubbling through shimmering green panels that look like solar collectors. Robertson’s ultimate goal is to derive about 140,000 liters of biofuel a year from one hectare of land — a yield 40 times as high as with corn grown for ethanol. Joule has bought about 500 hectares of desert land in New Mexico to build a first commercial plant.

    Large Amounts of CO2 Required

    But will the laboratory creations really work as well in open fields as they do in the lab? Calculations show that some algae plants will likely consume more fertilizer and energy per hectare than grain crops. And the carbon dioxide in the air won’t be enough to feed the microalgae. Scientists estimate that a commercial algae fuel plant would require about 10,000 cubic meters of CO2 a day. Whether and how large amounts of the gas could be derived from the exhaust gases of large coal power plants, for example, and then brought to the algae farms, remains unclear.

    The farms could also require enormous tracts of land. In a recent article in the journal Science, researchers at Wageningen University in the Netherlands calculated that, in theory, an area the size of Portugal would have to be filled with algae pools to satisfy Europe’s current fuel needs. A “leap in microalgae technology” is needed to at least triple productivity, say experts.

    Pyle and Robertson are convinced that this increase is possible. They insist that algae technology can be used to meet a significant portion of our energy requirements in the future. “There is certainly enough non-arable land with enough solar radiation and enough CO2 and water sourcing in the world,” says Robertson. Another important advantage, he adds, is that algae-based fuel could easily be pumped into the oil industry’s existing pipelines and refineries, and that cars and aircraft would not have to be modified to accommodate the biofuel.

    But even the pioneers admit that the switch to algae-based fuel will likely take a while longer. Sometimes completely mundane things still stand in the way of the green revolution.

    The algae growers at Sapphire, for example, face competition from little 10-legged creatures. “Shrimp think algae are good food,” says CEO Pyle. “If you don’t pay attention, you will ultimately have a shrimp farm.”

    Translated from the German by Christopher Sultan

    (-> read original interview at SPIEGEL ONLINE international)

  • Ditching Cars for Bullet Trains: Can Obama Get High-Speed on Track?

    President Barack Obama wants to upgrade America’s transport system using high-speed trains, bringing a taste of what is a part of everyday life in Europe and Asia to the United States. But the car-obsessed nation is divided over the plans. Is the mammoth project doomed to failure?

    US Vice-President Joseph Biden is America’s most famous commuter. It has earned him the nickname “Amtrak Joe.” Several times a week, Biden takes an Amtrak train from Wilmington, Delaware to the historic Union Station in Washington, DC. It has been claimed the Democrat now knows the first name of every ticket inspector on the line.

    Biden must have been pleased when he unveiled the government’s new high-speed rail plans at 30th Street Station in Philadelphia last month. The administration plans to spend $53 billion (€38 billion) on passenger trains and rail networks over the next six years. The lion’s share of this has been earmarked for new high-speed connections. The aim is that 80 percent of Americans will have access to “bullet trains” by 2035.

    Such gleaming high-tech marvels could race between San Francisco and Los Angeles at speeds of up to 350 kilometers per hour (220 miles per hour). The planners hope to cut the journey times between Washington and Boston to less than four hours. A T-shaped line in Texas would connect Dallas, Houston and San Antonio. The plan foresees raising hundreds of kilometers of this so-called “Texas T-Bone” off the ground so that longhorn cattle can pass underneath the rails.

    (-> read original article at SPIEGEL ONLINE international)

    “It’s a smart investment in the quality of life for all Americans,” says Rick Harnish of the Chicago-based Midwest High Speed Rail Association. Industry insiders like Ansgar Brockmeyer, of the passenger rail division of Germany’s Siemens Mobility, are thrilled about this locomotive renaissance. “There’s reason for optimism,” he says.

    However, the country’s conservative forces are determined to derail US President Barack Obama’s technological vision. No fewer than three newly elected governors (from the states of Wisconsin, Florida, and Ohio) have completely rejected Washington’s planned cash injection for the country’s railways.

    America’s Legendary Railroads

    In fact it’s difficult to say whether America’s long-neglected trains can ever make a comeback. Large parts of the network are in a desperate state, and most Americans have long-since switched to traveling by car or plane instead.

