| |
|
Official says state's largest industry is agribusiness
Agribusiness means big bucks for Rowan County according to a top official of the North Carolina Agribusiness Council.
Green
Springs Road bridge upgrade to allow tall trucks
The Green Springs Road bridge over Interstate 95 has been hit by over-height
trucks at least 15 times since 1990.
They saw
the future
A high-tech way to cut wood can save money and trees
Reverence,
regret mark crash site
Six victims mourned in many ways
New blood
in Raleigh districts
Voters ousted City Council incumbent Benson Kirkman on Tuesday, replacing
him with newcomer Thomas Crowder in District D, while giving Jessie Taliaferro
a sweeping victory in District B and signaling a desire for a focus on the
way the city grows.
Driver
arrested on campus has seizure in cruiser, dies
A driver who was arrested at a campus checkpoint died in an N.C. State police
car after having seizures, the university's police chief said.
Driver
has Fatal Seizure after Traffic Stop
A 19-year-old motorist arrested at a campus checkpoint died in an North Carolina
State University police car after having seizures.
CAFOs
debated as legal ag issue
Dr. Theodore Feitshans, CALS
Nanocell
Used For Molecular Logic, Memory
Paul Franzon, Engineering
Intel
to Report A Breakthrough In Chip Design
cites Veena Misra, electrical and computer engineering
Official says state's largest industry is agribusiness
Nov. 4, 2003
Salisbury Post
By Jessie Burchette, staff writer
© Copyright 2003
Agribusiness means big bucks for Rowan County according to a top official of the North Carolina Agribusiness Council.
Erica Upton Peterson, executive vice president and executive director, met with the Rowan County Board of Commissioners Monday morning and spent most of the day touring Rowan farms.
Peterson put a $3 billion price tag on the gross county income related to agribusiness.
She gave commissioners a new fact sheet prepared by a professor at N.C. State University which breaks down the various agribusiness categories from employment on the farm to sales of food in stores and wood products.
"If you eat three meals a day, wear cotton clothes and have a roof over your head, you're impacted by agribusiness," said Peterson.
And Peterson praised the Rowan County Fair and all agricultural fairs as a way to show consumers where their food comes from.
As an example of how out of touch some people are, Peterson told the story of a California legislator who said he wasn't concerned about dairy farmers. He said he got his milk at the supermarket.
"We don't want people to think food comes from Food Lion," said Peterson.
And she repeatedly stressed that agribusiness is the state's top industry, accounting for $62.6 billion in the state's economy. Tourism, which is second, generates $13 billion.
Peterson also touted the homeland security aspect of farming.
"It is vitally important that we produce our own food in this nation ... a country that can't feed itself will not survive," said Peterson, pointing to the history of great civilizations and countries.
She said that World War II France began subsidizing its farmers so that now farmers are among the highest paid professionals in that country.
Responding to questions, Peterson said there is nothing out there to fill the void created by the demise of tobacco, but she said extensive research is looking at options, including a soybean-diesel fuel that has great potential.
Commissioner Frank Tadlock arranged Peterson's visit to the county and appearance before the board of commissioners.
Several farmers and local agricultural officials were on hand for a reception hosted by the Rowan Cooperative Extensive Service.
Following the meeting, Peterson toured Patterson Farms, the Johnny Moore Farm, Steele Feed and Seed, Rockwell Farms, the Rowan County Fairgrounds and Corriher Beef and Sausage.
Tadlock is president of Corriher Beef and Sausage.
Green Springs Road bridge upgrade to allow tall trucks
Nov. 5, 2003
Fayetteville Observer
By Paul Woolverton, staff writer
© Copyright 2003 Fayetteville Observer
HOPE MILLS - The Green Springs Road bridge over Interstate 95 has been hit by over-height trucks at least 15 times since 1990.
Those are only the recorded accidents, the ones where someone stopped and called the police. Sonny Upole, a bridge maintenance engineer with the state Department of Transportation, knows there have been more accidents - he's seen the gashes in the concrete.
At times the state has had to close the bridge and partly close I-95 to make repairs. Residents complain about the inconvenience; I-95 traffic backs up for miles.
The bridge is closed now because part of it is being replaced. Traffic on I-95 has been reduced to one lane north and south because of the work
The bridge is about four miles south of Hope Mills, just into Robeson County.
Most trucks travel under the bridge with no problem. The ones that hit it typically are flatbed trucks carrying large pieces of construction equipment, Upole said.
