Solar car crossing the great plains

Waterloo’s Midnight Sun solar car should be rolling north through Nebraska this morning, three days into the 3,800-kilometre North American Solar Challenge race.

The UW car is currently running in third place in the challenge, which involves 24 student-built cars from universities in the United States, Canada, England, France and Germany. They started from Plano, Texas, on Sunday and are expected to cross the international border next weekend and roll into Calgary July 22.

The UW car that’s making the trip is Midnight Sun IX, pictured at left near the starting line of last fall’s World Solar Challenge in Darwin, Australia. It’s the latest in a series of UW-built cars that have entered a series of solar races since 1990, including the American Solar Challenge 2005, in which Midnight Sun VIII placed fifth.

It took “late nights and hard work” for the team to pass the qualifying tests in Plano last weekend, the Midnight Sun web site reports. “Mechanically small adjustments are being made with the steering and brakes. We are also increasing the number of solar cells on the car while still meeting the NASC regulations.”

Safety is the top priority for cars in a solar race, say the Solar Challenge organizers: “Teams that fail to meet the requirements will not participate. During the event, each team is escorted by lead and chase vehicles sporting rooftop hazard flashers.” The cars are required to observe speed limits as they travel — today heading north on US route 75 through Nebraska and South Dakota.

Solar Challenge organizers describe the vehicles in their race as “futuristic cars that won’t consume a single drop of gasoline, or any other fossil or carbon-based fuel for that matter. They will run on energy produced by the world’s most reliable and sustainable nuclear fusion reactor — the sun.

“On the equivalent power of that consumed by a hairdryer, the student drivers will drive at highway speeds to attain the lowest cumulative time to Calgary. Many of the teams rely on an intriguing mix of Space Shuttle technologies and seat-of-the-pants college fortitude.

“The event, sponsored by Toyota and Crowder College MARET Center, also benefits from a strong sense of purpose. It promotes environmentally friendly renewable energy and electric vehicle technology and fosters educational and engineering excellence.”

The University of Michigan’s car, Continuum, was in first place when the cars reached their first stage stop at Neosho, Missouri, on Monday, the Joplin Globe reported. Today's journey is from Omaha to Sioux Falls.

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Quality of life . . . pre-enrolment . . .

Two local foundations are looking for people to help with “an annual check-up that measures the vitality of our region” and “assigns grades in 11 key areas critical to Waterloo Region’s quality of life”. The project, sponsored by the Kitchener and Waterloo Community Foundation and the Cambridge and North Dumfries Community Foundation, is dubbed Waterloo Region's Vital Signs, and in part is a follow-up to the “Knowledge Capital of Canada” effort introduced by UW president David Johnston in 2006. It works with the help of “community graders”, and the foundations are currently looking for such people to submit ratings on key areas: Arts and Culture, Belonging and Leadership, Environment, Gap Between the Rich and Poor, Getting Around, Getting Started in Our Community, Health and Wellness, Housing, Learning, Safety, and Work. Their online survey, launched this week, “identifies some significant indicators we’ve researched in the above key areas.” According to the foundations, “the more graders the merrier, so please forward this message and link to your colleagues, business associates and members of your organization.”

Monday afternoon’s photo session down by Laurel Creek was a merry event, I hear, and not only because the creek is high after last Friday’s record rainstorm. The idea was to take a group photo of UW researchers in the broad field of water, assembled on or around one of the bridges. Kelley Teahen of Communications and Public Affairs, who was organizing the project along with photographer Simon Wilson, circulated four clipboards to get the attendance, and says a total of 110 people were on hand. They represented five of the six faculties and still added up to fewer than half of all the people at UW doing water research of some kind. Most of them fit onto the bridge itself, although three got right down into the creek with the benefit of hip-waders. Look for the resulting photo in the fall issue of the UW Magazine, which will have cover story by Pat Bow, also of CPA, surveying who’s into water at Waterloo.