    And yet the railroad enabled their forefathers to open up the Wild West. Train services were profitable in the US right up until the 1950s. Many lines were legendary, such as the Santa Fe Super Chief, which brought its passengers from Chicago to Los Angeles in luxury. Film stars like Elizabeth Taylor, Lauren Bacall and Humphrey Bogart slumbered in the elegant sleeper cars, and dined in five-star style.

    The California Zephyr is another classic service, with its route stretching for almost 4,000 kilometers (2,500 miles) from the Midwest to San Francisco. In better times, “Vista dome” cars gave passengers a 360-degree panoramic view of the Colorado River, Rocky Mountains and Sierra Nevada. An elite team of hostesses, dubbed the “Zephyrettes,” served drinks and even offered to act as babysitters.

    The Zephyr still runs to this day — but the 51-hour journey makes this more of a treat for diehard railway fans. One such fan is James McCommons from Northern Michigan University. The academic spent a year crisscrossing the US by train before chronicling his experiences in a book. “It’s embarrassing,” he says. “We were the greatest railroad nation in the world, and now we don’t even build a railroad car in this country ourselves.”

    American author James Kunstler complains that “Amtrak has become the laughing stock of the world.” He jokes that the company was clearly “created on a Soviet-management model, with an extra overlay of Murphy’s Law to ensure maximum entropy of service.” Indeed, Amtrak trains currently take more than 11 hours to cover the 600 kilometers (375 miles) from San Francisco to Los Angeles. It hardly helps either that the train is called the “Coast Starlight.”

    A Wake-Up Call

    The high-speed rail plans have therefore come as something of a wake-up call in these circumspect times. Many Americans are amazed to discover that President Obama appears to be serious about investing heavily in the railways. “I don’t know what this fascination with trains is about,” says Michael Sanera of the John Locke Foundation, a free-market think tank. He has only one explanation: “I think there is a lot of frustration primarily by men who maybe didn’t get that train set when they were kids, and now they want to play around with trains.”

    Taking a closer look, it’s easy to see how serious the situation has become. America is facing gridlock. According to a study by the National Surface Transportation Policy and Revenue Commission, the US will need nine new airports the size of the gigantic Denver International Airport and will have to double the number of miles of interstate highways if demand for transportation continues to grow at the current level in the coming decades. In 2009, commuters in the US spent 5 billion hours stuck in traffic jams. That’s seven times as long as in 1982.

    “Four decades from now, the United States will be home to 100 million additional people,” warns US Transport Secretary Ray LaHood. “If we settle for roads, bridges and airports that already are overburdened and insufficient … our next generation will find America’s arteries of commerce impassable.” He considers high-speed trains essential.

    Germany’s Siemens Hopes for New Business

    Rail experts in the US have identified about 10 corridors along which high-speed trains could theoretically run profitably. The most promising of these routes lies in the northeastern part of the country; namely between New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore and Washington, DC. Because the distances are relatively short and there is high demand, bullet trains could capitalize on their advantages in the region.

    There is also a relatively urgent need for rail connections in the Midwest, for example between Chicago and St. Louis. Although flights between the two cities take just over an hour, Harnish says that delays like check-in and security can easily turn that trip into three hours. By contrast, a high-speed rail line could cover this distance in less than two. Planners believe the route could serve as many as a million passengers a year.

    “In Europe we have seen that high-speed rail connections of under four hours can be competitive,” says Ansgar Brockmeyer from Siemens. The high-speed line between Barcelona and Madrid, which began operating at the start of 2008, has reportedly already captured half of the market share previously held by air travel. As early as 2006, Siemens-made Velaro trains were hurtling down the line at speeds in excess of 400 kilometers per hour (250 miles per hour).

    Siemens now hopes to be able to market the same model of trains in the US. Californians are renowned for being environmentally conscious and tech-savvy — even Arnold Schwarzenegger promoted high-speed trains in California when he was the state’s governor. All this has created favorable conditions for the California High Speed Rail Authority (CaHSRA), which wants to lay 1,300 kilometers of high-speed track, connecting more than 25 cities in the process. Work is due to get underway on a 100-kilometer stretch of the new line in 2012.