Only southbound trucks hit this bridge, Upole said. Over-height trucks running north on I-95 tend to get snagged on another bridge before they reach this one, so only the portion of the bridge over the southbound lanes is being replaced.
The new section of bridge will provide an extra 18 inches of clearance because of new technology that allows for smaller girders. The minimum clearance required is 13 feet, 6 inches.
The bridge was at 14 feet, 5 inches. When the replacement is done the repaired side will be 15 feet, 11 inches above the ground.
Upole says he hopes the work will be finished soon. Interstate 95 traffic, tied up since early October by the project, should be traveling freely again before Thanksgiving.
The surface of the bridge should be opened to drivers on Green Springs Road by the end of the year.
In the meantime, traffic remains snarled.
Ruby Smith, who is 73 years old, lives on Green Springs Road and is annoyed at the inconvenience. She has to take a detour of a few miles when she goes to Hope Mills to shop or Parkton to visit her grandson.
"I try not to get angry," she said. "I've had six heart attacks. If I got upset at everything, I'd be in the graveyard."
Upole is sympathetic to the complaints of the residents and drivers on I-95. "I know they want to get across, and I want them to get across," he said.
After a truck with an over-height load hit the Green Springs Road bridge in September 2002, engineers decided the structure was too weak to fix. They limited traffic on the bridge to one lane to keep cars off the weakened side. Then in November, Upole said, another truck hit the bridge in one of the unrecorded hit-and-run accidents. It was closed after that, he said.
State records show that two more trucks hit the bridge March 4.
Construction began in early October, and crews have worked into the night and on weekends to get the project done.
Upole said he won't know the cost of the work until the project is complete. State crews are doing the work. The truck drivers who hit the bridge are responsible for part of the repair costs.
In the past it has cost about $125,000 to replace one girder, Upole said.
The old girders, each 55 feet long, show the damage. On one there is a gash several feet across where the truck hit it. The energy radiated through and blew out a 15-foot hunk on the other side, exposing a web of metal cable and rebar.
The old girders are being sent to N.C. State University where researchers will use them to experiment with repair techniques.
Nov. 5, 2003
The News & Observer
By Jonathan B. Cox, staff writer
© Copyright 2003 The News & Observer Publishing Company.
Sandy Mullin gestured at
the machine his Raleigh saw company makes and said he ought to paint it green.
barr-mullin
FOUNDED: 1973
HEADQUARTERS: Raleigh
TOP EXECUTIVE: Courtney Mullin, CEO
EMPLOYEES: 20
ANNUAL REVENUE: about $5 million
DESCRIPTION: Barr-Mullin makes saws and other cutting systems driven by computers and software to help companies in the furniture, cabinetry, flooring and other wood industries reduce labor costs and get more from the boards they use.
That's because the tool, with its lasers and computer software, can help keep trees in the forest -- and money in the pockets of furniture, flooring, cabinetry and other manufacturers.
The machine, called Cellscan, lets companies make more efficient cuts of the lumber they buy to build the products they sell. By examining the microscopic cells in wood, it can find the best way to remove imperfections such as knots, leaving less waste, improving productivity and reducing labor costs.
Barr-Mullin's latest invention might get little notice from consumers, who seldom think about the technology behind the products they purchase. But it could be a savior to furniture makers and other companies competing with cheaper imports.
"This is sort of like the holy grail of woodcutting," said Mullin, co-founder and president of Barr-Mullin. "You can get more out of the lumber. That doesn't mean you're a tree-hugging conservationist. It's an economic decision."
For 30 years, Mullin's 20-employee company, with headquarters on Yonkers Road, has used computers, software and other high-tech solutions to engineer cutting systems that let companies create
products faster and more cheaply. Barr-Mullin is an anomaly, Mullin says, because there hasn't been "a lot of super-engineering" in the wood industry.
The company was recognized for its work this summer, receiving a $500,000 grant from the National Science Foundation. Barr-Mullin will use the money to develop software that enhances the scanning system in grading and cutting lumber, Mullin said. It must report progress to the NSF every six months of the two-year grant.
Mullin, 64, began the company in 1973 with Jim Barr, who went on to help start SAS Institute, the Cary software developer. Mullin was teaching at N.C. State University when he and Barr invented their first machine that used a computer system to optimize wood cut from boards.
"We knew the potential savings [for companies] were huge," Mullin said. "It was obvious if we were going to make any contribution ... the only way to do it was to go into business."
