USA Today: Apple Plans a Solar-Powered Command Center in Arizona
Apple Inc. will establish a command center for its global operations in Mesa, Ariz., promising a $2 billion investment over the next 30 years, state officials announced Monday.
The facility will be housed in the location recently occupied by GT Advanced Technologies, the maker of highly durable sapphire glass, which filed for bankruptcy in the fall after Apple used rival Corning glass for its new iPhone 6 devices.
The east Mesa center is expected to create 150 full-time jobs for Apple, and could generate from 300 to 500 construction and trade jobs while the facility is built out.
Quartz: The Man Who Brought Us the Lithium-Ion Battery Has an Idea for a New One
The chances are you have never heard of John Bannister Goodenough. But you know his work. In fact, you almost certainly own some.
The first of these outsized inventions is the transistor, which, created in 1947 at Bell Labs, transformed electronics, a foundation of the global economy and contemporary civilization. The second is the lithium-ion battery. Commercialized by Sony in 1991, lithium-ion took the clunky electronics enabled by the transistor and made them portable.
Unlike the transistor, the lithium-ion battery has not won a Nobel Prize. But many people think it should. The lithium-ion battery gave the transistor reach. Without it, we would not have smartphones, tablets or laptops, including the device you are reading at this very moment. There would be no Apple. No Samsung. No Tesla.
Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Georgia Power Slows Pursuit of Another Nuclear Project
Georgia Power’s parent company is delaying initial planning for another new nuclear power project as it wrestles with growing troubles for a massive one already underway.
Southern Company chairman and chief executive Tom Fanning said Wednesday the company will hold off until it resolves issues in the delayed expansion of Plant Vogtle near Augusta. Consumers face the potential for higher power bills as Vogtle’s costs grow.
Forbes: Hanergy to Build Solar-Powered Cars
Chinese billionaire Li Hejun, chairman of solar-equipment manufacturer Hanergy Holding, is expanding his business into the auto sector.
Hanergy will launch five models of solar-powered cars in October, according to a Feb. 2 post on the company’s website. The models can run up to 100 km after four hours of charging, according to the statement.
“Hanergy is working with three foreign partners and two domestic firms to develop solar-powered vehicles,” the firm says in the statement. “The market potential is huge.”
Reuters: EU Close to Agreement on Carbon Market Reform
The European Union is nearing an agreement on a plan to revamp its ailing carbon market, the EU's energy chief Maros Sefcovic said on Wednesday.
"We are very close to agreement between the European Council and European Parliament on carbon market reform," Sefcovic, a vice president in the European Commission, told a news conference in Brussels.