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Rochester, N.Y., was once the imaging capital of the world, home to Kodak, Xerox and the eye care company, Bausch + Lomb.

Led by these companies, the manufacturing sector once employed 60 percent of Rochester's workforce. Now, that's less than 10 percent. And so, like many cities in this country, Rochester is trying to build something new from its manufacturing heritage.

If you want to understand the story of Rochester, says historian Carolyn Vacca, you need to come to High Falls, where from a bridge visitors see a waterfall and a panoramic view of downtown.

"We are in the heart of what was the center of Rochester, historically, and is still, somewhat, today," she says.

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Part of the appeal to settlers was what she calls the "good dirt" around the Genesee River. "When Revolutionary soldiers came through the area they were coming from New England, where the dirt basically was good for holding rocks together at that point. And here, the soil is so fertile, so they immediately recognized the value of that and went home and told people there's a place we can get land where you can be a successful farmer," she says.

Farmers used the good Rochester dirt to grow grain. They needed somewhere to sell it, and that spawned flour mills — so many, in fact, that Rochester became known as Flour City. That legacy faded, though. The old mills along the river closed down — but the manufacturing seed had been planted. Eastman Kodak grew out of that.

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The Genesee River's High Falls are at the center of Rochester's history of manufacturing. Mills, and later Kodak, sprang up around it. Mike Bradley for NPR hide caption

itoggle caption Mike Bradley for NPR

The Genesee River's High Falls are at the center of Rochester's history of manufacturing. Mills, and later Kodak, sprang up around it.

Mike Bradley for NPR

For decades Rochester was Kodak.

At its peak in the 1980s, Kodak employed 60,000 people in the city. Today, it's just 2,300. It's been a painful collapse. And once again, in 2014, Rochester is trying to use its fertile soil to grow something new.

"Nobody ever wants to let go, obviously, not of something like Kodak that not only was so dominant, but had such a quality brand name. But, recognizing that we have to, we've moved on and created new things — new prospects for the future, building on what we had in the past," Vacca says.

'Just Gut Feel'

There are former Kodak employees at work in new places — like Exelis, which makes parts that may be in the Thirty Meter Telescope, one of the largest. When complete, it will peer out beyond the Milky Way, to the edge of the observable universe — 13 billion light-years away.

Mike Ognenovski, who is now with Exelis, worked at Kodak for 27 years, and sees parallels between the two companies. For example, Exelis uses polishers on its glass to make lenses, machines similar to ones used at Kodak on its camera lenses.

"The tradition is there. It just has another name. Now we're called Exelis," Ognenovski says. "The Kodak heritage technology that was there, that is essentially in the bedrock of what Kodak stood for back when George Eastman built it, is still there."

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Exelis is housed in a former warehouse and repair facility for Eastman Kodak.

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The Exelis factory has more than 16,000 square feet, but only 80 people work here.

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A magnetorheological finishing machine, used to finish high-quality optics.

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An employee works in a clean room at Exelis. Mike Ognenovski, the company's vice president of operations, says he wants to make the work here "more of a science versus an art."

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The preparation area for a clean room. Employees change into suits to control contamination.

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That said, this picture is far from perfect. You look at this factory: making incredible things with machines both old and new, but there's almost no one here. The factory has more than 16,000 square feet, but only 80 people work here.

"You look at the folks that are on this floor right now working, they're highly skilled, and what we want to do is make the work more of a science versus an art. Where optics in the past traditionally tends to be more art and that's where the optician came in," Ognenovski says. "So that means a lot of years of experience, a lot of manual labor, touching and feeling and just gut feel."

Gut feel. Touching things. Making things with your hands. That was American manufacturing.

Where Is The Blue Collar?

Now, it's less art, more science. And this is exactly the challenge today. Even when a place like Rochester seems to be figuring it out, this deeper problem remains. There are very few jobs for the blue-collar worker.

It's a conundrum Nabil Nasr thinks about every day. He's the associate provost and director of the Golisano Institute for Sustainability at the Rochester Institute of Technology.

Among his many duties, Nasr's work seeks to help manufacturers remain competitive globally, and he thinks a lot about the future of manufacturing.