Since then, the company has developed several products aimed at improving productivity in the wood industry, including a saw that can make precise cuts at 1,000 linear feet per minute and a computer program that allows managers to oversee all cutting equipment in a plant.
The company boasts that it has saved more trees than the Sierra Club, an organization of 700,000 dedicated to preserving the earth's natural resources.
North Carolina companies, including Broyhill Furniture in Lenoir and Century Furniture in Hickory, are among the users of Barr-Mullin technology.
"You use less labor to get the same amount of work done," said Danny Arnold, operations manager for Vaughan-Bassett's plant in Elkin, which uses Barr-Mullin equipment to make bedroom suites and other furniture. "You increase your yield because the computer is making the decisions ... instead of people, who may be having a good day or a bad day."
Barr-Mullin's most promising tool so far for advancing the goal of bigger and cheaper yields could be the Cellscan.
The company started developing it 10 years ago and can now manufacture the machines for customers. About a dozen Cellscans, which range in price from $500,000 to $1 million, depending on configuration, have been installed from Russia to Chile. Some of those were for test customers, Mullin said.
The machine's value is in evaluating wood. Traditionally, that task has been done by humans. They stand on the end of a line in a factory and critique lumber for a few seconds before feeding it into the business end of a saw.
In that short time, they look for defects that must be cut out for the boards to be useable in a final product. Workers, in recent times, anyway, mark the imperfections with fluorescent crayons, which the saw reads and cuts.
The problem with that arrangement is humans can't consider all four sides of a board in the allotted time. And when they mark knots and other defects, they often leave in a large buffer, which translates into wasted wood.
"The wood products industry, no matter who you talk to, everybody's real goal is to automate," said Dennis Cope, manager of Barr-Mullin's scanning products division. "The problem you have is wood is not a homogeneous material. Every board is as different as the next. They're as different as fingerprints."
Barr-Mullin's scanning machine attempts to overcome that obstacle with lasers that look at the makeup of wood on all sides simultaneously. It can detect knots, for example, because the cells are perpendicular to the surrounding area. But it's not misled by dirt, as similar systems that use cameras might be.
The machine feeds readings to computer software linked to the saw, which determines the optimal cutting pattern. The system can be modified for various industries, which have different guidelines for acceptable boards, and processes wood fast. A common configuration for the scanner can process 80,000 linear feet in an 8-hour shift, compared with an average 20,000 linear feet by a human being.
"This technology has a lot of promise," said Rich Christianson, editorial director of Wood and Wood Products, a magazine. "Optimization is a very critical part of the industry now."
Take the furniture industry, for instance. Of the household furniture sold in the United States last year, 39 percent was manufactured somewhere else, up from 22 percent in 1994, according to figures from Mann, Armistead & Epperson, a Richmond, Va., investment bank.
Cheaper imports from countries such as China are coming to the U.S. market, hurting traditional manufacturers. The only way to fight back, experts say, is for companies to reduce costs.
Using a scanner like that made by Barr-Mullin lets companies buy lower-grade boards and extract more useable material, reducing expenses. And it lessens the work force needed to accomplish the same tasks.
Although automation typically leads to some layoffs, it's better than closing a plant.
"There's no doubt if you can do it better, more efficiently and cheaper, you've got to do it," Christianson said. "Even if it comes down to having to get rid of people because they're doing menial tasks, I think in today's competitive world they have to."
That's not to say equipment makers such as Barr-Mullin have an easy time making that argument. With the economic slump, plants have been less willing to invest in new technology, Christianson said. Gear makers must work to lower the cost of their products and increase speed to convince buyers.
Mullin said that's what his company, helped by the NSF grant, is doing. Within 20 years, he predicts scanning technology will transform the industry, from the sawmill to product manufacturers. It might even make the most critical part of the cutting process become insignificant.
"The saw is the least important part," Mullin said. "Scanning is the most important."
Staff writer Jonathan B. Cox can be reached at 836-4948.
Driver arrested on campus has seizure in cruiser, dies
Nov. 5, 2003
Winston-Salem Journal
By staff writer
© Copyright 2003 Winston-Salem Journal
RALEIGH - A driver who was arrested at a campus checkpoint died in an N.C. State police car after having seizures, the university's police chief said.
Brandon Burnett, 19, of Raleigh died Sunday.
Burnett was stopped at 9:42 p.m. at a checkpoint on Varsity Drive near the McKimmon Center, said Tom Younce, the campus police chief.