    “Our travel time from Los Angeles to San Francisco is going to be two hours and 40 minutes, with stops,” says Rachel Wall of the CaHSRA. “Anyone who has traveled that route knows that driving or flying takes longer.”

    Too Expensive and Too Risky

    Until recently, the industry also had high hopes in Florida. The railway industry expected a call for tenders before the end of the year for the construction of a line between Tampa and Orlando. This could potentially have created thousands of jobs. However, Governor Rick Scott killed the project. Too expensive and too risky is how the Republican governor summarized it, although he has since promised to reconsider his decision.

    A lot is at stake for President Obama. The bullet trains were part of his 2008 election campaign. More recently, he promoted rail projects in his latest State of the Union speech. The president fears the country could fall behind its rivals. China, for instance, plans to lay a jaw-dropping 13,000 kilometers of high-speed rail track by 2020. It’s investing the equivalent of more than $300 billion in this Herculean task.

    Beijing recently sacked Rail Minister Liu Zhijun after what were rumored to be allegations of corruption. The concrete beds of the tracks were apparently laid sloppily.

    But this has done little to dampen enthusiasm for the program. From 2012 onward, trains should be able to catapult passengers from Beijing to Shanghai in less than five hours. Amtrak trains currently cover a similar distance between New York and Atlanta in a decidedly pedestrian 18 hours.

    Rail fan McCommons blames American attitudes for the perilous state of his country’s railway systems. “We have been sold this bizarre idea that only automobiles and air can take care of all our needs,” he says. That’s hardly surprising since two generations of Americans have grown up almost entirely without passenger trains. “It’s not in their imagination to take a train,” he explains.

    Vice President Biden can therefore still consider himself a pioneer if he travels to work by train. He often takes the Acela Express to Washington, the only rail line in the US that’s trumpeted as being high-speed.

    Biden’s ride covers the almost 180-kilometer route from Wilmington to Washington in 75 minutes. The average speed: About 140 kilometers per hour.

    Translated from the German by Jan Liebelt

    (-> read original article at SPIEGEL ONLINE international)

  • Jump-Starting the E-Car Revolution: New Mercedes Has Tesla Technology Under the Hood

    Mercedes and Toyota are bringing new electric cars onto the market that rely on technology from the Californian automaker Tesla. The startup company, whose sports cars already have a cult following in Hollywood, has pioneered the use of laptop batteries in electric autos.

    Experts considered the idea of using laptop computer batteries to power a car laughable at best — until the car turned out to actually work, sending shock waves through the industry.

    Tesla, a Silicon Valley startup company, first presented its whimsically designed electric sports car in the summer of 2006. The car body was made by Lotus and power for the engine came from 6,831 standard small batteries, bundled together into a high-voltage packet that allowed the car the same bursts of speed as a Porsche.

    Now, the same construction has caught on at both Toyota and Daimler, two of the world’s most famous car manufacturers. Both companies hold shares in Tesla and buy batteries and control technology from the Californian startup for small production runs of passenger cars.

    Mercedes-Benz will start production this fall on a series of 500 cars in an electric version of its A-Class. The car floor contains two rechargeable Tesla batteries, each constructed from 1,960 individual batteries. These provide the vehicle with enough power to reach speeds of 150 kph (95 mph). The car has a range of about 200 kilometers (125 miles) on a single charge, if driven at a moderate pace.

    It seems surprising that Daimler would really need Tesla to accomplish this, …. More

  • Tribulations at Toyota: The Search for the Gas Pedal Flaw

    Toyota has recalled millions of vehicles due to reports of sticking gas pedals and unintended acceleration. But finding out exactly what causes the problem has proven difficult. An explanation for why most of the accidents have occurred in the US has likewise proven elusive.

    It is an agonizing predicament that Toyota finds itself in — the most excruciating in the company’s history. Vehicles accelerating on their own continue to cause problems, and the inability to bring the matter to a close could spell ruin for the company.

    Worn down Toyota managers wanted to bring a little optimism to the Geneva Motor Show last week, but the latest bad news — that repairs failed to solve the carmaker’s gas pedal problem — ruined the mood. Numerous Toyota drivers in the United States … More