On March 6, I posted that in light of new research, I was raising the lower limit of my single-dose B12 supplement recommendations from 10 µg to 25 µg. This was an extrapolation, but I just came across some new research to reinforce this change. A study from India shows that 10 µg of B12 in one single dose per day was not enough to lower homocysteine to ideal levels.
Thanks, Tom!
Dr. Drew has reportedly talked someone into joining Tila Tequila on the next season of Celebrity Rehab — which is teetering dangerously close to being cancelled by VH1 after a series of casting mishaps. Word is Lauren Conrad’s ex-flame, former reality rich Jason Wahler, is the newest addition to the fourth season of the addiction-themed docu-soap. Wahler has had a number of run-ins with the law since bidding farewell to his Laguna Beach days, including collars for assault and drunk driving.
We have all seen it…
Distracted drivers swerving, veering over the yellow line with a cell phone held to the ear or fingers tapping out a text message.
It’s something we may see even more of this Memorial Day weekend as 32 million drivers take to America’s roads.
While many drivers will admit they’ve done it themselves, the consequences of driving while distracted can be deadly. Thousands of people are killed each year due to multitasking behind the wheel.
Now a new, high-tech driving simulator is proving just how dangerous it is to drive when your focus is elsewhere.
Created for the Arbella Insurance Group by engineers at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst under the direction of Dr. Donald Fisher the program, dubbed Distractology 101, is on a public tour aiming to teach young drivers the risks of driving while distracted.
“We started to notice a very alarming trend coming out of our claims data. We’re one of the larger automobile insurance companies in America so we have a lot of claims,” said John Donohue, the Arbella Insurance Group’s CEO and chairman.
“We started seeing accidents where bad weather wasn’t involved, alcohol wasn’t involved, but young people were getting into very serious accidents. As we looked into it we realized it was coming from what we called distracted driving.”
The simulator travels in a massive, neon-yellow trailer and works like a giant video game, putting participants behind the wheel and running them through a variety of possible real-life scenarios.
It shows what can happen if you come around a blind curve with your attention momentarily diverted- CRASH! A simulated fender-bender is the result.
“It does kinda make you think about stuff that you wouldn’t normally think about like seeing around corners and stuff,” said Billy Richman of Taunton, Massachusetts, one of the first of thousands of teenagers the Arbella Insurance Group hopes to put through Distractology 101.
The course even has it’s own lingo with buzzwords like-
Textident: An accident while texting
Smerging: Swerving while merging
Sender Bender: A collision caused by a text message being sent before impact
“What we really try to get across is the consequences. Maybe you’re right nine times out of ten, but that tenth time you’re not, you’re not only going to hurt yourself- you might hurt a lot of other people,” said Donohue.
According to the National Highway Safety Administration 6,000 people died and a half million were injured in accidents involving a distracted driver in 2008.
For more information or to see where the simulator is heading next go to:
www.DistractU.com/Students/Tour.
It sounds like not everybody is ready to just throw Flash out the window because Steve Jobs told them to, as Time Warner and NBC have just told Apple they’re happy to stick with it for their online video players. More »
Time Warner – Flash – Steve Jobs – Apple – Multimedia
Palm has been struggling to move handsets as of late, but they are definitely pushing for developer support to create apps that will sell Pres and Pixis. In order to try to bring some of the iPhone’s killer apps to webOS, Palm has decided to host a “San Francisco PDK Party” on June 9th, which just so happens to be right in the middle of Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference, where Apple is expected to announce the next-gen iPhone. Since webOS apps can be ported from the iPhone in a “matter of days,” the event is a well-timed move by Palm. If they are able to get devs to actually attend, I could see some of them porting their applications to webOS if the process really does only take a few days. We’ll find out what happens with both WWDC and Palm’s PDK party in less than two weeks, so stay tuned!