Burnett had no identification on him, and, after a few minutes, police discovered that his license had been suspended and that he was wanted on an outstanding warrant for failure to appear on a drug charge, Younce said.
Burnett was cooperative and did not resist, Younce said.
Campus Officer Renee Riley handcuffed Burnett and put him in the back of her cruiser. Police also searched his 2003 Hyundai and found what appeared to be drugs or paraphernalia, Younce said.
Within about 50 minutes of the traffic stop, Burnett started experiencing problems, he said. A few minutes later, he started having seizures, Younce said.
An ambulance took him to Rex Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
His body was taken to Chapel Hill for an autopsy.
Younce referred the case to the State Bureau of Investigation, a routine step when a suspect dies in police custody.
Driver has Fatal Seizure after Traffic Stop
Nov. 4, 2003
Associated Press; WTVD
By staff writer
© Copyright 2003 Associated Press
A 19-year-old motorist arrested at a campus checkpoint died in an North Carolina State University police car after having seizures.
Campus Police Chief Tom Younce says Brandon Burnett of Raleigh died Sunday after being stopped at a checkpoint near the McKimmon Center
Younce says police discovered Burnett's license had been suspended and that he was wanted on an outstanding warrant for failure to appear on a drug charge.
Burnett was handcuffed and placed in the back of her cruiser. Police also searched his car and found what appeared to be drugs or paraphernalia. Within about 50 minutes of the traffic stop, Burnett started experiencing problems and began having seizures within a few minutes.
He was transported to Rex Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
Younce referred the case to the S-B-I, which is routine when a suspect dies in police custody.
New blood in Raleigh districts
Nov. 5, 2003
The News & Observer
By Sarah Lindenfeld Hall, staff writer
© Copyright 2003 The News & Observer Publishing Company.
RALEIGH -- Voters ousted City Council incumbent Benson Kirkman on Tuesday, replacing him with newcomer Thomas Crowder in District D, while giving Jessie Taliaferro a sweeping victory in District B and signaling a desire for a focus on the way the city grows.
Taliaferro, 39, will replace John Odom, the five-term council member who lost his bid for mayor last month. Crowder, 47, took advantage of concerns about rental housing in the district, which includes N.C. State University, and other quality-of-life issues, such as traffic and stormwater.
Both Crowder and Taliaferro sit on the city's Planning Commission. Both emphasized their experience on planning issues and campaigned for responsible planning that anticipates future development to make neighborhoods safe and livable. Both are longtime supporters of land-use guides that steer future development to an area and getting neighbors involved in planning. Crowder also backs major changes to the city's code to improve the planning and rezoning process, though Taliaferro said she thinks, for the most part, that the city's system works well.
The outcomes mean Democrats have regained the majority on the council, which is ostensibly nonpartisan but has been split down party lines. The new majority, however, doesn't necessarily translate into sweeping changes at the council table.
Crowder is likely to be a strong ally for Mayor Charles Meeker on environmental, planning and spending issues. Taliaferro said she will be an independent thinker who won't go along with all of Meeker's initiatives.
With nearly all the votes counted in the runoff election, Crowder finished with 2,249 votes, or 56 percent, in southwest Raleigh's District D race, according to unofficial results. Kirkman, who came in first in the Oct. 7 general election but didn't receive a majority, won 1,745 votes, or 44 percent.
Taliaferro placed first in northeast Raleigh's District B race -- as she did in the general election -- with 2,159 votes, or 69 percent. Karen Moye-Stallings, a 46-year-old advocate for people with disabilities and a member of the city's Transit Authority, received 943 votes, or 30 percent.
Turnout was far lower than the 25 percent of registered voters who cast ballots citywide in October. On Tuesday, only 13 percent in District D went to the polls, and just 8 percent in District B did so.
Supporters gathered at Crowder's Ashburton Road home to celebrate Tuesday night. Crowder, an architect, said his pledge to work toward anticipatory planning resonated with voters.
"I'm here to unite this district and work toward increasing the quality of life in District D," he said. "This is about raising the bar on the quality of life."
Kirkman, 55, an environmental and biological consultant, campaigned on his record and had hoped to win a fourth term. He chalked up at least part of his loss to mistakes made in the campaign.
Last week, Kirkman apologized for claiming in a campaign flier that Crowder had missed more than 20 percent of commission meetings in 2002, though he'd missed about 18 percent. But he didn't apologize for including two U.S. congressmen -- Bob Etheridge, a Lillington Democrat, and David Price, a Chapel Hill Democrat -- on his list of endorsements, though their representatives said they didn't endorse him.
