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Is Our Infrastructure Ready For Rising Temperatures?
Hugh Pickens writes "Megan Garber writes that last weekend, a US Airways flight taxiing for takeoff from Washington's Reagan National Airport got stuck on the tarmac for three hours because the tarmac had softened from the heat, and the plane had created — and then sunk into — a groove from which it couldn't, at first, be removed. So what makes an asphalt tarmac, the foundation of our mighty air network, turn to sponge? The answer is that our most common airport surface might not be fully suited to its new, excessively heated environment. One of asphalt's main selling points is precisely the fact that, because of its pitchy components, it's not quite solid: It's 'viscoelastic,' which makes it an ideal surface for the airport environment. As a solid, asphalt is sturdy; as a substance that can be made from — and transitioned back to — liquid, it's relatively easy to work with. And, crucially, it makes for runway repair work that is relatively efficient. But those selling points can also be asphalt's Achilles heel. Viscoelasticity means that the asphalt is always capable of liquefying. The problem, for National Airport's tarmac and the passengers who were stuck on it, was that this weekend's 100+-degree temperatures were a little less room temperature-like than they'd normally be, making the asphalt a little less solid that it would normally be. 'As ironic and as funny as the imgur seen round the world is, it may also be a hint at what's in store for us in a future of weirding weather. An aircraft sinking augurs the new challenges we'll face as temperatures keep rising.'"
Lots of bus stops where buses are expected to sit for a while are paved with concrete because of this problem. When it's really hot out, buses sink into asphalt.
Our infrastructure was built 40 years ago and had a 25 year life expectancy. Every day that things dont simply fall apart is a blessing. Since apparently putting people to work rebuilding and improving things would be socialsim, so I guess there's nothing we can do about it.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
This is news to us in Dallas. Our international airport has been fine for many, many days of 105+ temperatures.
Clearly this is a case of poor engineering and substandard materials, not 'hot environment destroying asphalt'.
If sharing a song makes you a pirate, what do I have to share to be a ninja?
I hear that temperatures there can be like 50 degrees celsius (or 120 fahrenheit).
Vehicules get stuck in potholes long before asphalt even has a chance to melt
I've got better things to do tonight than die.
it might not help the airport runways.. But if we could cover all of the roads and sidewalks with some sort of reflective tarp, we could start reflecting more of the sun back away from the earth. Eventually cover neighborhoods and business districts. It could compensate for the loss of that reflective snow. Plus it would keep us feeling a lot more comfortable and we'd waste less energy cooling our cars and homes. It would obviously take decades to achieve, but it would make life in the miserable heat more tolerable.
Spray a little bit of water on it, it's impressive the amount of heat capacity that water has. It may turn to steam, but it will harden that asphalt quickly.
In addition - to the editor, or lack thereof, who allowed, or ignored, the article submission above - complete with excessive, overuse, of commas, and dashes - such as these - used excessively, to excess, throughout the submission - please stop.
Lines of Air Conditioners on each side of the runway!!!!.
(I know, they cause massive global warming, but there's always more aircons.)
The civil engineers around here are replacing any culvert that needs it with the bigger size, so that the increased run-off can be handled without washing out the roads. They assume 500 year events are now 100 year events and 100 year events are 30. 10 year events can happen at any time. Makes sense to me.
Stand back! This weather has the weirding way!
Damnit, even the worst fearmongers tell us that temperatures will rise by 1 degree per 20 years. Even ignoring the fact that this kind of temperature rise is insignificant in terms of what we're talking about, that's decades or centuries to replace infrastructure.
Instead of worrying about asphalt on streets, I'm worring about brains already having melted in one-too-many climate change activists demonstration.
The average temperature is probably a few degrees higher, if a degree at all. Does insfrastructure have no tolerance at all?!
We're having 114F in Phoenix today, peeps. It's routine this time of year.
Having aircraft sink into the pavement is no surprise when you're used to feeling the stuff squish under your shoes.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
The other day, I stepped on dog shit. You know what means - global warming. It's clear as day how that comes about, unless you're a "denier".
It's true. Had there been no global warming you would have stepped IN dog shit.
