"Cool" was the first word out of University of Minnesota aerospace engineering prof Jeff Hammer's mouth when I told him Toyota's Prius may soon come with its own rooftop solar generating system. But does it make sense? Not really, says Hammer: "The car is not always in the sun and there's no surface facing the same direction all the time. The best thing to do is set [your solar panels] somewhere fixed that's always in the sun and use the energy directly. That's what the economics would tell you to do."

That's pretty damning coming from Hammer, whose job is to help turn solar energy into motive power. Well, sort of. Hammer is faculty advisor for an engineering team that put together one of 18 solar-powered vehicles competing in the 2008 North American Solar Challenge -- a 2,400 mile race from Dallas to Calgary that got underway this weekend. His job is actually to help engineering students learn. "The main thing that solar car racing does to help automakers is that engineering students get a better education," says Hammer. "We don't think of building a solar car as a research activity or technology development activity."

So what is Toyota doing offering solar panels that will be largely wasted? Showing once again that it is the master of green marketing. For the full story, see my full report -- "Does Car-Mounted Solar Make Sense?" -- at MIT's TechReview.com today.

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[excerpt from RenewableEnergyWorld.com]
 
"Our car is very different from a gasoline car in that it uses no gasoline, it's all electric, lithium battery and with a proprietary battery management system by Hybrid Technologies," Ron Cerven said.

"We want to make lithium powered, electric-powered vehicles [a part of the] mainstream in America, moving towards more electric-powered vehicles, electric-powered products, and electric-powered energy."-- Linda Hill, Marketing and Public Relations Manager, Hybrid Technologies

Ron Cerven is a project development engineer at Hybrid Technologies, a research and development company focusing on electric vehicles powered by lithium batteries. The cars, like the Toyota Yaris, look like any other until you peek under the hood. Inside, the gas-powered engine has been replaced by a powerful electric motor that is powered by a stack of lithium batteries. "

For the rest of the article go to: www.renewableenergyworld.com

***

This is good news in the clean powered car sector because one of the biggest problems that EV makers have has been the life of the battery pack. With the improvements in the new lithium batteries this should extend the driving time between charges, giving drivers more miles to drive before they'd need to recharge the batteries.

The auto makers, with pressure from consumers to provide more fuel efficient and clean burning cars, are definitely coming around to a more environmentally conscious way of doing business.

Insist on green car technology and the auto makers will build them!

Energetically Yours,
Diane Tegarden
Environmental Journalist

Vorgestern erhielt ich eine Mail aus Mazedonien, dass ich doch das Formular ausfüllen solle .....
Das Formular war jedoch schon ausgefüllt von einer Sarah aus Deutschland.
Nachdem ich dann erst mal garnichts mehr kapiert habe, wie das alles ablaufen solle und wir dann zusätzlich noch eine Stunde lang Stromausfall hatten, habe ich per Handy mal bei Sarah angerufen. Und nun war ich schlauer.

Sie hatte sich für die Deadline zum 1. Februar beworben, genau für das Projekt in Mazedonien. Doch das Projekt wurde von der EU nicht gefördert. Jetzt hat sie zum 1. Juni ein Antrag für ein Projekt in Slowenien eingereicht. Ich hoffe für sie, dass es jetzt klappt.
Doch auch erschien mir das ganze Projekt in Mazedonien nicht mehr als sehr seriös und überhaupt war es nicht mehr möglich die Formulare auszufüllen und einzureichen, da die AWO, welche ja als meine Entsendeorganisation fungiert, freitags niemand im Büro hat, der für das EVS zuständig ist. Erst Dienstag wieder.
Also hat das alles nicht geklappt. Außerdem habe ich bei dem Gespräch mit Sarah erfahren, dass Mazedonien nicht zentral über Brüssel, sondern in DE bearbeitet wird. Das bedeutet, dass es für Kroatien ebenso abläuft.
Aber auch außerhalb des EVS hat sich viel getan.
Am Montag hatte ich das Telefoninterview mit VIA. Sie hat mich gefragt, wieso ich mich für die Projekte interessiere, die ich angegeben hatte etc. Also unspektakulär. In einem Monat weiß ich dann mehr.