Via Pre Central
Palm has been struggling to move handsets as of late, but they are definitely pushing for developer support to create apps that will sell Pres and Pixis. In order to try to bring some of the iPhone’s killer apps to webOS, Palm has decided to host a “San Francisco PDK Party” on June 9th, which just so happens to be right in the middle of Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference, where Apple is expected to announce the next-gen iPhone. Since webOS apps can be ported from the iPhone in a “matter of days,” the event is a well-timed move by Palm. If they are able to get devs to actually attend, I could see some of them porting their applications to webOS if the process really does only take a few days. We’ll find out what happens with both WWDC and Palm’s PDK party in less than two weeks, so stay tuned!
Via Pre Central
ViewCave, a new online film distribution and video streaming company based in California, will be alternatively releasing content in torrent form through Mininova’s service. After a court decision forced the famous torrent tracker to remove all infringing content, Mininova’s management finds a glimmer of hope (and possible income) as… (read more)
Dude, you think you work hard? Well, think again. Mitchum, the antiperspirant/deodorant brand owned by Revlon, last week kicked off a contest to find the "The Hardest Working Person in America." It’s asking the nation’s workaholics to upload video nominations of themselves to the brand’s YouTube page, where friends, family and the rest of the sweaty masses can vote. (Contestants can also campaign for themselves via social media.) TV spots, now airing, show some of the country’s hardest workers. One is a police officer who goes home to take care of his wife and four kids. Another is a coach who can’t stand the thought of "free time." Mitchum is awarding two prizes: One for the hardest-working person, and another for "most captivating video." The former gets $100,000. The latter gets $5,000. In other words, only the winner gets to take a nice long holiday.
—Posted by Elaine Wong
Outreach Support Executive
Do you have three days a week from July 2010- early Jan 2011 that you would like to use to intern with Oxfam Campaigns in the North West? Then why not apply to become our Outreach Support Executive? (This is a voluntary position though lunch and travel expenses are provided). The Outreach Support Executive will do a wide variety of exciting tasks as they manage the Outreach network in the North of England.
What does the role entail?
This will include for example; Creating a regional Outreach strategy, Recruiting, training and supporting volunteer outreach co-ordinators, Securing Oxfam’s campaigning presence at some of the larger regional events, Helping to co-ordinate the regional campaigning for Oxjam (Oxfam’s music festival), Creatively thinking of ways to campaign to new audiences, Managing the regional administration, monitoring, evaluation and learning of this project, Using a range of on and offline tools to share good practice and create a sense of community/network throughout the region/nation.
This is a great chance for you to develop your skills and experience and to get more involved in Oxfam’s work to overcome poverty and suffering.
Check out the full job spec and complete an internship application form
For more questions/ information or to send in your application please contact Nicola = [email protected] or call 0161 234 2786
Application deadline: 21st June by 12pm
Interview: 24th June.
Start date: ASAP July
Sprint EVO 4G buyers may want to grab Fring in the Android Market when you get your phone. That front-facing camera is tailor-made for video chatting, and Fring is already out to take advantage of it. Fring is a chat program available on many platforms, and this new Android version brings video to the offering.
Video chatting hits the phone CPU pretty hard so a fast processor is required. The program checks that and makes sure your phone can handle video properly. EVO buyers won’t have to worry about that, of course. If you don’t want to hit the Android Market or Fring site to download the app, just use the code below:
Related research on GigaOM Pro (sub. req’d): Google Takes the Open Battle to Apple on Multiple Fronts
In today’s Quinnipiac poll, Tom Foley, the former ambassador to Ireland leads in the Republican primary for governor with 37 percent, followed by Lt. Gov. Mike Fedele with 11 percent. Businessman Oz Griebel had 5 percent.
The poll showed that 42 percent of Republicans are undecided, and the percentage of GOP voters who don’t know about the candidates to form an opinion ranges from 58 percent to 88 percent.
In the Democratic primary race for governor, former U.S. Senate candidate Ned Lamont leads Dannel Malloy, 41 to 24 percent with 30 percent undecided. Malloy, the former mayor of Stamford, was the party’s endorsed candidate at Saturday’s convention in Hartford. Lamont gets a 46 to 12 percent favorability rating among Democrats, and 39 percent haven’t heard enough to form an opinion, the poll indicates.
