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Post by sigurdur on Aug 1, 2011 3:49:38 GMT
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Post by curiousgeorge on Aug 1, 2011 12:40:28 GMT
I saw that story when it came out. It is nice.
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Post by stranger on Aug 2, 2011 0:57:55 GMT
The major difference between the US and European public transport is due to our housing preference. When I came from, most American cities were like European cities are now. Most of my European friends live in rented flats no more than 200 Meters from public transport. Once you pass the last apartment house you are no longer in the city.
Here, the people generally live in subdivisions with freestanding houses on substantial lots - many built on long dead end streets. It is not practical to provide public transportation when you might drive an hour and pick up three passengers. When we have public transport it tends to stick to major trafficways, with parking lots for those who must make a several kilometer drive to get to an entry point.
While both sets of preferences have their advantages and disadvantages, I suspect that sooner or later some country is going to start tossing bombs. In that event dispersed subdivisions would probably be preferable to a compact target.
Stranger
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Post by curiousgeorge on Aug 2, 2011 1:09:22 GMT
The major difference ..................................... While both sets of preferences have their advantages and disadvantages, I suspect that sooner or later some country is going to start tossing bombs. In that event dispersed subdivisions would probably be preferable to a compact target. Stranger That's an interesting take on it. ;D Hadn't thought of that, but it does make some kind of macabre sense.
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Post by curiousgeorge on Aug 5, 2011 21:55:16 GMT
The money is drying up faster than a pond in Death Valley. Some firms are still trying to pump water from a dry hole tho: news.cnet.com/8301-11128_3-20088815-54/green-tech-venture-investing-looks-for-a-reboot/
The amount of venture capital put into green-tech companies plummeted in the second quarter amid talk of investors leaving the sector and the need for start-ups to rework their financing plans.
Ernst & Young earlier this week released the latest venture capital investment dollars, which showed a 44 percent decline compared to the same period last year. Although analysts warned against reading too much into it, the down quarter reflects the growing interest in Internet investing and a choppy environment for green-tech companies to get venture capital to grow.
Solar remains the biggest segment and a big investment in electric vehicle maker Fisker Automotive pushed transportation into the second-largest segment. There's a growing push among venture investors toward efficiency, the third-largest category, because they typically require less capital. Hara Software, for example, raised $25 million.
Despite the drop, Ernst & Young said that the overall investment in the clean-tech category remains solid. Because energy and transportation-related companies require so much capital, one or two deals within a quarter can skew quarterly numbers, noted Jay Spencer, Ernst & Young's director of clean tech for the Americas. The second quarter this year was higher than first, he added Read more: news.cnet.com/8301-11128_3-20088815-54/green-tech-venture-investing-looks-for-a-reboot/#ixzz1UC5Vc52i
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Post by curiousgeorge on Aug 7, 2011 17:53:41 GMT
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Post by curiousgeorge on Aug 9, 2011 22:59:03 GMT
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Post by curiousgeorge on Aug 15, 2011 22:43:30 GMT
And another one bites the dust. This one was one of Obama's green pets. www.bostonherald.com/business/technology/general/view.bg?articleid=1358998&pos=breakingEvergreen Solar Inc., the Massachusetts clean-energy company that received millions in state subsidies from the Patrick administration for an ill-fated Bay State factory, has filed for bankruptcy, listing $485.6 million in debt.
Evergreen, which closed its taxpayer-supported Devens factory in March and cut 800 jobs, has been trying to rework its debt for months. The cash-strapped company announced today has sought a reorganization in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Delaware and reached a deal with certain note holders to restructure its debt and auction off assets.
The Massachusetts Republican Party called the Patrick administration’s $58 million financial aid package, which supported Evergreen’s $450 million factory, a “waste” of money.
“The bankruptcy of Evergreen Solar is another sad event for the Massachusetts company and highlights the folly of the Patrick-Murray Administration which has put government subsidies into their pet projects instead of offering broad based relief to all Bay State employers,” said Jennifer Nassour, head of the state GOP.
Shares of Evergreen, which are in danger of delisting from the Nasdaq Stock Market, plunged 57 percent today to 18 cents. The company launched in 1994 and went public in 2000.
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Post by curiousgeorge on Aug 15, 2011 23:24:01 GMT
The Bites are coming hot and heavy lately. Here's another one that just bit the dust: The car of the future just got pushed further into it. Would-be California automaker Aptera has announced that it is returning all of the deposits it currently holds for its two-seat, three-wheel electric car.
According to GreenCarReports.com, the company sent out a note on August 12th to the people who had placed reservations for the Aptera 2e that reads "...as you know, our path to production has been longer than anticipated, which has complicated our reservation administration to the point that we have decided to return your deposit."
The move comes a month after the company stopped taking new reservations and is the result, according to the company, to a credit card processing system that only works over a six-month period and not the cancellation of the project outright.
Instead, reservation holders' names will be added to a "VIP database" which will keep them up to date on the progress of the development of the revolutionary vehicle, which is touted to have the equivalent fuel economy of a gasoline-powered car that gets 200 mpg. For comparison, a Nissan Leaf is rated at 99 mpge.
Read more: www.foxnews.com/leisure/2011/08/15/visionary-electric-carmaker-returns-all-reservation-deposits/#ixzz1V8ufc8AG
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Post by magellan on Aug 16, 2011 0:01:47 GMT
The Bites are coming hot and heavy lately. Here's another one that just bit the dust: The car of the future just got pushed further into it. Would-be California automaker Aptera has announced that it is returning all of the deposits it currently holds for its two-seat, three-wheel electric car.
