“Five years ago when it rained constantly for 10 hours, a
motorcyclist took shelter from rain under a billboard.We carry a
extensive line of Parking Lot Lighting
inventory. It fell down on him and a few other people who had gathered
under it,” recalls Amber Alibhai, a representative of Shehri a
not-for-profit organisation which looks into civic problems facing the
city. The misery caused by the recent rains in Karachi would have
multiplied if these billboards had fallen down.
“In no civilised
city are billboards placed on main roads. Not only are they a traffic
distraction but also a threat to life if they fall down during a storm
or heavy downpour,” she adds.An emergency light is a battery-backed lighting device that comes on automatically when a building experiences a power outage.
At
the Ayesha Bawany School on Sharea Faisal putting up a 90-foot tall
bill board on the rooftop caused quite a stir among the parents who
considered it to be a threat to the life of their children. “What if it
fell down on the head of a student?” claimed an anxious parent. The
school already has two tall billboards perched at its rooftop. They
belong to a brand of paint, which the school spokesperson claims, is
owned by the owners.
“The school does not get paid for the two
billboards, the paint brand belongs to the school owners,” he said,
adding that work for the third billboard came to a halt after the
cantonment board ordered against it.
At many places in Gulshan and NIPA, trees have been chopped to make way for billboards.
“From
Hasan Square to the bus stand near my house, I used to walk under the
shady trees which took up the entire service lane. Recently they have
been chopped off and billboards have been placed there instead,”
complained Fauzia Ali, a student at Karachi University.
Until
recently huge billboards had been erected at the Kothari Parade, which
had hid the fa?ade of the beautiful heritage site. Billboards with
moving objects such as flash lights are a distraction, drivers claim.
Opposite the Regent Plaza on Sharea Faisal, a washing powder company had
placed a billboard with the flashing outlines of a water tub.
“Sometimes I got so engrossed in looking at it that I missed vehicles,”
said Aftab Ahmed, who drives from Saddar to PECHS everyday.
The
Karachi Metropolitan Corporation (KMC) has a strict size for billboards.
In a pre-monsoon meeting held by former KMC administrator Hashim Raza
Zaidi, directives to fix the billboards were given.
“Advertising
devices, including billboards, should be installed in such a manner
that their size and height doesn’t affect the traffic on roads and
corridors and also do not cause accidents,” he had said.
But
nothing happened after it. There is no controlling authority to keep a
check on billboards in Karachi. It is distributed among the KMC,
cantonment boards and the Karachi Development Authority. And that
explains the different sizes of billboards spread all over the city.
“Each body all has its own rules,” claims Alibhai.
WYNDHAM
Vacation Resorts Coffs Harbour is the only Australian finalist in the
prestigious "Go Green Awards" which recognise resorts that demonstrate
extensive environmental initiatives.
Since placing third in the
awards in 2010 Wyndham Coffs Harbour- Treetops has implemented a host of
green initiatives, making it a strong contender for this year's top
prize.
The property is now at stage three of its LED lighting
upgrades, taking the resort to 50% LED lighting. A second 10Kw solar
system was installed this year to reduce energy consumption. Eight new
speed controlled pool pumps have also been implemented, leading to an
impressive 85% reduction in power costs in the resort's pump room.
Together these initiatives have seen on average, a consistent 15% reduction in overall power usage.
The
resort generates its own fertilizer for its extensive gardens, using a
small tractor, a chipper-shredder and two bays for green waste and
mulch.
An onsite worm farm assists the process, and is also used
to dispose of food scraps. A new program is currently being developed
which will also allow guests to contribute to the worm farm.
Apartments feature recycling bins,A solar bulb
that charges up during the day and lights the night when the sun sets.
water efficient washing machines and dishwashers and environmentally
friendly taps and shower heads, while rainwater tanks are used for
irrigation on the property.
Children at the resort are
encouraged to learn about the environment, with each young guest
receiving a "Wynnie and Friends" Adventure pack which includes games and
educational material.
The childrens' characters were developed
as part of the highly-successful, companywide Wyndham Green program,
which aims to conserve resources, preserve natural habitats and prevent
pollution.
Read the full story at www.soli-lite.com!
2013年8月27日 星期二
Herman has just been diagnosed
Until recently, both Herman Wallace and Albert Woodfox had been held
in solitary confinement for 4 decades in Louisiana - longer than almost
any other known prisoner in recent U.S. history. It's long enough for
one's body to forget it ever knew anything else but four white walls and
for the mind to be reshaped by extreme isolation. Juan Mendez, the
United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture, says that after 15 days,
further isolation can cause permanent psychological damage and
constitute torture.
Herman has just been diagnosed with stage 5 liver cancer. Unless Governor Bobby Jindal of Louisiana grants him clemency, he may likely die in prison.
After decades in isolation, people experience hyper-anxiety, paranoia, insomnia, hallucinations,A solar bulb that charges up during the day and lights the night when the sun sets. emotional detachment, panic attacks and uncontrollable rage. Many start fights with guards just for human contact. Others cut themselves just to be taken out of their cells for a few days in the prison hospital.
I spent over a year in solitary confinement when I was held as a political hostage by the Iranian government from 2009 to 10. I experienced all of these reactions at various times throughout my isolation. In some cases, these symptoms have increased since my release. Almost three years later, I am still trying to shake the mental damage and loss that was inflicted upon me during those 410 days.