<Complete your profile by adding a signature!>
Those places were probably built with the expectation of high temperatures, and used asphalt that would function properly at those temperatures and higher.
DC, however, is in that ugly latitude where you get freezing winters (-20C/0F) but burning summers (40C/100F), and (as a man living close enough to DC to die from the fallout when the bombs drop) the last few weeks have been extremely, abnormally hot, and they've maintained that high temperature for a long time. Part of it, I expect, is that even the nights are hot - the asphalt didn't get a chance to cool to 50-60F every night.
...and stupid. How do airports in routine 110+ degree weather (Phoenix comes to mind immediately and with routine 110+ degree weather in the summer) not to mention much of the Southwest part of the US that commonly bakes in 100+ degree weather? Fact is, they do just fine and have done fine for a very long time.
If National wasn't engineered properly for heat extremes that's their problem.
And, while we're at it, let's stop co-opting every single article about weather into a pro-AGW manifesto.
I thought all tarmac was asphalt. (the OP states "asphalt tarmac")
I do have to wonder why this airport chose to use it. I thought most airports used concrete for these surfaces. After all, airplanes are heavy---and have so few points touching the ground. Also,it has been known for years that asphalt gets soft when it heats up. Maybe in Alaska, but near DC---it's just the wrong material, not just now, but before "global warming" was a twinkle in Al Gore's eye.
Who cares about climate change. Excessive ecological regulation just harms Legitimate Business Interests, right?
(In other news, the forecast this week is schadenfreude with localized told-you-so.)
There is a reason that the area around the terminal is made of concrete and there are concrete pads placed at spots where airplanes sit. It is to allow them to stay in one place without sinking. While heat will hasten the effect, a fully loaded large airplane will sink into any tarmac. I ride motorcycles and on hot days my kick stand can dig through most tarmac quite easilly(I carry a small metal plate to spread the load on hot days).
The idea is to keep moving so one does not sink. Whoever let the heavy aircraft sit on tarmac instead of concrete is to blame for the issue and not the heat. Even on an average day for July I bet the aircraft would have sunk to some degree in three hours.
The solution to this problem is to not stand for more than a few minutes on tarmac. If the delay is longer, return to the gate or wait on a piece of concrete.
We've had a cooler-than-average summer in Anchorage, where I live. Nevertheless, there have been a couple of warm days, and on one of them, the sidestand on my motorcycle melted into the asphalt in my driveway, leaving a one inch deep by one inch wide by two inch long divot :/ However, I wouldn't point to that single incidence as proof that temperatures this summer were warmer than average (since I know they aren't, based upon the fact that I've still got the insulated lining in my motorcycle jacket, and I'm still wearing the Thinsulate lined gloves rather than the vented gloves, like I normally use this time of year). Even during a cooler-than-average summer, you can still have a couple of spectacular outliers.
MCSE? No, sir...I don't do Windows. Yes, I am an idealist. What's your point?
in summer we'll generally get a whole week or more above 40C (104F)... since we don't have any problems with our infrastructure I'd assume that we use asphalt with a higher liquefying temperature
stop using substandard asphalt and your problem is solved :)
during our summers we typically get a whole week or more above 40C (104F)... and our tarmac/asphalt doesn't turn to sludge, I assume you simply need to use asphalt with a higher liquefying temperature...
:)
stop using substandard materials to build your infrastructure and your problem is solved
Sky Harbor (Phoenix airport) doesn't use asphalt runways for precisely this reason: archaeologists would be digging the bones of widebodied aircraft out of the tarpit centuries from now.
FWIW, the record temperature at Sky Harbor was 50C. They had to shut down the airport until it cooled off because the standard tables for flap settings didn't go that high. Now they do.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
Tarmacs that are meant for aircraft, particularly large aircraft are never asphalt. Duh! You can't even park a motorcycle on a hot day on an asphalt parking lot without plastic or metal disc under the kickstand without which it will poke a hole through the heat softened asphalt and then fall over.
