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Solar Power Captures Imagination, Not Money

By Andrew C. Revkin and Matthew L. Wald The trade association for the nuclear power industry recently asked 1,000 Americans what energy source they thought would be used most for generating electricity in 15 years. The top choice? Not nuclear plants, or coal or natural gas. The winner was the sun, cited by 27 percent of those polled. It is no wonder solar power has captured the public imagination. Panels that convert sunlight to electricity are winning supporters around the world – from Europe, where gleaming arrays cloak skyscrapers and farmers’ fields, to Wall Street, where stock offerings for panel makers have had a great ride, to California, where Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s “Million Solar Roofs” initiative is promoted as building a homegrown industry and fighting global warming. But for all the enthusiasm about harvesting sunlight, some of the most ardent experts and investors say that moving this energy source from niche to mainstream – last year it provided less than 0.01 percent of the country’s electricity supply – is unlikely without significant technological breakthroughs. And given the current scale of research in private and government laboratories, that is not expected to happen anytime soon. Even a quarter century from now, […]

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China Not Sole Source of Dubious Food

By Andrew Martin and Griff Palmer Black pepper with salmonella from India. Crabmeat from Mexico that is too filthy to eat. Candy from Denmark that is mislabeled. At a time when Chinese imports are under fire for being contaminated or defective, federal records suggest that China is not the only country that has problems with its exports. In fact, federal inspectors have stopped more food shipments from India and Mexico in the last year than they have from China, an analysis of data maintained by the Food and Drug Administration shows. China has had much-publicized problems with contaminated seafood – including a temporary ban late last month on imports of five species of farm-raised seafood from China – but federal inspectors refused produce from the Dominican Republic and candy from Denmark more often. For instance, produce from the Dominican Republic was stopped 817 times last year, usually for containing traces of illegal pesticides. Candy from Denmark was impounded 520 times. By comparison, Chinese seafood was stopped at the border 391 times during the last year. “The reality is, this is not a single-country issue at all,” said Carl R. Nielsen, who resigned from the Food and Drug Administration in 2005, […]

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Kudzunol – A New Ethanol

URL: http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/viewArticle.asp?articleID=32125 Website: http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/viewArticle.asp?articleID=32125     

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