Kickstart: Waiting for Hurricane Ian

Now it's Florida's turn to hunker down for a hurricane.

After a late start to the hurricane season, Puerto Rico is still cleaning up after Hurricane Fiona. Now Hurricane Ian could potentially hit the Tampa, Fla., area as a Category 4 in the next two days, prompting cancellations and evacuations.

The International BoatBuilders' Exhibition and Conference (IBEX) announced Sept. 25 that it would cancel the event that had been slated to run Sept. 27-29 at the Tampa Convention Center. Attendees included materials suppliers and composites molders.

While the Tampa Bay area is not a major plastics processing area — Plastics News records show a handful of plants in the immediate area, including packaging blow molders and extrusion firms — weather experts are predicting Ian has the potential to be one of the worst storms on Florida's Gulf Coast for 100 years. The storm is expected to continue north along the coast through the rest of this week. More than 300,000 residents have been ordered to evacuate, including MacDill Air Force Base.

"People along Florida's west coast need to take Ian with the utmost seriousness and consult local authorities for evacuation orders that could be extended quickly based on Ian's progress," Yale Climate Connections, part of the Yale School of the Environment, warned.

Some researchers at Imperial College in London want to untether 3D printers from labs and manufacturing sites and instead connect them to small drones that will fly to dangerous or difficult-to-reach locations and print needed parts on-site.

The flying 3D printers were inspired by bees and wasps that build nests in small spots. The Imperial College team, led by Mirko Kovac, maintains the 3D printing drones could work autonomously, cooperating in production by working from a single blueprint with human supervisors checking in as needed.

According to Sarah Houlton from our sister paper Urethanes Technology International, BuilDrones would fly in and deposit material such as urethane foam and build up the parts while a set of ScanDrones would monitor the progress.

This isn't the first time that Kovac has studied the potential of autonomous 3D printing production. In 2016, he suggested that autonomous drones could fly into a region after natural disasters, scan the area and begin 3D printing emergency shelters.

Formosa Plastics Group wants to help its employees in Taiwan with the costs of raising children, announcing Sept. 26 that it would put nearly $4.4 million each year into a child subsidy program for its employees there, with parents receiving the equivalent of nearly $63 a month for each child age 6 and younger. Parents will also receive about $630 when a child is born.

Previously, Formosa provided subsidies for children age 3 and younger.

Formosa isn't the only manufacturer providing child subsidies. Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., better known as Foxconn, began paying subsidies to employees with children at its Taiwan operations.

Private companies are responding to a national issue in Taiwan, according to Focus Taiwan.

Taiwan's public policy agency the National Development Council, warned in 2021 that Taiwan's low birth rate — 1.07 births per woman, below the rate of 2.1 births per woman needed to maintain the country's population — could result in Taiwan becoming "superaged" by 2025 with more than 20 percent of its population over 65 years old.