"Manufacturing today is not what it used to be. In the past, for example, Kodak used to make very sophisticated, high-precision lenses in a very primitive process that was very time-consuming," Nasr says. "Today, we're making very sophisticated computerized equipment that can make some of these lenses in a fraction of the time they used to spend in making those lenses before."

That takes skill. And there are RIT students training for the kinds of jobs they have at Exelis. But that still leaves the question: Where is the blue-collar worker today? What options are there for them?

"This is a serious issue, and I think there are a lot of people left out of the manufacturing sector, and there are a lot of barriers," Nasr says.

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As associate provost and director of the Golisano Institute for Sustainability at the Rochester Institute of Technology, Nabil Nasr thinks a lot about the future of manufacturing. Mike Bradley for NPR hide caption

itoggle caption Mike Bradley for NPR

As associate provost and director of the Golisano Institute for Sustainability at the Rochester Institute of Technology, Nabil Nasr thinks a lot about the future of manufacturing.

Mike Bradley for NPR

There are high-paying openings, he says, but not everyone is qualified for them because they require expertise and education. "They really want to get these jobs but they aren't able to because it would take them a long time to get there, and they're not able or willing to actually spend that time to get there," Nasr says.

The U.S. leads the way in many types of research and technology, but as we've heard about for years now, new technology means fewer jobs. And when workers are needed, companies can find them cheaper abroad. So, what does all this mean for the U.S.? Where does the modern factory fit into American life? Nasr says policymakers, big companies and communities have to come up with a plan.

"Manufacturing is so critical. I serve on an advisory board in Singapore. They want to take the best knowledge they can get to provide them with advice," he says. "Obviously, it's a small country but it's just phenomenal to see the will and the desire to make things happen and the metrics they develop, and the partnership between the government and industry, and of course they have a strong industrial policy."

Singapore is just one country in a global race. We'll be hearing in the coming weeks how the U.S. is cultivating its manufacturing sector to make sure it stays competitive.

Rochester

Kodak

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The price of oil has been falling — a drop that you may already have noticed at the pump. Gasoline prices have dropped noticeably since June, and oil is now well below $100 a barrel.

Notes

Monthly Europe Brent spot price

Source: Energy Information Administration

Credit: NPR

That decline has happened even as conflicts have flared in or near oil-producing regions. Normally, oil prices are expected to spike higher amid turmoil — so why have they been trending lower?

The global price did rise to just under $112 a barrel in June, when ISIS first swept into northern Iraq. But the price of crude has trended down since then — despite the U.S. decision to enter that fight, despite the conflict in Ukraine and despite sanctions levied against Russia, one of the world's largest oil producers, for its role there.

Then there's the fight between Islamist militants and the government in Libya, a significant oil producer.

So why, then, are petroleum prices falling?

"There are two factors to keep in mind," says Robin West, a senior adviser at IHS Global Insight. "One is supply, and one is demand."

It really is as basic as that, West says. "Frankly, the global economy is slow. Demand is low, and so there's very little growth in demand. And so, supply is strong, and demand is fairly weak."

The International Energy Agency made that point last week, when it said a weaker economic outlook in China and Europe is causing a remarkable slowdown in global demand growth. And demand is declining, West says, as global supplies surge due to the energy boom in North America — including shale oil production from North Dakota and Texas.

"There's another 3 billion barrels a day that's coming into the market and staying in the market," he says. "This has really changed the global supply-demand balance very substantially" — and helped bring more stability to the market.

Michael Levi, senior fellow for energy and the environment at the Council on Foreign Relations, says it is true that a surge in North American production has added significantly to global supplies. But he doesn't believe it is responsible for the decline in oil prices of the past three months.

"I think the U.S. oil boom has helped stabilize prices over the last few years, but that's because it's been a surprise," Levi says. "And it no longer is a surprise. And that leads me to conclude that people are expecting too much from it, in terms of stabilizing oil prices in the future."

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Levi says the added production from North America has lulled market participants into believing they're in an era of stability.

"I think there is excessive complacency in the ability of the global oil market to absorb disruptions that we haven't seen yet," he says.

There are good reasons the current conflicts haven't pressured prices higher, Levi says. Syria's production is minimal, Libya's has been impaired for some time, and sanctions against Russia would hurt production in the future — not current production.

"On the flip side, no one expects Vladimir Putin to cut his own oil exports in order to inflict harm, because he can't sustain his spending, his state, his budget, without the revenues from oil sales," Levi notes.