Auch habe ich nun einige Alternativen, wenn es eben nicht mit dem Freiwilligendienst klappen sollte, so könnte ich z.B. ein Praktikum in St. Petersburg machen, oder Work&Travel durch Lateinamerika oder oder oder.

Also weg komm ich ganz sicher! ;)
Sonst läuft hier gerade alles dem Ende zu. Nächste Woche habe ich die letzte Woche Unterricht. Gestern habe ich das letzte Mal beim Steiff gearbeitet. Nun kann ich sagen: Nie wieder Kindergeburtstage!!! Die Kinder gestern waren auch echt total schlimm, was mir den Abschied von meiner Arbeit doch geholfen hat. Doch meine Kollegen werde ich vermissen! 

Source: mail envoyé aux EVS publié par Agir contre le chômage et la précarité, 5 mai 2008

Dans une lettre du 5 Mai adressée notamment aux directeurs d’écoles l’Inspecteur d’Académie de Meurthe et Moselle rappelle que les contrats aidés mis en place répondent aux règles du code du travail :

Pour les contrats d’avenir(CAV), le code du travail précise (Article 322.4.12) que « le contrat d’avenir est conclu pour une période de 2 ans ». Une 3ème année n’est évoquée que comme une possibilité. Le service public de l’emploi (SPED) en référence à cet article du Code du Travail ne retient pas la possibilité d’une 3e année et confirme cette limitation maximale des contrats d’avenir à une durée de 2 ans pour les bénéficiaires des minimas sociaux ASS API AAH. Il en est de même pour les bénéficiaires du RMI. Le Conseil général de Meurthe-et-Moselle conditionne de surcroît un seul renouvellement à l’issue de la première année et ce au regard des actions de formations engagées.

Pour les Contrats d’Accompagnement à l’Emploi (CAE), le code du travail précise (Article L 322.4.7) que la durée maximale est de 2 ans.

Les mesures d’accompagnement et de formation organisées depuis mai 2006 se poursuivent encore jusqu’en juin 2008. La quasi-totalité des contrats en cours arrivant à échéance au 30 juin, je vous demande, dès à présent, d’informer ou de rappeler ces dispositions aux personnes concernées recrutées dans votre établissement, dans votre circonscription, dans votre école. Il convient de leur préciser, dès lors qu’elles ont bénéficié de contrats (convention initiale et avenant) de plus de 18 mois, qu’il ne pourra pas y avoir un autre renouvellement (les renouvellements de moins de 6 mois ne sont pas autorisés).

J’attire votre attention sur le fait que de nombreux bénéficiaires de contrats aidés qui accompagnent des élèves porteurs de handicap, sollicitent, à l’échéance de leur contrat, des postes d’A.V.S (Auxiliaires de Vie Scolaire). Si certaines de ces candidatures remplissant les conditions de recrutement des A.V.S. (minimum baccalauréat) sont recevables, je tiens dès à présent à ce que soient portés à votre connaissance et à celles des personnes en contrat les éléments suivants : Les Auxiliaires de Vie scolaire exercent indifféremment dans tous types d’établissements : écoles primaires, collèges, Lycées et Lycées professionnels en fonction des décisions de la commission des droits et de l’autonomie. En conséquence la personne en contrat EVS qui sollicite un emploi d’AVS, et qui satisfait à l’entretien de recrutement, sera amené à exercer ses fonctions dans un, deux, voire trois établissements différents, sans garantie de rester dans l’école où elle exerce.

Enfin les personnes bénéficiant de moins de 18 mois de contrats qui exercent sur des missions d’accompagnement du handicap et d’assistance administrative aux directeurs d’école, devraient pouvoir obtenir des renouvellements de leur contrat. Ces renouvellements seront conditionnés à un parcours d’insertion ou de formation.

