Bloomberg: Hanergy Chairman Laments 'Huge' Financial Loss From Trading Halt
Hanergy Holding Group Ltd.’s Chairman Li Hejun said he has suffered a “huge” financial loss from the plunge and trading halt in the shares of the group’s Hong Kong-listed subsidiary.
The suspension has been a disaster to Hanergy Thin Film Power Group Ltd., the holding company, small investors and himself, Li said in the text of a speech released by the company on Tuesday to mark the 21st anniversary of the group’s founding.
“Even though I’ve suffered big financially from the sell-off, what hurts me more are the losses for our shareholders, investors, institutional investors and our employees,” Li said in the speech posted on the company’s website.
MIT Technology Review: IBM Reports Breakthrough on Carbon Nanotube Transistors
For decades, the semiconductor industry has been packing more and more silicon transistors onto each computer chip to keep steadily improving performance, but that process will soon reach its physical limits. Now researchers at IBM say a “major engineering breakthrough” gives reason to be optimistic that a promising alternative to silicon transistors -- carbon nanotube transistors -- will be ready in time to take silicon’s place.
Carbon nanotubes, tiny cylinders made of rolled-up, atom-thick sheets of carbon, have very attractive electrical and thermal properties and theoretically could form the basis of circuits that are much faster and more energy-efficient than today’s silicon ones. But several major manufacturing challenges stand in the way of commercial devices based on nanotube transistors. The IBM researchers say they’ve figured out how to overcome one of them: how to combine nanotubes with the metal contacts that deliver electric current.
Reuters: Ex-French Minister Aims to Launch $3 Billion Renewables Fund for Africa
France's former energy minister hopes to raise $3 billion from Western donors by next year to help cash-strapped African nations fund renewable energy projects, in a bid to tackle pollution and spur development.
Jean Louis Borloo said his Energies for Africa project already had commitments from Western governments which would be used to ensure African nations had the capital to contribute their share of major renewables projects.
Borloo did not give specific details but said he hoped to showcase the project at the global climate summit in Paris in December.
Energy Collective: Sorry, Environmentalists -- Shell's Arctic Decision Is All About the Money
Environmentalists can hardly contain themselves with news that Royal Dutch Shell abandoned oil exploration in the Alaskan Arctic for “the foreseeable future.” For example, Greenpeace USA claimed that “this is, in no small part, thanks to public pressure from people around the world who have taken action to keep Arctic oil in the ground.”
Well, not really. To be sure, the oil companies are under tremendous pressure to keep carbon “in the ground.” But that is not what triggered Shell’s decision. Shell has also experienced several costly mishaps in the Arctic, and recent federal permit requirements made drilling more expensive for the company in the Chukchi Sea. Those events undoubtedly contributed to Shell’s decision.