The only asphalt surfaces at airports are for ground vehicles and light aircraft only! Some dumbass taxied to the wrong spot and got stuck, and then another dumbass wrote an inane story about it. This sort of thing has happened fairly regularly during my 20 year career in aviation and is not some "symptom" of global warming.
The temperature at which asphalt re-liquifies (for lack of a better conversational term) is based purely on the balance of the ingredients. It can easily be adjusted for a warmer climate. Similarly, a different material with the same property over a wider range is just as easily fabricated.
On the other side, wider airplane tires would also weigh into the equasion, pardon the pun.
So don't let this article do what so many FUD-oriented pieces do. Don't let it take a rare occurance, use it to highlight an unusual event, and then use an inconsequential failure as proof of a future eventual catastrophic one.
I promiss that in twenty years, planes will still be able to have runways.
Remember those 1 in 200 year storms/floods/heat waves they designed for.
They are going to be more frequent going forward, so your design is only good up to, say, a 1 in 20 year event.
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
The reason that they use different mixes depending on climate is that the mixes that set will in a cooler climate, also have some resistance to frost heaving. The mixes that harden at a higher temp are more brittle at freezing temps.
So what's the solution for a place like Indiana that can reach both 0 deg F (-18 deg C) and 100 deg F (38 deg C)?
Since this was a WASHINGTON DC area airport, it was probably done with inferior products, kick backs to the contractors, union thugs, government officials. Also, MOST airports are using CONCRETE because it LASTS LONGER.
Here in Phoenix, Sky Harbor International Airport gets much hotter than that, but we haven't had any issues of airplanes sinking. Some people say the effect of the heat is mitigated because of it being a dry heat, but to the best of my knowledge asphalt doesn't melt easier under high humidity.
Careful with names containing L slashdot.org/~AiphaWolf_HK slashdot.org/~AlphaWoif_HK slashdot.org/~AiphaWoif_HK
Yesterday, CDOT closed US-24, about the fourth most important highway in Colorado, due to ice 100 ft. down that melted for the first time (since a railroad tunnel was constructed a century ago) and created a sinkhole.
World temperatures increased by a fraction of a degree but here we go, now airports are melting because of it. What an idiot conclusion telling me a lot of the mental state of the author.
In reality, the aircraft has been in the same spot for far too long. Additionally the consistency of the tarmac material might be sub-standard causing the melting point to be lower. I have seen roads here in New Zealand that had substandard tarmac on them turning to liquid in the hot sun. And New Zealand average temperate is actually dropping over the last decade.
No, not an infrastructure problem.
In Australia we see summer temperatures of 47C (116F), higher in the desert regions, and the bitumen roads don't melt. This could mean that surfacing you have chosen might need to be replaced with more suitable compound to deal with the rising temperatures, quite an expensive exercise considering the amount of airports / roads in the USA.
Perhaps it would be a cheaper alternative to stop burning all of the fossil fuels now and look for some alternatives to combat global warming?
Asphalt is not tarred Macadam.
Tarred Macadam can easily support as much weight as it is built for. Maybe a latex emulsion could be used which would not be sticky when hot.
They feared that it could be used to suppress protest or support unpopular rule.
The record high for July 9 and 10 in Washington DC was set in 1936 with 104 degrees on July 9, 1936 and 105 degrees on July 10, 1936. Those are the highest temperatures on record for Washington DC in July (the 7th this year matched the temperature from July 10,1936). The highest temperatures ever recorded in Washington, DC are from two consecutive days in August 1918. The events of this weekend do not represent an unprecedented heat level for Washington, DC. When one further considers that in the last 50 years Washington, DC has been developed in a manner that causes a local heat island effect, this has nothing to do with global warming and everything to do with the expansion of the federal government.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
This is an old, classic problem on airports. That's why, if you're not an idiot, you put your planes on concrete pads while they aren't taxiing
Companies like Shell now propose airport-grade bituminous mix that have all kind of great qualities (low pollution, easy recycling, non-toxic, etc.) but these mixes have a rather low liquefaction temperature, as low as 135 celsius (240 F) for some. In the summer, blacktop temperature is routinely 60-100 F higher than ambient around noon, so it's easy to see why busses or planes can make ruts.