Overall, 65 percent of Democrats said they did not know enough about Malloy to form an opinion – even though he won his party’s convention twice for governor and has been running for the office for six years. He raised and spent $4 million in an unsuccessful race in 2006 – losing in the primary that summer to New Haven Mayor John DeStefano.
The 65 percent who said they do not know enough about Malloy only covers Democrats.
“You’ve got to figure it’s higher among the total” population, said Douglas Schwartz, the Q pollster.
Finally, scientists have good news about the fats in our food. Contrary to what is feared, the majority of food producers and restaurants not only changed an ingredient harmful to health by another when they pulled out of their products the trans fats, which is dangerous because it clogs arteries and affects the heart.
Even the French fries have long been considered a scourge in the diet, are now made with healthier ingredients. But there is still room for improvement, especially for some items for sale in supermarkets, in which trans fat is replaced with his unhealthy cousin, saturated fat.
A researcher from Harvard University and a group of consumer advocacy examined 83 foods in which ingredients has been reformulated since 2006. In that year the federal government began to require that on labels have to be placed the amount of trans fats in the packaged products, and the city of New York became the first of several cities in withdrawing it from restaurants.
Trans fats are created when hydrogen is added to liquid oils to harden them so they are used in baking or to extend the products duration on the shelves. Once these fats were targeted by government regulators, food manufacturers and restaurants, they started to experiment with different cooking oils and fat substitutes, trying not to compromise the taste and texture of the food they offer. But how healthy fats are used now?
Dr. Dariush Mozaffarian, a researcher at the University of Harvard, and the Center for Science in the Public Interest checked edible products and restaurant menus to measure their fat content. The articles studied included margarine, junk food, confectionery and five popular fast food chains.
The results were published on Thursday in a letter included in the New England Journal of Medicine.
Almost all the food samples were free of trans fats, or with low quantity. And many companies and restaurants did not increase their content of saturated fats after cutting trans fats: 65% of products in supermarkets and 90% of the dishes in restaurants contain saturated fat, which levels were lower or unchanged to the previously measured amounts, or only slightly higher.
However, despite the improvement detected, there were some voices of caution. The fact that trans fats are gone, doesn’t mean that fattening foods are healthy, said Dr. David Heber, who is head of the Center for Human Nutrition at the University of California at Los Angeles.
Related posts:
After hitting a wall of moderate Democrats wary of more deficit spending, House leaders on Wednesday scaled back their sweeping proposal to extend certain tax breaks and emergency unemployment benefits.
While most of the roughly $50 billion savings under the amended bill comes from trimming Medicare payments to doctors, the revised proposal — which House leaders are hoping to pass today — also shortens the deadline extension for unemployment benefits and COBRA health benefits by one month.
Translation: While the original bill extended the filing deadline through the end of the 2010, the newer bill extends the filing deadline through November (i.e., just beyond the midterm elections).
(Of note: Neither proposal would create new tiers of benefits.)
If the House passes the bill today, it then moves to the Senate, where Democratic leaders will have to rally the 60 votes needed to defeat the likely GOP filibuster. Whether they can do it before they leave for their week-long Memorial Day vacation remains a real question.
Paula Abdul made a special appearance on Wednesday night’s American Idol Season 9 Finale with a touching “send-off” to brash judge Simon Cowell.
“I’VE WORKED WITH A LOT OF PEOPLE OVER THE YEARS. HOT CHEERLEADERS. BIG MOVIE STARS. WORLD FAMOUS RECORDING ARTISTS. EVEN A CARTOON CAT. BUT IF I’M BEING TRULY HONEST, NONE OF THEM HOLDS A CANDLE TO YOU, MY FRIEND….”
Our favorite little tipsy music critic is making a comeback to the world of reality television with the role of a judge, mentor, and executive producer on the reality dance series Got to Dance, premiering on CBS in the fall.
Today Acer officially announced their latest Android handset, the Stream (coz a whole lotta Liquid makes a Stream).
The device will rock Android 2.1 UI atop a 1GHz Snapdragon processor, a 3.7″ 800×480 AMOLED screen, 5MP camera with 720p video, 512MB RAM, 2GB on-board storage (+ an 8GB MicroSD card), and the usual connectivity options (ie WiFi b/g/n, Bluetooth, HSDPA, GPS).