"We made some silly mistakes in the campaign, which seemed to me everybody picked up on," Kirkman said. "I guess I spent too much time doing my job and not enough time as a politician."
Taliaferro, a part-time librarian and teacher, will join council member Janet Cowell as one of two women on the eight-member council. Taliaferro's priorities include encouraging economic growth and development, managing traffic, expanding parks and greenways and protecting the city's watershed.
"I'm very excited, and I'm really pleased," said Taliaferro, as supporters gathered at her home on Pemberton Drive. "I worked hard for 10 years, and I think that makes a difference."
Voters at the polls said personal contact with the candidates made the difference for them.
In District B, Zandra Price, a state employee who voted at Raleigh Fire Station No. 11 in the Brentwood neighborhood, said she received fliers in the mail from Taliaferro, who also stopped by her home and spoke with her husband. She said she couldn't remember receiving anything from Moye-Stallings, who ran a much more low-key campaign. Price voted for Taliaferro.
"She seemed to be a down-to-earth person," Price said. "I think the more a candidate can be seen in an everyday way, that helps them."
In District D, the battle lines were drawn early, and voters said Tuesday that the decision between Kirkman and Crowder was a hard one. Many voters said they had met Crowder, who campaigned door-to-door, during the campaign.
"He took the time to go around and visit in our neighborhood to meet with voters," said Ruth Riley, a retiree and Crowder supporter who voted at Forest Hills Baptist Church. "Immediately, he said 'What are your concerns?' "
Staff writer Sarah Lindenfeld Hall can be reached at 829-8983.
Reverence, regret mark crash site
Nov. 5, 2003
The News & Observer
By Anne Saker and Barbara Barrett, staff writers
© Copyright 2003 The News & Observer Publishing Company.
RALEIGH -- Under Tuesday's leaden sky, trucks and cars whizzed past the intersection of Nowell Road and N.C. 54 where an outdoor chapel has been erected to the six lives lost there Saturday night.
Two crosses have been planted on the northwest corner, four others on the southwest corner, where someone had laboriously printed "Christopher Clemons" -- one of the victims -- in white spray paint on the asphalt.
At the intersection and elsewhere, loved ones remembered those killed in one of the worst car wrecks in Triangle history.
"My brain still isn't around this," said Terrie Myers, the mother of victim Nolan Myers. "It's a nightmare."
Larry Veeder, 32, is charged with drunken driving and six counts of involuntary manslaughter, accused of plowing a white van through a gathering of people who had stopped to render aid in a minor car wreck.
Veeder refused a blood-alcohol content test Saturday night, but investigators had his blood drawn through a search warrant. The blood sample is in an FBI lab, waiting to be tested.
On Tuesday afternoon, Terrie Myers and her husband, Phillip, of Carver, Minn., approached the intersection with 18 balloons, one for each year of Nolan's life. With their daughter, Jourdan, 14, Nolan's Campbell University roommate, Steve Cox, 19, and Cox's mother, Diane, the Myerses stood around the cross bearing their son's name. Then they released the balloons, one at a time.
"I'm going through it like I'm watching a movie," Jourdan said.
Terrie Myers said the family is thinking about donating Nolan's college fund to pay for rehabilitation for Veeder if he needs it.
"We want to help him," Terrie Myers said. "He has an enormous, enormous burden on his shoulders."
Even as he stood at the "painful" spot of his son's death, with orange spray paint outlining where Nolan's body came to rest, Phillip Myers exulted in his son's generous spirit, which was infused by a lively Christianity.
"I can't tell you how much joy it gives me knowing that he died trying to save a life," he said. "It's a crescendo. He's a drummer, so it's a cymbal crash. It's the drum solo. That is really, really bucking me up."
Nolan Myers' body was back in Minnesota by the time his family got on a plane at Raleigh-Durham International Airport on Tuesday afternoon to return to their home. His funeral is scheduled for Saturday, and, his father said, "we are going to party. We are going to celebrate the gift of 18 years. He would want us to party."
Struggling to forgive
As the Myers family left the scene with Steve and Diane Cox, another knot of mourners arrived. Lauren Murphy slowly walked to the cross with the name of her longtime boyfriend, Dennis Bowes. Her mother, Renee, and sister-in-law Heather stood at her side as she stared at the ground.
As Veeder sat in the Wake County jail six miles east, Lauren Murphy said she was wrestling with her feelings about him.