Heck, in France, when the Tour de France goes on local road covered with cheap blacktop, it's not unusual to have asphalt stick to the narrow tires of professional bicycles. The weigh of the athlete is spread on a relatively small surface contact, and thus tends to sink into the overheated blacktop Granted, airport-grade mix is somewhat better, but the physics is the same.
It's regularly over 100 degrees at Sky Harbor Airport, has been since at least the seventies when I lived there. Peaking at 122 degrees in 1990. Do they make different asphalt in Arizona?
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Not nonsensical. Other airports used to that weather use different surfaces. Nobody's claiming they can't resurface RNA's runways for hotter weather.
"And, crucially, it makes for runway repair work that is relatively efficient. "
That's a nice way of saying "cheap", be it on runways or roads.
There's good reason Air Force bases use concrete in the vast majority of cases for runways, ramp, and taxiways.
Got asphalt "problems"? Dig that cheap shit up and recycle it by crushing (makes terrific residential driveways which stay packed but some foliage can penetrate, I've used it for many years) then man up and pour proper concrete instead.
There's no nice way to put it.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
Paint it white to decrease it's heat absorption.
Longer term, use a higher temperature mix or switch to concrete like DFW and PHX. Concrete may be less ice tolerant, in which case, a relatively thin layer (~2") asphalt over concrete may be the best option. The concrete provides a solid base and will draw heat off the asphalt, while the asphalt provides an easier to refinish surface that can tolerate snow and ice fairly well.
make imaginary.friends COUNT=100 VISIBLE=false
this has nothing to do with global warming and everything to do with the expansion of the federal government.
Also, Drudge is reporting that the airplane was discovered to be a closet liberal, faking the whole thing to boost the whole fake AGW thing.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
...concrete.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
When the plane got stuck on the Tarmac was it because of the slightly higher than normal ambient temperatures OR was it the several jet engines that were running for several hours in the one spot?
My money's on the jet engines not the 10-20 degree higher ambient temperature.
Ken
Agreed.
:(
My home (Perth) sees 45C (113F) almost every year.
All of our roads are asphalt and none of them melt.
We're on the edge of a desert where country towns see 55C (130F) every year.
Those roads are also asphalt and they don't melt either.
Using asphalt isn't the problem.
But using a blend designed for lower temperatures is a problem.
I lived in Hong Kong for a few years and they make about half of their roads from concrete and half from asphalt.
The concrete roads have an old broom pulled across them before the concrete dries.
This leaves ridges for the tyres to grip but now the whole vehicle drums noisily as you travel
It is not the average that causes the damage, it is the sustained extremes (both high and low), which are predicted to be much more frequent under global warming.
A friend of mine just posted a pic from Vegas. It was a nice cool 120 degrees F today. I am pretty sure planes were still flying in and out of the airport.
America has some infrastructure problems, but most of those problems can be attributed to ice and water, and using the lowest bidder.
I lived in Tucson (High is over 100F for over 1/3 of the year) and we always had problems in the winter with infrastructure, and sometimes with flooding during the monsoons. But not from the heat.
Problem is, what you gain at the upper end, you lose at the lower. Australia does indeed get those high temperatures, but the US gets much colder temperatures than Australia does (well, most of it). You need a compound that won't melt in the local summer, but not contract to the point of cracking in the winter.
As someone that has spent large portions of their life in both countries, it is interesting to see the difference in road engineering. Comparing Canberra Australia (temp range roughly -8 C to +40 C) and NE Wisconsin (annual temperature range -30 C to +35 C):
- They seem to use a different blend of asphalt in Australia (doesn't start melting at 35 C, which I have seen in the US, but then again it doesn't have to cope with -30 C either!) It's harder and seems smoother/quieter to drive on than the US asphalt. (Also they use on-road reflectors a lot more than the US - driving at night or in the rain in Australia, it's much easier to see where the lane markings are compared to the US).