]]> http://larakt.wordpress.com/?p=30 Mon, 12 May 2008 08:33:30 +0000 Lara http://larakt.wordpress.com/?p=30 Jaja, die Länderwahl ist ein schwieriges Thema.

Bei AFS bekomme ich bis Ende Mai Bescheid, ob und in welches Land ich komme.
Beim EVS ist die Deadline zum Beantragen der 1. Juni.

Ziemlich knapp hintereinander ist das alles...
Ich hab überlegt, dass ich morgen mal in Kroatien bei dem tollen Projekt anruf, und nachfrage, ob sie denn noch einen Freiwilligen suchen.
Für Mazedonien hab ich eine Zusage, doch wenn Europa, dann lieber Kroatien.

Am allerliebsten will ich jedoch nach Thailand...
Und alles in allem wäre das EVS erheblich mehr Aufwand als das weltwärts, denn da hab ich die Bewerbungen schon alle geschrieben. Zudem ist es beim EVS dann immer noch unsicher, ob die Gelder von der EU denn bewilligt werden.
Vorteil vom EVS zum weltwärts wäre, dass man wirklich NICHTS selber zahlen muss, beim weltwärts muss man jedoch für Visum und Impfungen selber aufkommen, sowie einen Förderkreis aufbauen.

Also hat alles seine Vor- und Nachteile.

Ich werde es nun so machen, dass ich morgen in Kroatien anruf, außer sie beantworten mir heute meine Mail. Wenn sie noch jemanden suchen, bewerbe ich mich da. Und wenn sie mich nehmen, sage ich Mazedonien und der Halb-Zusage aus Rumänien ab.
Und dann würde ich beim AFS in Hamburg anrufen, und nachfragen, ob sie denn einen Platz für mich hätten oder eben nicht.
Dann wüsste ich mehr.

Aber erstmal Abwarten und Teetrinken. ;)

Übrigens haben wir ein sehr schönes Wetter zur Zeit, zwar nicht sonderlich warm, jedoch mit viel Sonnenschein.
Morgen ist Kinderfest in Giengen... weiß noch nicht, ob ich hingeh, das entscheid ich spontan. 

While we all agreed that even the current EV's (with their existing limitations) could serve for much of what we use cars for here in the US (particularly the shorter daily commutes) it took a bit of explaining to show both Dale & Pete that it takes a large, non-trivial amount of electrical energy to replace even a quarter of the gasoline used here. Not sure if either of them still believes this, since they've been told otherwise for years by the WSJ and other sources they trust.

In 2005, the US generated a total of 4,054,688 million kWh in electricity. It took 16,807 power plants to make that much juice. That same year, our gasoline consumption averaged 385 million gallons per day. If you upconvert the gasoline energy to electrical energy equivalent at 29.5 kWh per gallon, you get the equivalent of 4,418,326 million kWh .. more electricity than we made that year.

We're now using 400 million gallons of gasoline per day here in the US alone.

Another thing that jumped out from the Dale/Pete commonalities was that they both implicitly imagined the EV infrastructure to be wholly separate from the industrial economy, when in fact it is inexorably intertwined with it. It is not as if the prices for copper, lead, lithium, nickel, cobalt, plastic, oil, rubber, aluminum, steel, etc will be expensive for the whole rest of the world but low for the makers of EV's. The vehicles themselves are artifacts of the industrial economy just like many other things around us are: light bulbs, flatscreen TV's, gasoline-powered vehicles, computers, etc. Assuming they're not made via slave labor living in Amish style work dormitories, there are rising labor costs as well as rising material costs to be included in the calculations of this vs that.