According to GreenCarReports.com, the company sent out a note on August 12th to the people who had placed reservations for the Aptera 2e that reads "...as you know, our path to production has been longer than anticipated, which has complicated our reservation administration to the point that we have decided to return your deposit."
The move comes a month after the company stopped taking new reservations and is the result, according to the company, to a credit card processing system that only works over a six-month period and not the cancellation of the project outright.
Instead, reservation holders' names will be added to a "VIP database" which will keep them up to date on the progress of the development of the revolutionary vehicle, which is touted to have the equivalent fuel economy of a gasoline-powered car that gets 200 mpg. For comparison, a Nissan Leaf is rated at 99 mpge.
Read more: www.foxnews.com/leisure/2011/08/15/visionary-electric-carmaker-returns-all-reservation-deposits/#ixzz1V8ufc8AG
a Nissan Leaf is rated at 99 mpge www.telegraph.co.uk/motoring/news/8674273/Electric-car-owners-may-face-19000-battery-charge.htmlDixie cups.
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Post by trbixler on Aug 16, 2011 1:51:26 GMT
The Bites are coming hot and heavy lately. Here's another one that just bit the dust: The car of the future just got pushed further into it. Would-be California automaker Aptera has announced that it is returning all of the deposits it currently holds for its two-seat, three-wheel electric car.
According to GreenCarReports.com, the company sent out a note on August 12th to the people who had placed reservations for the Aptera 2e that reads "...as you know, our path to production has been longer than anticipated, which has complicated our reservation administration to the point that we have decided to return your deposit."
The move comes a month after the company stopped taking new reservations and is the result, according to the company, to a credit card processing system that only works over a six-month period and not the cancellation of the project outright.
Instead, reservation holders' names will be added to a "VIP database" which will keep them up to date on the progress of the development of the revolutionary vehicle, which is touted to have the equivalent fuel economy of a gasoline-powered car that gets 200 mpg. For comparison, a Nissan Leaf is rated at 99 mpge.
Read more: www.foxnews.com/leisure/2011/08/15/visionary-electric-carmaker-returns-all-reservation-deposits/#ixzz1V8ufc8AG
a Nissan Leaf is rated at 99 mpge www.telegraph.co.uk/motoring/news/8674273/Electric-car-owners-may-face-19000-battery-charge.htmlDixie cups. From the article "Andy Palmer, Nissan GB’s senior vice-president, told the paper that the lithium ion battery is made up of 48 modules. He said that each would cost £404 to replace, making £19,392 for the entire battery pack. He said that most owners would not need a new battery for at least ten years because electric vehicles should mainly be used for short journeys. "Really! Maybe its because they cannot go on a long journey at all.
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Post by curiousgeorge on Aug 16, 2011 2:09:30 GMT
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Post by commonsense on Aug 16, 2011 5:23:50 GMT
From the article "Andy Palmer, Nissan GB’s senior vice-president, told the paper that the lithium ion battery is made up of 48 modules. He said that each would cost £404 to replace, making £19,392 for the entire battery pack. He said that most owners would not need a new battery for at least ten years because electric vehicles should mainly be used for short journeys. "Really! Maybe its because they cannot go on a long journey at all. Hopefully, by the time a new battery is needed, the price will drop by about half. That's still a hundred pounds a month. I think gasoline is going to have to get significantly more expensive for electric cars to make sense. I've been driving Priuses for the last decade, and they make more sense to me. They have astounding resale value, so their cost per kilometer is probably the lowest of any vehicle on the market. Plus, they are quite large compared to other 45+ mpg chariots.
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Post by trbixler on Aug 16, 2011 21:24:23 GMT
Well I drive a 1974 Scout. Not very green but a heck of a lot of fun. Of course I live about 4 miles from work. Made that decision around 40 years ago. Mr. Green at work in Seattle. "Seattle's 'green jobs' program a bust" "Last year, Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn announced the city had won a coveted $20 million federal grant to invest in weatherization. The unglamorous work of insulating crawl spaces and attics had emerged as a silver bullet in a bleak economy – able to create jobs and shrink carbon footprint – and the announcement came with great fanfare. McGinn had joined Vice President Joe Biden in the White House to make it. It came on the eve of Earth Day. It had heady goals: creating 2,000 living-wage jobs in Seattle and retrofitting 2,000 homes in poorer neighborhoods. But more than a year later, Seattle's numbers are lackluster. As of last week, only three homes had been retrofitted and just 14 new jobs have emerged from the program."www.komonews.com/news/local/127844048.html
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Post by curiousgeorge on Aug 16, 2011 21:56:06 GMT
Well I drive a 1974 Scout. Not very green but a heck of a lot of fun. Of course I live about 4 miles from work. Made that decision around 40 years ago. Mr. Green at work in Seattle. "Seattle's 'green jobs' program a bust" "Last year, Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn announced the city had won a coveted $20 million federal grant to invest in weatherization. The unglamorous work of insulating crawl spaces and attics had emerged as a silver bullet in a bleak economy – able to create jobs and shrink carbon footprint – and the announcement came with great fanfare. McGinn had joined Vice President Joe Biden in the White House to make it. It came on the eve of Earth Day. It had heady goals: creating 2,000 living-wage jobs in Seattle and retrofitting 2,000 homes in poorer neighborhoods. But more than a year later, Seattle's numbers are lackluster. As of last week, only three homes had been retrofitted and just 14 new jobs have emerged from the program."www.komonews.com/news/local/127844048.htmlThey have created a lot of excuses and meetings tho, from what the article said.
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