- OTOH, they use concrete/cement a LOT more in road surfacing in the US. I can count on three fingers the number of concrete roads I know of around SE Australia (and they are all on major intercity highways, namely, the Federal Highway, portions of the Hume Highway and the F3 to Newcastle). In the US though virtually all highways (US routes and Interstate routes, at least in the Midwest) are concrete, and city streets in the downtown areas usually are too. They don't do this in Australia because it costs so much more than asphalt, but concrete is a lot tougher than asphalt roads and needs less total maintenance over a long period of time (which I suppose is why they used it on a ~few~ busy Australian highways). You do get a continual 'thump, thump, thump' driving around in the US though which you don't get in Australia, due to the expansion joints in the concrete. Annoying but you can't do much about that - they are necessary to deal with the wider temperature swings.
I highly doubt in 25 years the average climate in your region has changes from highs of 80 to highs of 95-99. That would be a cataclysmically drastic climate shift. Even the most alarmist of IPCC scientists is looking at global warming on the scale of 2-3 degrees in 40-50 years. I really wish people would stop blaming hot days on global warming, it just makes us all look stupid. Keep this in mind the next time you have an unseasonably cold day :P
The 2-3 degrees increase is for the average global temperature. The sorts of changes of local seasonal high temperatures have already been seen in the 2003 and 2011 heat waves in Europe.
And while it is difficult to blame particular weather events on climate change it is clear that the last decade of very extreme outlier weather events is attributable to climate change. http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn22037-climate-change-boosted-odds-of-texas-drought.html
-- QED
The REAL Infrastructure Problems will be preventing the rising seas from inundating Bangladesh, Florida, various Pacific Islands, and the many other low lying parts of our civilization. The real infrastructure problems will be relocating our agriculture once our current breadbaskets begin to fail. The real infrastructure problems will be figuring out how to make our cities capable of withstanding massive flooding and extended droughts, sometimes one right after the other. We've passed the point where we could prevent it, the big challenge now will be surviving it.
-- QED
Infrastructure? Fuck that shit. What about the corn that's dying in the fields in the midwest from the lack of rain. The rivers that are drying up preventing barge traffic. Weather change is a lot more fundamental than a couple of runways and putzes who cannot afford to travel on American or United being inconvenienced. Soon, yes soon, the time will come were those without a year's worth of food in their house will go hungry, and the rest will go crazy with hunger, having never known what it means to be hungry, but then they are hungry, and it isn't very pleasant, and they'll be like, give me food, but there won't be any food, not even a double quarter pounder with cheese.
The paved roads in WA are recent constructions, melting asphalt can be seen on older Victorian roads (pre-1960's). The visible difference between the two is that the more modern surfacing has a lot more metal (small stones) mixed into it. The older surfacing has less metal and the individual stones are much smaller, it tends to become polished and warped over time, to the point where it becomes dangerous and needs resurfacing, resurfacing is done with the modern stuff so sticky ashphalt is gradually fading out here as well.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Its a complete myth, the climate is absolutely not getting hotter.
At least according to Fox News.
But fuck if I actually care; I don't have kids, Let the planet turn into a boiling cauldron with a runaway greenhouse effect, I should be long gone before that happens. And it will take fox and friends with it.
Yesterday, CDOT closed US-24, about the fourth most important highway in Colorado, due to ice 100 ft. down that melted for the first time (since a railroad tunnel was constructed a century ago) and created a sinkhole.
Your article says it was so deep there was still ice at the bottom. It says nothing about ice being what held it up in the first place, and that's ridiculous.
God damn /. is full of retards.
Fucking Wussy: try -16F to 115F Tulsa Oklahoma.
In the 1950s, as I recall, many roads both state and the new Eisenhower Federal Road System were concrete, not asphalt.
Subsequently in the 1960s and on the concrete roads were replaces with asphalt.
A bad choice!
Now, many of the road ways that will transport military troops and provisions are un-usable for that purpose because the temperature of the road-surface is too hot.
Lament.
Had our states and 'Federal Agencies' stayed the course with concrete, we would not find ourselves in the situation that we find ourselves in.
Sad.
LoL
Well at least the air gets thicker with heat so that should help planes take off easier, that's if they can get out of the spongy holes.
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There are other countries in the world that get hotter than 100F and they have airports. Just throwing it out there. Something tells me there's a solution out there somewhere lol.