So, yeah, pretty much the standard “high-end” Android device.
The mayor of an Athens suburb is on day 29 of a hunger strike against austerity. Various members of Elliniko’s town council have now joined Christos Kortzidi and are refusing to eat.
Kortzidi is protesting the government’s plan reduce costs by merging dozens of municipalities across Greece.
New pictures from the Elliniko website show the mayor alive and well. He’s got a framed poster of Che Guevera in his office, which suggests support for a growing Communist movement. Kortzidi became famous in 2007 when he led a successful 24-day hunger strike to preserve free access to local beaches.
Greek austerity measures are not going smoothly. Protestors from Elliniko and other towns are arriving in Athens by the busload.
Image: PIAZZA del POPOLO
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Greenland’s Uplift: Evidence Of Rapid Ice Loss
Scientists at the University of Miami say Greenland’s ice is melting so quickly that the land underneath is rising at an accelerated pace.
According to the study, some coastal areas are going up by nearly one inch per year and if current trends continue, that number could accelerate to as much as two inches per year by 2025, explains Tim Dixon, professor of geophysics at the University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science (RSMAS) and principal investigator of the study.
“It’s been known for several years that climate change is contributing to the melting of Greenland’s ice sheet,” Dixon says. “What’s surprising, and a bit worrisome, is that the ice is melting so fast that we can actually see the land uplift in response,” he says. “Even more surprising, the rise seems to be accelerating, implying that melting is accelerating.”
The research was published in Nature Geoscience. The idea behind the study is that if Greenland is losing its ice cover, the resulting loss of weight causes the rocky surface beneath to rise. The same process is affecting the islands of Iceland and Svalbard, which also have ice caps, explains Shimon Wdowinski, research associate professor in the University of Miami RSMAS, and co-author of the study.
“During ice ages and in times of ice accumulation, the ice suppresses the land,” Wdowinski says. “When the ice melts, the land rebounds upwards,” he says. “Our study is consistent with a number of global warming indicators, confirming that ice melt and sea level rise are real and becoming significant.”
Using specialized global positioning system (GPS) receivers stationed on the rocky shores of Greenland, the scientists looked at data from 1995 onward. The raw GPS data were analyzed for high accuracy position information, as well as the vertical velocity and acceleration of each GPS site.
The measurements are restricted to places where rock is exposed, limiting the study to coastal areas. However, previous data indicate that ice in Greenland’s interior is in approximate balance: yearly losses from ice melting and flowing toward the coast are balanced by new snow accumulation, which gradually turns to ice. Most ice loss occurs at the warmer coast, by melting and iceberg calving and where the GPS data are most sensitive to changes. In western Greenland, the uplift seems to have started in the late 1990’s.
Melting of Greenland’s ice contributes to global sea level rise. If the acceleration of uplift and the implied acceleration of melting continue, Greenland could soon become the largest contributor to global sea level rise, explains Yan Jiang, Ph.D. candidate at the University of Miami RSMAS and co-author of the study.
“Greenland’s ice melt is very important because it has a big impact on global sea level rise,” Jiang says. “We hope that our work reaches the general public and that this information is considered by policy makers.”
Nation’s largest fair-weather CPV project opens in Calif.
A solar technology that leads the pack in hot, sunny climates scored a victory this week with the official launch of a concentrator photovoltaic (CPV) system in Victorville, Calif., that officials claim is North America’s largest facility of its type.
The project brings 1 megawatt of electric capacity online at Victor Valley College, a small school near Los Angeles, and consists of 122 arrays made by Mountain View, Calif.-based SolFocus Inc.
The installation, dubbed a “micro-generating facility,” is connected to the local electric grid and will produce about 30 percent of the electricity used by the college in a year, officials said.
“In addition to providing energy cost savings and a new revenue stream, these 122 arrays will provide the ideal testing ground for our students to build green careers that support the nation’s new energy economy,” said Victor Valley College President Christopher O’Hearn at a launch event. School officials plan to develop curricula on system installation, operations and maintenance around the facility.