In fact, the only way you could make a case for EV's becoming a more attractive alternative is to assume that the production of EV's has less exposure to the effects of higher oil prices than does the production of gasoline-powered vehicles. And the only way to achieve /that/ would be a start-to-finish production system that replaced oil inputs with alt-energy inputs. The only available alt-energy inputs that might do the trick right now are human and animal labor, but this puts us right back to square one, since the reason fossil fuels took off the way they did is that the labor provided by those 'energy slaves' is far cheaper than human or animal labor. An EV made of parts and materials that were gathered, refined, worked etc by hand would be far more expensive than one made through modern industrial methods that depend on fossil fuels.

A further necessary assumption is that the price of electricity will remain low and stable when compared to the prices of fossil fuels. Here's another place where the cornucopian assumptions fall flat. The prices of coal and natural gas are going up, not down, and the price of electricity is following them upward.

Yet another necessary thing for mass EV rollout would be a public transit system capable of handing all the A to B trips that are simply beyond the range of one's EV. We don't have such a system here in the US. Most likely we will never have one like that until the personal automobile no longer dominates the transportation scene.

EV's have been on the scene just as long as GV's have. Unfortunately, a century of progress has not yet corrected the basic faults & limitations of EV's as measured against their gas-guzzling cousins: limited range, limited payload, long recharge time, susceptibility to weather, limited number of discharge/recharge cycles, and so on.

        -Nudge

Hab gerade eben nach Alternativen geschaut, falls es bei AFS und bei VIA nicht klappt. Nachdem mir meine Mutter gestern vorgeworfen hat, dass ich nur noch auf den Auslandsaufenthalt hinlebe und dafür meine ganze Zeit nicht verplane.

Nun gut... 
Ich hab dann mal wieder in der Datenbank für den Europäischen Freiwilligendienst geschaut, und sehr interessante Projekte gefunden, in Rumänien, Slowenien und Kroatien. Bei den Projekten hab ich auch schonmal angefragt, ob sie denn überhaupt noch jemanden suchen.

Ein Projekt in Kroatien war richtig interessant. Und zwar bauen die gerade ein AFS Netzwerk auf! :) Das würde mir ja super viel Spaß machen und ich würde gut dazu beitragen können, da ich das deutsche Netzwerk inzwischen verstanden habe.

Nachdem ich dann Aufnahmeprojekte angeschrieben habe, und bei einem Projekt aus Rumänien 20min später schon eine Antwort hatte, dass ich mich bewerben solle, hab ich also nach einer Entsendeorganisation geschaut.
Da das bei AFS nicht klappt, denn da hätte ich mich schon im Dezember bewerben müssen, rief ich bei den Organisationen hier in der Umgebung an, also CVJM Ulm, CVJM Blaustein und das FEZA Bildungszentrum in Ulm. Nachdem aber entweder niemand da war (es war ja schon nach 16.00Uhr) oder derjenige der da war keine Ahnung hatte, rief ich noch bei dem Jugendwerk der AWO Württemberg an. Und siehe da... eine Entsendeorganisation war gefunden, nachdem sichergestellt war, dass ich aus der Nähe komme, und nicht irgendwie aus Hamburg ;)
Dort war das übrigens ein sehr netter Mitarbeiter... ich kann allen aus Ba-Wü empfehlen sich mit der AWO entsenden zu lassen! (Ok, darüber urteile ich vllt später!)

So das wäre also der alternative Schritt Richtung Ausland..... und wie gesagt: ich gehe... die Frage ist nur wohin!!!
Außerdem habe ich gerade eine E-Mail bekommen, dass wir zum Jugendkongress nach Berlin fahren dürfen! :) Das macht mich doch alles sehr sehr glücklich! :)
Nächste Pläne:
-nächste Woche nach Hamburg
-übernächste Woche nach Berlin
-währenddessen Bewerbungen schreiben
-bis 16. Mai Kursbericht für Abi-Zeitung schreiben
-Digitalkamera kaufen! Ich will endlich wieder Fotos machen!!!! 