Why not give the defense industry something to do, instead of dreaming up killer drones and cyber-armies, such as incorporating VTOL technology into civilian aircraft? If they played their cards right, it might be even more profitable than the stuff they usually sell.
And it's not like the military wouldn't mind a few aluminum clouds with vertical takeoff technology, and it probably wouldn't mind the positive press when they're called in to rescue some wayward people stuck out on a previously unreachable ledge.
But VTOL on a modified Boeing 747...would help with takeoffs and landings in crowded / busy airports that lack expansion options (no land to expand on, etc.). An entirely new market, that Airbus hasn't tapped into yet...wonder if Lockheed Martin or Northrop Grumman would be interested in that. From a diversity aspect (never all your eggs in one basket), tapping into the civilian market where that kind of expertise would possibly carry a premium...
I am John Hurt.
Gotta love the slashdot brain trust.
Faulty runway has heat issue?
It's the libertarians fault. None of them are actually in power, but it's their fault! Vote red! Vote blue! It's gonna work for sure next time!
The geek community is a motherfucking laughingstock. Zero critical thinking, zero reason, complete ignorance about anything outside computers. A sea of filth.
People tend to have their blood boil with 100+ temperatures. Please specify the measuring system, guys.
Most toll roads ARE public roads.
fuckwit republictard.
Maybe it'd be possible to use this excess heat to generate hot water. No idea how the operating and maintenance costs would be like though.
this has nothing to do with global warming and everything to do with the expansion of the federal government.
help finding a job
I used to live in Colorado and no-way is that stretch of US24 the fourth most important hwy in Colorado (unless you want to ski @ Ski Cooper)...
I-25, I-70 (probably #1 and #2)
US6, US36, US285, US40, US50, US160, I-225, I-76, C470
and then US24...
The people responsible for specifying the environmental constraints for the asphalt mixture messed up. Plain and simple. Polymer reinforced bitumen binder can be made to wildly varying environmental specs to make sure that this sort of thing does not happen.
http://virtualize.wordpress.com/
The whole civil aviation is doomed to plummet due to oil scarcity.
Soft tarmac will be the least of its problems.
Mostly correct. However, as an European I have a fear of the average as well: the average temp in Greenland to be exact. If that increases to above 0 C then the ice on Greenland melts completely (that's simplified). If that happens the gulf stream may get blocked and we are buggered (average temps here would probably drop about 20 C).
Add to that that the higher sea level means it might get very crowded in my part of the Netherlands.
Well, I might have a way, but it only works on a semi spherical planet in a vacuum.
Learning what the weather is today is only for LIBERAL PANTYWAISTS and SOCIALIST MUSLIMS. Your TRUE AMERICAN PATRIOT doesn't look at the WEATHER!
Protect America. DO NOT WATCH WEATHER REPORTS!
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Whether the expansion of the federal government is a good thing or a bad thing (or is a liberal or conservative idea) has nothing to do with the fact that Washington, DC has been developed in such a manner as to tend toward being warmer. When you transform the land around an area from fields to buildings and parking lots, that area tends to be warmer because buildings and parking lots hold more heat than fields do. The area around Washington, DC has been transformed in the last 50 years from farmland to buildings and parking lots because the federal government has expanded causing more people to be employed near Washington, DC than before that time.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
This headline is alarmist. Airports in TX, GA, FL and AZ routinely survive temps higher than DC, without planes sinking.
I worked 16 years at an airport in West Texas with temps regularly much higher than that, and we didn't have planes sinking into the asphalt. Ramps are stress designed to specific weight limits, and that comes from the depth of the stone and substrate layers underneath. For heavies, it's along the lines of 2, 3 or more feet deep of crushed, packed stone underneath the asphalt - THAT'S what prevents something from sinking; not the asphalt itself.