"I don't hate him," she said. "It's unfortunate that he caused the accident, for him. But he made a choice. I'm not as forgiving as Nolan Myers' parents. ... He should have to pay for what he did."
According to police reports, the incident began about 8:45 p.m. Saturday night, when Baron A. Fulk, a student at N.C. State University, ran a stop sign at Nowell Road and N.C. 54 and hit an SUV driven by Martha P. West of Marble. Several people stopped to help, gathering in the dark roadway.
Police say minutes later, Veeder drove into the gathering, killing six people. Four others -- including Fulk and West -- were injured in the accidents.
The first call to the state Highway Patrol was for the fatal wreck, and it came in at 8:51 p.m. The first trooper responded at 9:02 p.m. Emergency responders already were there, working on the victims.
At least two funerals for victims are scheduled for today.
Also on Tuesday, staff members of WBBB-FM, known as 96Rock, collected $16,071.75 in a fund-raising drive. Program director Jay Nachlis said the money will be divided evenly among the families of the six victims to take care of funeral and other pressing costs. Nachlis said the outpouring amazed him.
"You could tell that these people had electric personalities and had a great deal of friends," he said.
Staff writer Anne Saker can be reached at 829-8955.
Skin disease in Volusia County doesn't appear to come from ocean
Nov. 4, 2003
Associated Press; Daytona Beach News-Journal; The Ledger, FL; WJXX, FL; Local6.com, FL; Florida Today, FL; WFtv.com, FL; Sarasota Herald-Tribune, FL
By staff report
© Copyright 2003 Associated Press
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. --
Painful skin lesions that 10 commercial fishermen in Volusia County have contracted
did not come from infected fish, narrowing the possibility that the infection
came from the ocean, according to preliminary pathological tests.
The tests of two grouper with skin lesions didn't match the organism believed to have caused the infections in the deep-sea fishermen.
The fish posed no threat to human health, said Dr. Craig Harms of the North Carolina State University College of Veterinary Medicine, who tested the two snowy grouper caught by the fishermen about 200 miles offshore.
"We didn't find anything that would support a link between the fish and the fishermen," Harms said.
Harms found four types of bacteria on the fish, all of them bacteria normally found on marine organisms and none related to the methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus, commonly known as MRSA, which caused the fishermen's lesions.
The fishermen had worried their disease could have come from the ocean.
The antibiotic-resistant staph infections are becoming more common worldwide and are easily spread. Local health officials have maintained the infections among local swimmers and fishermen were most likely spread from person to person, and did not come from the ocean.
Officials with the Florida and Volusia County departments of public health have launched investigations into the infections reported by the fishermen.
CAFOs debated as legal ag issue
Nov. 6, 2003
Sulphur Springs Country World News, TX
By Juliet Briskin, staff report
© Copyright 2003
Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) have recently found themselves regulated by a newly-revised rule that has led to lawsuits by both the Sierra Club and agricultural groups. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released its new CAFO rule in December 2002, but it did not become final until April 2003.
According to the Sierra Club the new rule allows unacceptable levels of animal waste to enter U.S. waters. On the other side of the issue, agricultural groups feel the regulations exceed the EPA's authority.
At the American Agricultural Law Association's 2003 Conference in San Antonio on Oct. 17, attorneys from across the United States gathered to hear the new requirements and how to best counsel their clients to ensure compliance.
Dr. Theodore Feitshans of North Carolina State University spoke to the conference on the background of this new rule and presented an update on the rule's requirements.
"The CAFO regulations were issued pursuant to the Clean Water Act of 1972, and the statute specifically mentions CAFOs by name as a regulated category," he explained. "The recently released revisions are the first major changes to the rule since the mid-1970s, and in the new rule there are a lot of incentives to be a non-point source."
According to Feitshans, the EPA's final rule has made significant modifications to the regulation of CAFOs while maintaining its basic regulatory structure. "Once the regulation is fully implemented about 300 million tons of manure annually will be regulated," he stated, "with the most dramatic changes affecting the poultry industry."
The basics of the new rule are as follows:
The 25-year, 24-hour storm exemption has been eliminated. Under the old rule, a CAFO did not need a National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permit (NPDES) if it only discharged during an event that brought the amount of rainfall expected during a 24-hour period that occurs on average once every 25 years or more. The new rule requires all large CAFOs to apply for an NPDES permit or to demonstrate that no potential to discharge in U.S. waters exists.