The Ontario government “has appointed an expert panel on fertility treatment and adoption to help find solutions for people who are trying to start or expand a family,” a news release announces, adding that UW president David Johnston will chair the group. It “will recommend ways to help make both fertility treatment and adoption more accessible and affordable. The 12-member panel will provide advice to the government on improving access to infertility treatment and making fertility monitoring available to women so they know if they are likely to have problems conceiving a child; improving Ontario's adoption system so that more children can become part of families more quickly.” Panel members “include adoptive parents, people who have had personal experience with infertility, and representatives from the medical and adoption communities. The panel is expected to report back to the Minister of Children and Youth Services with its recommendations within a year.” It quotes Johnston: "I look forward to working with my panel colleagues on this truly inspiring initiative. I believe that together, we can make a difference in the lives of Ontarians wishing to create families." Johnston is expected to spend one day a month in Toronto as the task force does its work.

“Approximately 23,000 students” received a blast e-mail on Friday, the registrar’s office says, inviting their comments on a recent change to procedures: “In an effort to improve our service and better plan our course offerings, the University introduced the pre-enrollment program in October 2007. Please let us know what you thought about this process by filing out the following short survey. Your feedback is valuable as we move forward with future service changes.”

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You can’t get into the Dana Porter Library through the big front doors this summer — a temporary entrance is in place on the side of the building facing Needles Hall, as the main (second) floor undergoes major renovations. “Construction has started on the ceiling,” says the latest report on the library’s web site, posted Monday.

. . . salary equity . . . issues of biofuel

When negotiators for UW and the Faculty Association reached an agreement last February about faculty salary increases for 2008 and 2009, one of its provisions was that UW’s provost and the association president would establish a “working group” to examine salary equity issues for women faculty members. Its members have now been named: Jean Andrey of geography and environmental management, Jock MacKay of statistics and actuarial science, associate provost Bruce Mitchell, Catherine Schryer of English and the Centre for Teaching Excellence, Mary Thompson of statistics and actuarial science, and Mary Soulis of institutional analysis and planning as a resource person. The working group “will determine, by an appropriate method of its own choosing, if faculty salary inequities exist related to gender, and, where inequities are found for women faculty members, to recommend how such situations should be resolved. The working group also will address possible structural or process problems contributing to these inequities.” It’s to report by February 1, 2009. “The expectation is that identified structural and process problems will then be examined by the Faculty Relations Committee.” Inquiries and input can be directed to the group through Shannon Wagner, administrative assistant for the associate provost (academic and student affairs), e-mail slwagner@admmail or phone ext. 38562, or to any member of the working group.

Deaths of several former UW staff members have been reported. Margarita Neumann, who was an assistant cataloguer in the library from February 1971 to her retirement in July 2001, died June 24. Wanda Kliwer, a food services assistant from September 1971 to her retirement in August 1992, died June 18. Bonnie Kenyon, who worked at the food services outlet in Matthews Hall from September 1988 to her retirement in November 2005, died June 18.

Where the issues of oil prices and food supply meet lies the “timely and complex issue” of biofuels, say the editors of the UW-based Alternatives Journal, who are inviting “thoughtful and critical articles” on the subject. They’re looking for writers who will “go beyond the media hype to look at trends in the global rise of biofuels, the multi-layered environmental and social impacts — both positive and negative — of this rise, and the future potential for bioenergy. Proposal topics include, but are not limited to, the potential for new energy pathways for biofuels; the political influences and realities of biofuel policy in Canada, the US and around the world; a regional analysis of the rationale for biofuels that considers where in the world biofuel production can be justified on socioeconomic and environmental terms.” The magazine boasts that it “combines the learned rigour of an academic journal with the breezy style of a magazine. We aim to publish the best environmental writing in the country.” Queries for the biofuels issue are due by August 4: e-mail editor@alternativesjournal.ca.

Finally, a correction to yesterday's Daily Bulletin: I wrote that Mary Louise McAllister was a faculty member in the school of planning, but in fact she's in the department of environment and resource studies.

CAR

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