The school did not disclose the system’s cost or expected payback time, but they said it uses one-thousandth as much of the expensive solar photovoltaic material as is in traditional cells. The cost of CPV is typically raised by other elements of the systems, such as moving parts that track the sun across the sky, however.
CPV technology is similar to the photovoltaics found on many rooftops but is far more efficient thanks to reflective optical elements that concentrate sunlight onto high-power solar cells. SolFocus claims its cells are more than twice as efficient as traditional silicon solar cells.
The technology works especially well in very sunny regions since, unlike some other photovoltaics, it does not produce energy well with the diffuse light available on cloudy days. It is also more effective than other photovoltaics when temperatures are high, according to the CPV Consortium, a global industry group.
The technology is often confused with concentrating solar power, or CSP, that group said. CSP is also used for large-scale installations but uses the sun’s heat rather than converting it directly to electricity. CSP installations concentrate the sun’s rays onto collectors that heat up a medium, often molten salt, which is then used to produce steam that turns a turbine.
Western U.S. Grid Can Handle More Renewables
More than a third of the electricity in the western United States could come from wind and solar power without installing significant amounts of backup power. And most of this expansion of renewable energy could be done without installing new interstate transmission lines, according to a new study from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) in Golden, CO. But the study says increasing the amount of renewables on the grid will require smart planning and cooperation between utilities.
The NREL findings provide a strong counterargument to the idea that the existing power grid is insufficient to handle increasing amounts of renewable power. As California and other states require utilities to use renewable sources for significant fractions of their electricity, some experts have warned that measures to account for the variability of wind and solar power could be costly. At the extreme, they speculated, every megawatt of wind installed could require a megawatt of readily available conventional power in case the wind stopped blowing. But the NREL findings, like other recent studies, suggest that the costs could be minimal, especially in the West.
“It’s a lot lower than what people thought it was going to be,” says Daniel Brooks, project manager for power delivery and utilization at the Electric Power Research Institute. Even if wind farms had to pay for the necessary grid upgrades and backup power themselves, they could still sell electricity at competitive rates, he says.
NREL considered a scenario in which 30 percent of the total electricity produced in a year in western states comes from wind turbines and 5 percent comes from solar power–mostly from solar thermal plants that generate power by concentrating sunlight to produce high temperatures and steam. The researchers assumed the solar thermal plants would have some form of heat storage, although not all planned plants do. The study used detailed data about wind speeds, solar irradiance, and the operation of the electrical grid. GE Energy researchers commissioned by NREL then used the data to simulate the impact of various scenarios for wind and solar power use.
The researchers found that one way to keep the number of new backup power plants to a minimum is to expand the geographical area that renewable energy is gathered from, says Debra Lew, the NREL project manager in charge of the study. If utilities can call on wind farms and solar power from several states, rather than just from the local area, a drop in wind in one area is likely to be offset by an increase in wind elsewhere, and solar panels shaded by clouds in one area will be offset by others in sunny areas.
That makes it far less necessary to have conventional power plants standing by to make up for drops in power. The NREL study estimated that drawing only on local resources would increase variability on the grid by a factor of 50. That’s “a huge increase,” Lew says, too big for a local utility to balance using backup power and other resources. If you aggregate resources over several states, the increase is less than a factor of two.
Nissan Says Electric Car Is Sold Out for This Year
Nissan’s chief executive, Carlos Ghosn, said Tuesday that the company had already received 19,000 orders in the United States and Japan for the electric car that it would start selling at year-end.
More than six months before the car, the Nissan Leaf, arrives at dealerships, the preorders mean that the car is sold out for this year and that the company might stop taking reservations, Mr. Ghosn said during a visit to the Detroit Economic Club.
“The preorders are such that we are very comfortable with what we have undertaken,” Mr. Ghosn said after the speech. “The more we advance into it, the more comfortable we are with it.”
Nissan plans to break ground Wednesday in Smyrna, Tenn., for a plant to build batteries for the Leaf and eventually other models, part of its goal to sell at least 500,000 electric cars worldwide starting in 2013. The first Leafs will be made in Japan, with assembly in Tennessee planned to start in 2012.