Also Umeå ist eine wunderschöne Stadt. Vor allem im Frühling/Sommer. Vor 150 Jahren brannte die Stadt fast komplett in einem Inferno ab und deshalb sind mehrere Birken gepflanzt worden, sodass, falls wieder so eine Feuersbrunst die Stadt überraschen würde, es zuerst die Birken greifen würde, als die Häuser.
Sie ist typisch schwedisch mit vielen Holzhäusern und kleine Vorgärten. Natürlich gibt es auch moderne Architekturen, insbesondere jetzt, wo die Stadt stetig wächst.
Als Deutsche bist du gern gesehen. Viele sind sehr an der Sprache intressiert und auch die Art der Deutschen. So war es bei mir, als ich 2002 von Deutschland dorthin zog.Ålidhem ist ein Stadtteil, wo sich die meisten Studenten aufhalten.
Ein anderer Stadtteil, wo auch viele Studenten wohnen, ist Haga und Berghem. Alles sehr nahe der Universität.Ich könnte von der Freundlichkeit schwärmen, die vorwiegend vorhanden ist, aber Ausnahmen gibt es ja immer...Mir gefällt Umeå wegen ihrer weiten Spannbreite an Kulturen. Es ist sehr auf Studenten eingerichtet und vieles ist noch im Aufbau, aber du triffst wirklich alle mögliche Kulturen an...muslimische Länder, Indien, Chile..afrikanische länder...

Ich finde das klingt ganz wunderbar. Ich bekomme immer mehr Lust, dorthin zu reisen und dort zu leben ♥

Pétition EVS (pdf)

Voir aussi:

• Pétition EVS/précarité du SNUipp 76 (5 décembre 2007)
• Manif d’EVS à Toulouse (26 avril 2007)
• Collectif EVS dans le 49 ( 2 mars 2007)
• Les emplois vie scolaire (EVS) (12 février 2007)

Right now I am very exhausted but satisfied with today. And all respect to psychologists who have 5 - 7 such sessions a day but with even more demanding content. Hat off. Maybe one day I will experience it from that position as well. One never knows =) My education is a good precondition to that =)

The ZEV directive requires car manufacturers to market ultraclean and emissions-free vehicles (or buy credits earned by others making such vehicles). The California Air Resources Board decision yesterday reduces the quantity of emissions-free battery or fuel cell vehicles mandated for the 2012-2014 period from 25,000 to as few as 5,357, responding to automaker concern over the cost and reliability of EV batteries and fuel cells.

CARB says this reduction is offset by new rules recognizing the transitional value of plug-in hybrids. The agency claims that the ZEV rules will require automakers to produce 66,000 plug-in hybrids over the 2012-2014 period, thereby mainstreaming electric vehicle components and charging infrastructure that will hasten the day when the pure EVs go mainstream.

However, Plug In America claims the new rules will actually lead to 18,000 less plug-in hybrids over 2012-2014. It's difficult to say who is right because the ZEV rules are devilishly complex, and automakers are not currently required to disclose how many credits they have banked (a transparency gap the new rules would fix).

Plug In America charges that California legislators should take back responsibility for driving electrification of the automobile, but ironically one of their proposals seems to affirm the very battery qualms underlying CARB's revisions. Specifically, Plug In America proposes that legislators free manufacturers from providing the 15-year, 150,000-mile warranty CARB requires for hybrid batteries. That hardly seems like a recipe for driving mass confidence in the electric car.

This post was created for Tech Talk - Insights into tomorrow’s technology from the editors of IEEE Spectrum.

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Transport Canada denies it of course, but Ian Clifford of Zenn Motor Co, is blaming them for the fact that he still cannot sell his electric cars here, even though he has been selling them in the US for quite a while. Something about the definition of low speed vehicles and crash worthiness exemptions or somesuch. Bureaucratic twaddle of course. For most things automotive we just accept the US standards - but add daytime running lights and speedos in km/hr. No doubt the US also had to co-ordinate federal and state requirements, since it is the states that look after the roads - and only the interstates get federal funding. Not that you can take a slow speed vehicle on a freeway of course. So don't buy a Zenn if your commute takes you across the Port Mann or through the Massey tunnel.