Fadel Gheit, managing partner and head of oil and gas research at Oppenheimer & Co., says oil prices will still spike higher when severe disruptions occur. But he thinks global supply will continue to grow and keep prices in check.

He predicts that will happen as fracking technology improves, reducing the costs of production.

"The break-even point continues to decline. Yes, we needed $80 [per barrel] oil for the North Dakota Bakken oil development to continue," he says. "Now, it's about $65. Five years from now, it could be $50, or even $40."

Gheit argues that will lead to a long-term decline in the price of oil — a decline that we're already beginning to see.

oil prices

Have you ever heard a cheerleading squad do one of those call-and-response bits where they say, "Seniors yell it!", and then the seniors yell, "Fight! Fight", and then they say, "Juniors yell it!", and so forth? Top Chef brand extensions are kind of like that: All-Stars yell it! Dessert chefs yell it! Veterans yell it! Healthy chefs yell it! Former contestants yell it!

Top Chef has become the Real World/Road Rules of food, where if you play your cards right (and/or act like an utter buffoon), your initial appearance can lead to not only other Top Chef stuff, but other food things on other food networks — like, for example, Food Network.

And now, they've introduced another incarnation, Top Chef Duels. This one will take past contestants and set them against each other in full, hour-long battles made up of several challenges. The premiere, which airs on Bravo Wednesday night, pits molecular gastronomists Marcel Vigneron and Richard Blais against each other. Marcel was originally on Top Chef in 2006 and Richard in 2008, so they've been at this for a while. They've both done All-Stars, they've both done other stuff — they both even had their own shows briefly.

The show does its best to drag out the "Marcel is a little brat" angle that they were working eight years ago, but it's pretty stale at this point. (By the way, I once was at an event where Marcel served liquid nitrogen-frozen popcorn balls. They tasted like ... frozen popcorn, although they did cause me to exhale dragon smoke, which I guess was the point?) They try to scrape the bowl, as it were, for the last few teaspoons of hostility between the two, the better to create the kind of sniping of which many of us have grown tired.

The problem, as is the case with many similar projects, is that at one point, Richard mentions that Marcel texted him the night before, calling him "Grandpa." So, you know. They're texting each other the night before the competition, meaning they've pretty fully transformed themselves from actual prickly competitors (which many people on Old Original Top Chef pretty clearly are) to old hands at giving this particular production what it needs.

Thus, the attempt at personal drama is a flop from the start, leaving us with the actual cooking. At first, it's pretty flat: it's hard in a world of Chopped and especially Cutthroat Kitchen to make up cooking challenges that seem fresh. But late in Top Chef Duels, they do find some interesting angles with blindfolds and so on that serve as good reminders that these folks are, in fact, pretty inventive and good at what they do. (There is also a moment when Gail Simmons seems either spiritually or actually tipsy, and all Top Chef incarnations are better when the judges are — again, either in fact or in effect — boozing.)

So is this really necessary? No. No, it is not. But if you want to see a guy make fruit out of livers, this is the brand extension for you.

A few months back, Sen. Ron Wyden, a Democrat from Oregon, brought a bill to the floor that basically offered tax incentives to businesses and individuals. Those incentives are called tax extenders.

They include big stuff and small stuff — tax breaks for wind farms, tax breaks for schoolteachers who buy their own supplies. Tax breaks for rum producers in Puerto Rico, people who make movies, race track owners, even some breaks for people who bike to work. In other words, something for every lawmaker to take home.

This should have been a slam dunk. And at first, it was. Ninety-six senators gathered in the chamber shortly after Wyden's speech, and all voted in favor of moving the bill forward. But two days later, this bill, with 96 out of 100 supporters, was stopped cold. To anyone watching, it might have looked like some special kind of insanity.

But Howard Gleckman, a senior fellow with the tax policy center at the Urban Institute, says look closer.

"This is all fairly well planned," he says. "This isn't World War I, where we kind of accidentally stumbled into a catastrophe."

He says he does understand how frustrating it is for Americans to watch this process: "It's either frustrating or amusing. If you actually watch this on C-Span and you don't get the joke, it has to be very frustrating."

That leads to things like a rally outside the Capitol on a recent afternoon of Republicans who were upset with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid for not bringing House bills to a vote.

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