Bloomberg: Utilities Offer Rare Spark for Dealmakers in First Half of 2016
North America is once again the focus for big utility deals, as customer demand for product -- electricity -- continues at reduced levels, while the need to spend on infrastructure remains high.
Globally, electric utility deal volume totaled about $56 billion in the first six months of 2016, according to data compiled by Bloomberg, compared with about $16 billion in the year-earlier period. The U.S. and Canada accounted for 63 percent of the total this year, the data show.
It was one of the few bright spots in a year that has seen total global deal volume drop by about 13 percent -- and one in which more than $300 billion in deals were terminated in the second quarter alone.
Washington Post: Clean Energy Is at a Turning Point and Wind and Solar May Not Be Enough
Last week at the North American Leaders’ Summit featuring President Obama, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto, the three nations announced a goal of generating 50 percent of North America’s electricity from “clean” sources by 2025. It’s a laudable goal, but it naturally raises a question -- how exactly, in the United States, do we get there?
A closer look at what the White House and its counterparts actually mean by this proposal shows that for the United States, the goal relies on far more than an ongoing boom in wind and solar.
Tech Insider: Henrik Fisker Wants to Build a Self-Driving Car
Legendary car designer Henrik Fisker launched his comeback with the Force 1 in January -- a $230,000 luxury sports car.
But Fisker isn't planning on stopping with the Force 1. He's already designing the next car to sell under his new company, VLF Automotive, based in Detroit. And the car designer is interested in pursuing electric cars again and ones with autonomous features down the road.
"What is the next vehicle out there in terms of electric cars and autonomous driving?" Fisker told Tech Insider. "I'm spending a lot of time in that area and what that means in the future."
MIT Technology Review: If a Driverless Car Goes Bad, We May Never Know Why
Two recent accidents involving Tesla’s Autopilot system may raise questions about how computer systems based on learning should be validated and investigated when something goes wrong.
Tesla hasn’t disclosed precisely how Autopilot works. But machine-learning techniques are increasingly used to train automotive systems, especially to recognize visual information. MobileEye, an Israeli company that supplies technology to Tesla and other automakers, offers software that uses deep learning to recognize vehicles, lane markings, road signs, and other objects in video footage.
Real Clear Politics: Where Clinton, Trump Stand on Energy, Climate Change
The Republican and Democratic parties are firming up their policy platforms ahead of their conventions in Cleveland and Philadelphia later this month. But once a convention week starts, pageantry and partisanship tend to eclipse actual policy messaging in the media spotlight. So before we all enter the media-circus “event horizon,” it’s worth remembering where presumptive nominees Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump stood on climate and energy policy during the primary season.