UK Only Article: 
standard article

Issue: 

The Great Fall of China

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Nuclear waste

Rubric: 

The next president will have to decide what to do about radioactive waste

Location: 

SURRY, VIRGINIA

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AFTER the baking heat of a Virginia summer, the spent fuel pool at Surry Nuclear Power station, which sits on the James river in the south-east of the state, looks almost worth jumping into. That would be unwise. Some 25 feet below the surface of the clear blue water, the tops of radioactive fuel assemblies glisten. Every 18 months a new load of spent fuel—uranium pellets encased in zirconium—is removed from the power station’s two reactors and put into the pool, which absorbs the excess heat and some of the most dangerous (and short-lived) radiation. There it sits for five years, before being moved outside into concrete containers which look like huge washing machines.
But what then? Since the …
Source: Utilities
Nuclear waste: Faff and fallout

UK Only Article: 
standard article

Issue: 

Editing humanity

Fly Title: 

The motor trade

Rubric: 

No one much likes car dealers. But changing the system will be hard

Main image: 

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THE internet was supposed to do away with all sorts of middlemen. Yet house sales are mostly conducted by estate agents, and car sales are still finalised in cavernous showrooms that smell of tyres. Technology is diminishing the role of car dealers, however. Customers are using the internet for much of the process of choosing a new car, and are increasingly getting loans and insurance online rather than buying them from the dealer who sells them their car. Some carmakers are seeking ways to bypass dealers too.
In the motor industry’s early days, a century ago, manufacturers tried selling their vehicles at the factory gate, in shops they owned themselves, by mail order and through travelling salesmen. But eventually they settled on a system of franchising, in which independent dealers mostly sell just …
Source: Retailing
The motor trade: Death of a car salesman

UK Only Article: 
UK article only

Issue: 

Xi’s history lessons

Fly Title: 

Petrol stations

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Though plenty of gas is being guzzled, filling stations have become scarcer

ON A street in London’s East End, among art galleries and upmarket gyms, lies what looks like a filling station. Yet beneath its rickety forecourt roof, the pumps have been replaced by vendors offering a range of faddish foods, including Japanese hot dogs and fish-finger sandwiches devised by a celebrity chef. One thing not on the menu is petrol. The firm that used to run the filling station left the site in 2013; the space is now home to businesses that sell food rather than fuel.
This is a familiar tale. Although combined petrol and diesel consumption has grown by over 75% since 1970, the number of petrol stations has fallen by nearly 80% (see chart). The decline has been especially steep in cities. London has nearly half as many petrol stations per car as the Scottish Highlands; only four remain within the central congestion-charge zone.

The collapse came in two waves. Between the peak in …
Source: Retailing
Petrol stations: Running on empty

UK Only Article: 
standard article

Issue: 

Xi’s history lessons

Fly Title: 

Alibaba

Rubric: 

The Chinese online giant is looking for new sources of growth

Location: 

SHANGHAI

“IN FIVE years, we will sell one trillion dollars.” That is the bet that Jack Ma, the chairman of Alibaba, made with American businessmen on a recent trip to Chicago. The Chinese firm is already the world’s biggest e-commerce outfit. But now Mr Ma thinks he can more than double the volume of sales on his firm’s online-sales platforms by 2020.
First, he must win over investors. The firm’s shares have fallen sharply from their peak of 9 late last year, though at around they remain above the price at which they (or rather, shares in a “variable interest entity” linked to Alibaba, and registered in the Cayman Islands) were floated last September. On August 12th Alibaba unveiled its latest results. Its quarterly revenues grew by 28% year on year to 20.2 billion yuan (.3 billion), and profits rose by 23% to 10.6 billion …
Source: Retailing
Alibaba: Clicks to bricks

UK Only Article: 
standard article

Issue: 

Time to fix patents

Fly Title: 

Climate change and the president

Rubric: 

New rules to curb emissions from power plants are not as bold as they seem

Main image: 

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“I AM convinced that no challenge poses a greater threat to our future, to future generations, than a changing climate,” declared Barack Obama on August 3rd. The president’s announcement of America’s first national standards to limit carbon-dioxide emissions from power plants had to be moved indoors to escape the sweltering weather. The response from Mr Obama’s political opponents was even hotter. Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority leader, described the new rules as, “a triumph of ideology over sound policy and honest compassion”. He encouraged states to ignore them. In political terms, Mr Obama’s new rules are momentous. As far as their likely impact on the climate or on America’s energy sector are concerned, they are more modest than the claims made by either side would …
Source: Utilities
Climate change and the president: Hotter than August