 So, what have we here? You may ask. A Pokemon blog I will reply. And you will stare at the screen blankly, and query again what we have here.

I have always been a casual Pokemoner, essentially grinding through the game slowly filling the Pokedex and easily stomping the trainers in Kanto, Johto, Hoenn, Sinnoh, and all of the other various regions. I like the games and that they pretty much never end. srsly.

Since starting Pokemon Diamond I have noticed a large number of guides and equations on how to pimp one's poketeam to unimaginable strength. I always assumed you did that by getting to the elusive level 100. (Ah, this is where the real experts laugh hysterically at me! Only level 100 they scoff) However apparently I have been incorrect all this time and really it takes careful precision and not hacking through forests to get awesome little death monsters.

So, I decided to make a blog about my quest to incorperate all of the crazy training jargon into something I can understand by training a Pokemon to level 100 by following all of the rules. No guides that I've seen really talk about the big picture, just the individual categories, so here I go.

From what I can discern from the geekdom so far there are a few major factors in making the Pokemon of my choosing 1337. And they are as follows:

• Natures
• Individual Values
• Effort Values
• Movesets

Bunching all of these things together should create me an awesome Pokemon of Death and Cruelty. So, I have to choose a Pokemon whose back I won't be concerned looking at for ages... Despite my favourite Pokemon being an Umbreon I had already gotten one to 92 by the time I had started this blog so that made all of the above mostly obsolete. My Quiet Umbreon is awesome without planning, much more like it's trainer.

So, what was the wee beastie I selected to bring to the top? Well as the subdomain suggests, yes, it was a fire Pokemon, one that is my second favourite Pokemon I believe, and that is Cyndaquil. The adorkable flaming echidna:

So cute it scares small children I hear. His/her name will be Trafalgar to differentiate between Dex filling Typhlosion and 1337 Typhlosion.

Anyways, before I can even get started I have to decide stuff. (Seems a bit early, as I have yet to even hatch one.) The moveset, and the nature being the two that immediately come to mind. So far the nature is looking like it will be Adament (+Attack -Sp. Attack) because the moveset I'm leaning towards is all physical.

Perhaps I should start from the top as, as much as this is me recording stuff for my own joy other people may take the time to read this. According to widespread guides, Bulbapedia and Serebii being my favourite, certain Natures help build certain IVs, IVs being basically the big numbers that pop up when you level like Attack and Speed and such. So my Adament Cyndaquil (once he or she hatches) should theoretically get a 110% Increase on his Attack stat, only a 90% increase on his Special Attack stat and 100% on all of the other stats. Which, if I go with the planned moveset should be hunky-dory.

So far the moveset looks like this, while not a brilliant strategic moveset I'm still really getting started on training like the 1337.

1. Flame Wheel
2. Arial Ace (TM 40)
3. Earthquake (TM 26)
4. And either Double Kick (Egg Move), Shadow Claw (TM 65) or Rock Slide (TM80)

Because critics agree you should never have more than one type of move on one Pokemon. (Sorry Umbreon-- I just couldn't decide between Faint Attack, and Dark Pulse, maybe in time I can be forgiven?) I'm leaning towards Double Kick because it will help me learn to breed moves and because Rock-types that hurt me will get a largely unpleasant surprise when midget-legs over here gives them a boot.

Regardless, a Pokemon blog, now we all understand.

http://www.broadcastequipmentguide.com/evs_03_05_08.php

http://www.broadcastequipmentguide.com/evs_02_29_08.php

Going forward, some of Carbon-Nation's posts will now be copublished via IEEE Spectrum's

Plug-in mania has an influential new fan: the California Air Resources Board, which looks set to elevate plug-ins several notches in its zero-emissions vehicle (ZEV) mandate.