Areas with less depth underneath were where a single wheel heavy plane (the B-727 puts the most stress of any of them because it sits on two single main wheels) would sink.
free market fundamentalism
look: THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A FREE MARKET ON ROADS
free market implies a choice between competitors. you want doubly, triply, quadruply redundant roads?!
but even with redundant road networks, you don't even have a free market, because without REGULATION (which keeps a market truly free, as in just, as in equal playing field for big guys and little guys) you have an OLIGOPOLY, where the big players collude amongst themselves and the consumer loses: squeeze you for any price they can get away with, and prevent any other little players form sprouting up. you have everything you hate about government and not even a pretense, like our real government, that the arrangement is supposed to serve the interests of the average citizen
of course, our government frequently makes bad decisions that hurt the common man: where corporate interests infect the government! so we kill the government and hand society over to the very criminal enterprises that are destroying the entity that is suppose to work on your behalf? wtf?!
or say you are in the middle of nowhere, with one road, built by a private enterprise: then what you have is a MONOPOLY, which is NOTHING like a free market! so another guy is going to build a road right alongside, is that what you are saying? he has the $1 billion in startup costs and can wait out the 20 years before he sees a penny in profit to get his second road up and running... when there is another road already built?! what the hell are you smoking? free market on roads: hilarious stupidity
it's all that you hate about the abuses of a government, without any mandate that the arrangement is for the little guy. it is in fact, for the big guy to profit off you and squeeze you as much as it wants, without any recourse for you whatsoever: you have no choice, and you can't sue them (oh, you have six months to spare, $100,000 to spend, and then you lose anyway because the corporation has a legion of lawyer goons that can wait you out?)
sheesh, what is the exact source of the colossal stupidity about the nature of "free" markets? wake up ignorant fan boys
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
The original Interstate system was also concrete-paved.
FSVO "original." Interstate 10 between Phoenix and Tucson was asphalt in the late 60s, and that was original material.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
(Also they use on-road reflectors a lot more than the US - driving at night or in the rain in Australia, it's much easier to see where the lane markings are compared to the US).
Embedded reflectors aren't as common in the northern areas because, I believe, snow plows tend to chew them up and gouge them out. They probably get worked loose by the freeze-thaw cycle. Around where I live (New England) you'll occasionally find them on the interstates, but many go missing after a couple of years.
Phoenix, AZ has had many stretches where the nighttime temperature didn't go below 100 degrees F for days or weeks. They have a large airport there. Nobody claimed that planes were going to sink into the tarmac. If anything was mentioned it was the reduced lift from lower air density.
I think we know the real reason why Commander Taco left: even Slashdot has become a part of the centrally-dictated media propaganda machine.
The source quoted by the OP is actually incorrect. The aircraft, a regional jet with only 35 passengers, was parked when the incident happened. It sunk several inches while not moving. The tug was unable to pull it out of where it had sunk. A larget tug was brought in, it was pulled out, started its engines and continued with the flight.
Here is a better source article: http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/crime/plane-gets-stuck-at-reagan-national/2012/07/08/gJQAZgG9UW_story.html
Vietnam Veteran / Former Postal Worker -- Use Caution When Taunting!
If your world requires six months and $100,000 to suitably air your grievances against a corporation that has a legion of lawyers who can wait you out anyway, then that is a failure of your Government; people forget that it is GOVERNMENT that they have established as the provider of law, courts, and enforcement.
Corporations buy Government influence, because Government has so much influence to sell (all the more so as Government power is consolidated and expanded). Big Bad Corporations require Big Bad Government through regulations (which mainly inhibit variation) and through privileges like subsidies and bailouts (which mainly inhibit selective forces).
Basically, your argument is that privatization of infrastructure like roads is a bad idea, because you are only capable of imagining that it will probably end up just like Government. Well, it will indeed end up just like Government—in the worst case scenario!
A monopoly is not necessarily a bad thing, and it does not contradict the nature of the Free Market. This is especially the case when a monopoly creeps into existence by virtue of providing goods and services at sustainable rates; it takes time and dedication to evolve the knowledge, resources, and culture not only to build a large, complex system, but also to sustain it well in the long term. If a megacorporation is able to do so without special privileges, then it's probably generally a good steward of its mission, and can train people to continue that stewardship. For instance, this megacorporation probably won't take resources that could be put towards maintaining and expanding its infrastructure and instead squander it by assassinating children and dropping bombs on people in other countries in the name of "exporting Democracy".