The EPA now requires permits for large dry manure poultry operations. According to Feitshans, the EPA found that dry litter manure handling systems represent a sufficient threat to surface water quality to require regulation.
The discharge of manure, litter or processed wastewater from a CAFO to land areas under its control is now subject to NPDES permit requirements. The only exemption to this change is for agricultural storm water discharge, and the EPA noted that dry weather discharges from the land application area to surface waters may never be considered an agricultural storm water discharge.
Any CAFO that is issued a NPDES permit must develop and implement a nutrient management plan that includes, at minimum, best management practices and procedures for that operation. According to Feitshans, these plans must be available on site and include all nine components required by the Final Rule (see sidebar).
New large swine, veal, and poultry operations are not permitted any discharge from the production area, and manure storage facilities must be designed to contain runoff from a 100-year, 24-hour rainfall event.
Finally, the Final Rule requires that records must be kept and reports be made to the EPA annually. These reports must contain, at minimum, the number and type of animals confined; estimated amounts of wastes generated over a 12-month period; estimated amounts of wastes transferred to other persons over a 12-month period; total number of acres used for land application under the waste management plan; a summary of all manure and wastewater discharges from the production area over a 12-month period; and whether the nutrient management plan was produced by a certified nutrient management planner.
According to Feitshans, the EPA estimated that only about 20 percent of livestock and poultry operations were in compliance with the old regulations, and due to lack of funding, enforcement by the individual states has been difficult. A goal of the new Final Rule is to help streamline enforcement by extending the time for compliance over a three-year period and by simplifying the definition of a CAFO.
Nanocell Used For Molecular Logic, Memory
Nov. 4, 2003
TechWeb
By R. Colin Johnson, EE Times
© Copyright 2003 EE Times
Portland, Ore. - Integrated circuits all depend on lockstep, unerring, nanoscale accuracy in their fabrication. Now Rice University researchers have challenged that wisdom by demonstrating that molecule-sized electronic devices can be used for both logic and memory, despite being randomly wired, error-prone and inaccurately formed at the nanoscale.
"The dream of making memory and logic by programming disordered nanosized arrays via micron-sized addresses is now a reality," said Rice professor James Tour.
Tour said his work demonstrates that today's chip makers can achieve increases of two to three orders of magnitude in chip density by leveraging the lithographic tools they already have to form random-access addresses into arrays of nanoscale molecular memories. Tour recently showed the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa), which is helping to fund his research, that logic gates - not just memory - can be utilized at the nanoscale.
"We have made nonvolatile memory from these disordered arrays, addressing the nano via the micro," said Tour. "We are more recently showing [to Darpa] that indeed we can program logic into these disordered systems as well." Tour and his team performed the research along with Pennsylvania State University professor Thomas Mallouk and North Carolina State University electrical engineering professor Paul Franzon.
The problem with nanoscale devices - from carbon nanotubes to molecular switches - comes in using them after they are fabricated. Tour has fabricated a variety of molecule-sized electronic devices - from switches to memories to diodes to resistors - but like everyone else, his team had been unable to form working circuits from them. Individual components could be isolated and tested, but connecting them into circuits had remained elusive until now.
By using a search algorithm to find interconnection patterns that perform desired functions, Tour's group was able to demonstrate that his method produced nanoscale functions. His memory nanocells were shown to retain their data for more than a week without refreshing.
Tour cautioned that his work is still research, but pointed out that if only a few percent of the interconnections result in working devices, they might still lead to denser arrays than conventional micron-sized circuits.
"State-of-the-art silicon is so sophisticated that there would need to be a world of improvement and testing [of our devices] before anything commercially viable could be manufactured," Tour said.
Intel to Report A Breakthrough In Chip Design
Nov. 5, 2003
The Wall Street Journal
By Don Clark, staff writer
© Copyright 2003 The Wall Street Journal.
For years, computer experts have worried that Moore's Law, the famed observation by Intel co-founder Gordon Moore about the pace of progress in computer chips, would finally hit its limit.
But Wednesday, Intel Corp. itself plans to declare that it has removed the biggest roadblock to boosting the performance of chips over the next decade. The company claims in a technical paper that it has successfully replaced materials that have been a vital part of chips for more than 30 years. The change will help prevent electrical current from leaking inside chips, a growing problem as more circuits get packed onto the semiconductors.
Electrical leakage generates heat and consumes power. Unless addressed, the problem is widely expected to slow progress in the electronics industry. Solving it could yield products with hundreds of times the calculating power of today's computers and consumer devices.