The ZEV directive requires car manufacturers to market ultraclean and emissions-free vehicles (or buy credits earned by others making such vehicles). The California Air Resources Board unleashed intense lobbying this winter among battery EV start-ups, major automakers, hydrogen fuel-cell developers, and coalitions promoting plug‑in hybrids when it promised to tweak the level of credits earned by various technologies. From the Air Resources Board staff proposal released late last week, plug-ins appear to be the big winners.

Presently the ZEV credit ratios favor fuel cells and offer relatively little help for plug-ins. The staff proposal would change this by enabling manufacturers to meet most of their ZEV requirements through 2014 with plug-in hybrids and hydrogen combustion vehicles. While not pure ZEVs like battery EVs and fuel cell vehicles, the California regulators bet that manufacture of plug-ins will yield components and infrastructure that will hasten the day when the pure EVs go mainstream.

"The goal continues to be to accelerate the development of pure ZEVs," says Air Resources Board member Daniel Sperling, director of the University of California, Davis, Institute of Transportation Studies. Sperling says promoting plug-in hybrids is the "only realistic way" to push car makers forward in light of the continued high cost of batteries and fuel cells.

Sperling and his fellow Air Resources Board members will take up the staff proposal after a public hearing in Sacramento scheduled for March 27-28.

Meanwhile, Arizona regulators seem to be feeling considerably more bullish about the viability of pure electrics. The Arizona Republic reports that Airzona's Department of Environmental Quality has drafted rules mandating that 11 percent of all cars sold in the state must be ZEVs from the 2011 model year. In 2018 the mandate would jump to 16 percent.

This post was created for Tech Talk - Insights into tomorrow's technology from the editors of IEEE Spectrum.

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Greater use of biofuels encouraged by the energy law containining the new CAFE standard could deliver similar energy savings.

But as my story today on TechReview.com and ABC News.com shows, these savings will be largely negated in 2020 by increased driving. Nor will a 40% CAFE boost, on its own, deliver the changes in technology and behavior needed to deliver a truly sustainable transportation system after 2020.

Provisions in the energy law supporting electrification of the automobile could, however, make a difference. Genevieve Cullen, vice president of the Electric Drive Transportation Association, in Washington, DC, promises that her group will be pushing for more. Their top priority now is to secure a  tax credit for buyers of plug-in hybrid vehicles that would be similar to those available to buyers of the current hybrids and vehicles that can run on alternative fuels.

Supporters of the oil industry stripped out a plug-in tax credit in last month's legislation along with provisions that would have eliminated tax breaks for oil and gas producers. "The unbelievable state that we're in right now is that there are absolutely no consumer incentives for battery electric vehicles-the zero petroleum, zero emissions vehicles," says Cullen.

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Digital Vision, the Norwegian production company part of Prisma Outside Broadcast (MediaTec Group), broadcasts up to six TV-channels in Norway from their headquarters at Bjerke Travbane, including two 24-hour channels: SportN (ViaSat/NRK) and RiksToto Direkte (the national horse-racing channel).

http://www.broadcastequipmentguide.com/evs_01_07_08.php

"Cheap Cashmere Sweaters": A Connect the Dots photo feature on MSN Green tracking cashmere's environmental footprints --carbon and otherwise-- back to the desertified steppes of Central Asia. Bottom line message: The price of that cashmere sweater looks good now, but the cost to the environment will bite you in the end.

Two for IEEE Spectrum Online:

"Power Transmission Without the Power Electronics": During their low-resolution beginnings digital music and photography delivered a jarring rendition of sounds and images. Today, digital devices used to control electricity flows are making a similar mess on power grids.