If anybody is a religious fundamentalist, it is the Statist who can't fathom any solution to society other than the worship of an Intelligent Designer, the "noble" bureaucrat who peers into his crystal ball and then—at everyone else's expense—pulls and pushes naive levers and buttons based on what he thinks he sees.
Are we ready for colder temperatures? There has been no warming for the last 15 years and we are due for another ice age any time now ....
Sorry to bring up facts, back to your CAGW beliefs.
Talking with people-who-know recently about air bases and their problems let me in on a factoid that is relevant to this discussion: The engines on the F22 when it is in VTOL configuration are so hot, and powerful, that they actually seriously damage runways. Any given runway is good for only so many t/o or landings of this aircraft. The damage is so bad that it requires much more than a simple patch. This is one of the factors holding up wider deployment (as if pilots blacking out from oxygen deprivation wasn't enough!)
There's no sense in being precise when you don't even know what you're talking about. -- John von Neumann
Which is fine but the main problem is that the US doesn't use reflective paint. Here in Tennessee, if it's night and it's raining, the road markings disappear. Most disconcerting.
No, it's not.
Took long enough to finally address the question raised by TFA, but then again, this is /. after all.
The long answer starts something like this:
The now controversial label of "Global Warming" (lately modified to the politically correct term, "Climate Change") is not saying, "it's gonna get hotter," or even, "it's gonna get hotter and colder." What Climate Change means is that the global climate now contains more energy than has ever been recorded. This not only spells bad news for the Almanac, but it means that weather is now weather^2. More thermal energy means that weather patterns are more energetic than ever. The global dynamics of weather patterns all seek equilibrium, but the greater amount of energy in the equation creates the more energetic patterns in the process of obtaining that equilibrium. As a side-effect, basic high and low temperatures are more extreme. Other side effects include, but are not limited to increases in: wind speed, energetic discharge (lightning), precipitation volume, precipitation duration, extents of upper atmospheric moisture currents, relative size and force of atmospheric disturbances, and so on... What this means to our infrastructure can be summed up in three words, "time to go". The combination of greater climatic extremes and sheer aging materials adds up to a mounting cataclysm of decay.
I apologize for the lack of citations in this post, largely due to the sheer volume of "It's bunk! You're bunk! I de-bunk your bunk! Bunk you!" and other noise regarding this complex-yet-positively-simple matter. The world is changing, and not for the better. The people of Earth seem to be content with bickering over who gets the blame, who places the blame and who appointed these people to say who gets the blame in the first place. Meanwhile, sea walls are being battered, towns and even cities are continuously bombarded by forces we cannot predict and the people we relied on to make these things work in the first place are locked in such ferocious browbeating with each other that the impending doom is being thoroughly ignored.
Anyone who says that Climate Change violates any law of thermodynamics has clearly mucked up the equation; absorption rates for land and water are drastically understated, not to mention the surprisingly significant impact of ice melt. The atmosphere is not the heat sink, the land and water are; the air is reflecting heat energy back at the Earth, the air is not absorbing it. It's a different property altogether. None of these arguments really acknowledge diurnal thermodynamic forces or localized dynamics anyway, making them inherently flawed. They all over-simplify the factors and call it science... or is that what we've come to call "science" nowadays?
So, can our roads, bridges, tunnels, airports, buildings and technology take it for much longer? We shall see.
This post © Copyrite Duggeek, all rights reversed.
I've been landing on the desert (you know, really hot places, where the day starts at 100F, and then it goes up) for the last 3 summers and I have never seen a plane "sink" like that.
I suspect the materials used on that particular airport are subpar.
Having spent some time in the infrastructure field as a practicing Engineer, it is a commonly accepted fact that petty bureaucrats and political hacks of all stripes would rather have a grand public self-aggrandizing ceremony opening any new "public convenience" than to allow the unwashed masses monies to be spent in truly constructive and useful ways.
Putting people to work without a significant kickback is simply NOT going to be allowed by EITHER the socialist elite or crony-capitalists bureaucrats.