Jack Lee, a University of Texas professor of electrical and computer engineering who is an expert in the field, characterized Intel's scientific paper as very significant. "It looks like they've solved most of the problems," he says. "It's a big boost for the high-tech community."
But Intel, out of fear of tipping off competitors too early, isn't identifying its new chip materials, which won't be placed into production until at least 2007. As a result, some rivals question Intel's claim.
Luigi Colombo, the head of similar research efforts at Texas Instruments Inc., says his company will release a paper in December showing comparable progress as Intel. He complains that Intel's paper, prepared for a technical conference in Japan, doesn't disclose enough information to allow scientists to assess its assertions. "That is kind of disconcerting from a technology point of view," he says. "It sounds almost like a marketing announcement."
Companies including Motorola Inc. and International Business Machines Corp. also are in the race to solve the electrical-leakage problem. All these efforts are designed to head off an interruption in the pace of progress observed by Mr. Moore: that the number of transistors on a chip doubles every year or two.
Transistors in chips act like switches to pass along signals and help perform calculations, effectively opening and closing when specified amounts of electricity are applied. Shrinking transistors create chips that are faster, consume less power and cost less -- the driver for more powerful computers, consumer devices and equipment for offices and factories. Intel this year introduced a chip containing 410 million transistors, and hopes to crack one billion transistors in several years.
But problems are appearing as parts of transistors shrink to thicknesses of only a few molecules. At such dimensions, a key layer of insulating material that is supposed to block the flow of electricity when a transistor is off begins to let current flow through. It's like a faucet with a bad washer. The leaky chips consume too much electrical power and generate too much heat to be practical for use.
Intel, the dominant maker of microprocessors that power personal computers, estimates that as much as 40% of the electricity consumed by its flagship Pentium 4 line of chips is wasted through leakage. Company officials have joked that chips in a few years will have the heat-generating capabilities of a nuclear power plant.
"It's a very basic problem and a very serious problem that the industry has to come to grips with," says Sunlin Chou, the senior vice president in charge of Intel's technology and manufacturing group.
Solving the problem, most experts agree, requires a wrenching shift away from a major building block for the industry -- silicon dioxide, an insulating material that attaches easily to the silicon foundation of semiconductors. Companies have been searching for new materials -- known in high-tech jargon as "high-k" materials -- that have better ability, at tiny sizes, to alternately serve as an insulator and store electrical current.
Intel, without being specific, says it has found a promising candidate for the insulating layer. Equally important, Intel says it has overcome barriers that have so far prevented the use of high-k materials, which include unpredictable shifts in voltages and slowdowns in the flow of electrons through transistors.
To do that, Intel replaced another mainstay material, polysilicon, which is now used to make the electrodes on each transistor. The company says it has developed metals -- which it also is not identifying -- to make electrodes that work well. Ken David, Intel's director of components research, says the combination of new materials has created test transistors that operate at very high speed, with one-hundredth the amount of current leakage.
"This is very, very encouraging," says Veena Misra, an associate professor of electrical and computer engineering at North Carolina State University. But Ms. Misra also was disappointed that Intel isn't disclosing the materials it is using. "It's very strange," she says.
Intel plans to gradually disclose the materials as chips using them get closer to production. "We invest a lot and we have a very talented crew," Mr. Chou says. "We don't want to just help our competitors to take advantage of our technology."
TI's Mr. Colombo suspects that Intel is using a material for insulation similar to the one used by his company, a substance called hafnium oxide. TI is experimenting with both metal and polysilicon electrodes, he adds. Motorola has discussed using metals for electrodes such as titanium nitride and tantalum silicon nitride.
Bernard Meyerson, a vice president and chief technologist in IBM's technology group, says the data in Intel's paper are based on dimensions of materials that may not exhibit all the problems that occur when circuitry shrinks. "I'm unable to tell, frankly," whether Intel's paper represents a breakthrough, he says. "There is a tremendous amount of work left to do."
Mr. Chou, Intel's influential head of production technology, stresses that the new materials are "candidates" for use in Intel's manufacturing, but the company could modify its plans. He acknowledged that he faces an internal battle convincing some superiors, such as Chairman Andy Grove, that the high-k material can be churned out in high volumes as reliably as today's chip materials.
"Andy is one of the skeptics and I don't blame him," says Mr. Chou. "He's still going to challenge us to prove it in manufacturing."