Mr. Ghosn’s enthusiasm for electric vehicles contrasts with some recent studies and with comments from other automakers, including Honda, suggesting that pure electric vehicles have little short-term potential.
General Motors is scheduled to begin selling a battery-powered plug-in car, the Chevrolet Volt, later this year, but the Volt also has a small gasoline engine so that drivers can go beyond the battery’s expected range of 40 miles a charge.
Mr. Ghosn said he did not want the Leaf, whose expected range is 100 miles on a full charge, to have a range-extending engine, a feature that G.M. has said would assuage drivers’ worries about being stranded with a dead battery with no fast or easy way to recharge.
“We wanted to do a zero-emission vehicle,” Mr. Ghosn said. “I don’t want gasoline in the car, period.”
Nissan has given the Leaf a starting price of $32,780, minus a $7,500 federal tax credit. The Volt, whose price has not been disclosed, is expected to sell for close to $40,000 before the tax credit.
Among the other electric vehicles planned for sale in the United States within several years are a battery-powered version of Ford’s compact car, the Focus, and the Tesla Model S sedan, which will be built in California as part of a new partnership with Toyota announced last week.
The preorders for the Leaf include 13,000 in the United States, where dealers take a $99 deposit, and 6,000 in Japan.
Mr. Ghosn said sales in the United States would be concentrated in areas where there was sufficient means to support electric vehicles, like cities in California and other states that are installing charging stations.
Obama Says U.S. Can’t Lag Behind on Energy Technology
President Barack Obama said the “heartbreaking” oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, which has fouled wetlands and closed fishing grounds, underscores the need for the U.S. to rapidly develop alternative energy sources.
The Earth can’t sustain continued dependence on fossil fuels and the U.S. is in a race with other nations to find renewable sources to power cars and companies, the president said after touring the Solyndra Inc. solar-panel manufacturing plant in Fremont, California.
“Even as we are dealing with this immediate crisis,” he said of the BP Plc spill, the U.S. is in competition with countries including Germany and China to develop advanced energy technology.
“Nobody is playing for second place,” Obama said.
He vowed to keep pressing Congress to pass energy legislation that would spur alternative energy development and lessen consumption of oil, most of which the U.S. imports.
Obama was in Fremont to highlight the efforts his administration already is undertaking to both revive economic growth and encourage new energy technology.
Solyndra received $535 million in loan guarantees under last year’s economic stimulus. According to the company, construction of the new solar panel plant will create as many as 3,000 jobs and lead to as many as 1,000 full-time jobs.
Leak as Backdrop
The leaking BP well, which the London-based company was attempting to plug today, served as the backdrop for his remarks.
Obama said he spoke earlier today with Energy Secretary Steven Chu about BP’s work to seal the well, which is about 5,000 feet (1,524 meters) underwater, and cut off the gushing oil.
“If it’s successful, and there’s no guarantees, it should greatly reduce or eliminate the flow of oil,” Obama said. “If it’s not, there are other approaches that may be viable.”
Obama is set to get a report tomorrow from his interior secretary, Ken Salazar, about the cause of the April 20 explosion and fire on the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig that resulted in the leak. He’s scheduled to visit the gulf coast May 28.
“Our dependence on foreign oil endangers our security and our economy,” Obama said. “The spill in the gulf, which is just heartbreaking, only underscores the necessity of seeking alternative fuel sources.”
Natural gas takes breeze from wind energy’s sails
The good news for your energy bill may be bad news for Iowa’s wind energy.
Thanks to a drilling boom in new fields extending from Texas to New York, natural gas has become as an environmentally friendly competitor to wind. Big new discoveries in shale deposits have brought down the price of natural gas by 60 percent from two years ago.
Michael O’Sullivan of NextEra Energy, Iowa’s second-largest producer of wind power, told the
American Wind Energy Association meeting in Dallas this week: “Our product is too expensive relative to other options. Our competitive advantage has largely evaporated.”The sudden rise of natural gas is credited with throwing wind energy into another of its periodic slowdowns. Iowa, with 2,300 megawatts of wind electricity generation, trails only Texas among the 50 states in wind capacity.