"Electric-Car Maker Touts 10-Minute Fill-Up": Altair Nanotechnologies' lithium ion batteries for electric vehicles charge up fast. Very fast. One of its 35 kilowatt-hour packs, capable of propelling an EV pickup truck for 160 kilometers, can fully charge in just 10 minutes-a feat that would be downright dangerous with most lithium batteries. But will such rapid-charging prove practical on the street?

And a troika for MIT's Technology Review website:

"Prospecting for Power": The ultra-sensitive detection of traces of helium rising from the Earth's mantle may hold the key to sniffing out sites of hidden geothermal energy.

"Cleaner Nuclear Power?": Senators representing several Western states are promoting thorium. They say it's a cleaner-burning fuel for nuclear-power plants, with the potential to cut high-level nuclear-waste volumes in half. Some nuclear watchdogs agree.

"Carbon Capture Moves Ahead": Carbon offsets marketer Blue Source is building the business case for carbon-capture and storage systems by storing CO2 in oil wells.

The briefing session dealt with the issue of Policy Coherence for Development within the larger context of implementation of European Consensus for Development. The first ever European Report on Policy Coherence for Development, which was prepared by the European Commission and which will be voted in the EP plenary early next year, was chosen as a departing point for the briefing session. The purpose of the session was two-folded: on one side to provide parliamentarians, policy makers and representatives of development administrations with the latest information regarding the above topic, and at the same time to provide the participants with an opportunities to discuss the subject with an expert panel of multi-stakeholder representatives (the European Commission, researcher, parliamentarians and civil society), and with their colleagues parliamentarians from other MS and EP.

President of SID Jos van Gennip open the session by a short welcome address to the participants and invitation to the Commissioner Louis Michel to deliver his keynote speech. Apart from from coherence the Commissioner touched also upon nummber of other very topical issues of the EU development policy debate such as EPAs, Code of Conduct on Division of Labour and EU-Africa Summitt. The commissioner was followed by a panel of experts including: presentation by Louka T. Katseli, MP Greek Parliament, Professor of Economics at the University of Athens, former Director OECD Development Centre presenting critical analysis from a perspective of MSs parliamentarians; very relevant concrete points by Thijs Berman , Vice-chair of the European Parliament Development Committee assessing the report from the EP perspective; presentation by Francoise Moreau, Head of unit Forward Looking Studies and Policy Coherence, DG Development & Relations with ACP States, the European Commission, who tried to give background to the report as well as the summary of the most important findings; and last but not least in a few very relevant brief points and practical examples Peter Heintze, Director EVS/EU Coherence Programme tried to give civil society perspective on the matter and role of parlaimetnarians in encuring coherence of the policies.

In fact, as I show in the November issue of IEEE Spectrum, the program is back and entrepreneurs, car companies and interest groups are scrambling to exploit its incentives to favor their respective automotive visions (see "California to Rule On Fate of EVs"). Far from a failure, the ZEV program's prodding exposed automakers to the potential of electric propulsion -- insights that Toyota applied in its market-leading Prius hybrid -- and it may well accelerate the arrival of further innovations.

The ZEV program shows that mandating innovation is a messy process full of unintended consequences. But it may be just what we need to drive adoption of the technologies currently available to slow the growth of greenhouse gases. In his provocatively titled book Sustainable Fossil Fuels Canadian energy economist Mark Jaccard identifies the ZEV program as the forerunner of the renewable portfolio standards adopted by the EU and many U.S. states that are helping to drive installation of wind turbines, large-scale experimentation with new forms of solar power, small-scale hydropower and other renewable sources of electricity. (This summer Congress rejected a proposal to require 10% renewable energy across the U.S. by 2020.)

Jaccard believes that "niche market regulations" such as the ZEV mandate and renewable portfolio standards will be key policy tools to force real change, second only to a cap-and-trade program regulating CO2 emissions (Jaccard would prefer energy taxes to both, but believes they are not politically feasible). In other words, targeted programs like the ZEV mandate that force major industries to try new approaches may be just the thing to deliver meaningful change in the way we use energy.

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