Iowa is seeing the herky-jerky path of wind. The state has gained about 2,300 jobs making towers, turbines, blades and gearboxes at plants in Cedar Rapids, Fort Madison, Newton and West Branch.
TPI Composites recently announced a 237-worker layoff at its Newton blade plant, but at the same time asked the state for assistance to build a blade plant at Sioux City that would employ up to 500 workers, if it is built. Clipper Windpower in Cedar Rapids laid off workers a year ago, but now has stabilized its employment at about 320 workers.
The news for Iowa in the natural gas boom isn’t all bad. At least homeowners are less likely to face
budget-busting winter heating bills if the price of natural gas stays around $4 per thousand cubic feet, down from more than $10 two years ago.
Report: NC solar power could yield 28,000 jobs
An environmental group says North Carolina could generate at least 28,000 jobs in the solar energy field if it shifts electricity production more from traditional sources to solar energy in the next 20 years.
The research arm of Environment North Carolina released a report on Wednesday and held a news conference outside the Legislative Building. The report based findings on raising the percentage of power that comes from solar sources to 14 percent of the state’s electricity consumption by 2030. Current law requires less than 1 percent of electric power to originate from the sun by 2018.
Report co-author Elizabeth Ouzts said lawmakers could help the state encourage solar power by approving a tax break to those who build plants for renewable energy manufacturing.
New Deal to Help Tesla Reach its $49,900 Model S Target Price
Canadian Auto Press
As far as green projects go, it hardly gets bigger than this. Toyota and Tesla will join forces for electric vehicle development and production, with Tesla taking over the recently shuttered NUMMI assembly plant in Fremont, California, previous home to Pontiac’s Vibe five-door.
Tesla and Toyota Partner for Model S Production at NUMMI Plant
A joint press conference was held Thursday, May 20th, with Tesla chief executive Elon Musk, Toyota CEO Akio Toyoda, and California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger addressing media and VIPs.
The relationship is more than a strategic sharing of technology and production capability, but rather a full partnership that will see $50 million from Toyota into Tesla common stock, while the state of California promises a sales tax abatement to Tesla for capital equipment expenditures needed for modifying the plant. The abatement is expected to amount to approximately $20 million over the next few years, says Musk.
Model S production will employ about 1,000 workers, says Musk, returning many of the same NUMMI personnel to their jobs. The assembly facility has the capability of producing up to 300,000 vehicles per year, much more than the expected production figure of 20,000 units for year-one, with the ability to employ up to 10,000 workers. Some workers have already been rehired, said Musk, but did not comment on union involvement; NUMMI was the only unionized Toyota plant in North America.
The relationship with Toyota and NUMMI allows Tesla to sidetrack many of the supplier and production problems it initially experienced with its Roadster, being that some of Toyota’s suppliers and production processes can be carried forward for the Model S. This should help Tesla achieve the low cost requirements needed to meet its optimistic sale price of $49,900 per car.
The Model S production will start in 2012 as planned, with a promise of more advanced prototypes later this year.
It’s unclear whether additional Tesla models will expand plant usage, or whether Toyota will benefit from the new partnership by getting a car of its own.
There’s a giant Oreo Blizzard truck making its way around the country, and if you’re lucky enough to spot it, it might give you a yummy Kraft- and Dairy Queen-inspired treat. To celebrate the Blizzard’s 25th birthday (it is, after all, one of DQ’s most requested treats), Kraft and the soft-serve and fast-food chain have teamed up to introduce a limited-edition Oreo Blizzard Cookie. It’s a "combination of smooth Blizzard-flavored crème blended with crunchy Oreo cookie pieces" all sandwiched "between two dark chocolate Oreo wafers," according to Kraft. The mobile truck (which is shaped like a giant Oreo Blizzard cup) is distributing mini versions of the cookie, but for those of you who can’t wait (hey, the truck is only making 25 stops), the new treats are available at Walmart and Target for $3.29. DQ will also begin selling mini Oreo Blizzards in August.
—Posted by Elaine Wong