After spending nearly 41 years in a cramped cell, the cancer diagnosis led prison officials in July to transfer 71-year-old Herman to a ten-bunk prison dorm.An emergency light is a battery-backed lighting device that comes on automatically when a building experiences a power outage.
"He can now open a door," says Marina Drummer, who has been advocating on his behalf for the past 15 years. "He can walk from the dorm room into the dayroom without being shackled."
After spending 23 hours a day isolated in a small cell akin to a coffin, this change is monumental.
In 1972, Albert and Herman, two young black men, were charged and convicted of the murder of prison guard Brent Miller, despite the fact that no DNA evidence linked them to the crime. They were locked in solitary: 23 hours a day alone in a small cell, and were denied any meaningful review of their continued isolation.
In the decades after the trial, significant flaws in the legal process have come to light. Evidence suggests that the key eye-witness was bribed by prison officials into giving statements against the men and that the state withheld evidence that pointed to Herman and Albert's innocence. Potentially exculpatory evidence mysteriously went "missing" before the trial and more witnesses later recanted their testimony.
After Herman's diagnosis became known, human rights groups around the country - most notably Amnesty International - have called for his release on compassionate and medical grounds. More than 46,000 people in the U.S. have called on Governor Jindal to release Herman Wallace in the months since his diagnosis; tens of thousands of appeals have also poured in from around the world.
Herman is not a dangerous criminal - he is a 71-year-old cancer patient who has already survived an unthinkable nightmare. His continued imprisonment serves no purpose: prison records demonstrate that he is no threat to himself or others. As his conviction continues to be challenged before the courts, his cancerous tumor continues to grow. Despite treatment, he does not have much time left.
I recently turned 35. Herman Wallace has survived more years being psychologically tortured in our prisons than I've even been alive. I think about him still waking up every morning, tired and sick,We turn your dark into light courtesy of our brilliant sun, solar street light, solar power generation. but still fighting for his life and his long-deserved freedom. As Herman's health fails, we have to fight for him - and there's not much time left.
Read the full story at www.hmhid.com!
Herman has just been diagnosed with stage 5 liver cancer. Unless Governor Bobby Jindal of Louisiana grants him clemency, he may likely die in prison.
After decades in isolation, people experience hyper-anxiety, paranoia, insomnia, hallucinations,A solar bulb that charges up during the day and lights the night when the sun sets. emotional detachment, panic attacks and uncontrollable rage. Many start fights with guards just for human contact. Others cut themselves just to be taken out of their cells for a few days in the prison hospital.
I spent over a year in solitary confinement when I was held as a political hostage by the Iranian government from 2009 to 10. I experienced all of these reactions at various times throughout my isolation. In some cases, these symptoms have increased since my release. Almost three years later, I am still trying to shake the mental damage and loss that was inflicted upon me during those 410 days.
After spending nearly 41 years in a cramped cell, the cancer diagnosis led prison officials in July to transfer 71-year-old Herman to a ten-bunk prison dorm.An emergency light is a battery-backed lighting device that comes on automatically when a building experiences a power outage.
"He can now open a door," says Marina Drummer, who has been advocating on his behalf for the past 15 years. "He can walk from the dorm room into the dayroom without being shackled."
After spending 23 hours a day isolated in a small cell akin to a coffin, this change is monumental.
In 1972, Albert and Herman, two young black men, were charged and convicted of the murder of prison guard Brent Miller, despite the fact that no DNA evidence linked them to the crime. They were locked in solitary: 23 hours a day alone in a small cell, and were denied any meaningful review of their continued isolation.
In the decades after the trial, significant flaws in the legal process have come to light. Evidence suggests that the key eye-witness was bribed by prison officials into giving statements against the men and that the state withheld evidence that pointed to Herman and Albert's innocence. Potentially exculpatory evidence mysteriously went "missing" before the trial and more witnesses later recanted their testimony.
After Herman's diagnosis became known, human rights groups around the country - most notably Amnesty International - have called for his release on compassionate and medical grounds. More than 46,000 people in the U.S. have called on Governor Jindal to release Herman Wallace in the months since his diagnosis; tens of thousands of appeals have also poured in from around the world.
Herman is not a dangerous criminal - he is a 71-year-old cancer patient who has already survived an unthinkable nightmare. His continued imprisonment serves no purpose: prison records demonstrate that he is no threat to himself or others. As his conviction continues to be challenged before the courts, his cancerous tumor continues to grow. Despite treatment, he does not have much time left.
I recently turned 35. Herman Wallace has survived more years being psychologically tortured in our prisons than I've even been alive. I think about him still waking up every morning, tired and sick,We turn your dark into light courtesy of our brilliant sun, solar street light, solar power generation. but still fighting for his life and his long-deserved freedom. As Herman's health fails, we have to fight for him - and there's not much time left.
Read the full story at www.hmhid.com!
2013年8月22日 星期四
Follow-Up on Khayelitsha Streetlights
Follow-Up on Khayelitsha Streetlights
In February, GroundUp published a report on the issue of street lights in Khayelitsha, in particular on Lansdowne Road and Mew Way. Activist organizations -- the Social Justice Coalition (SJC), Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) and Equal Education (EE) -- held a march on 4 February in Khayelitsha.We have a great selection of blown glass backyard solar landscape lights and solar garden light.
City of Cape Town Mayor Patricia De Lille, who attended the march, received a memorandum that the City should ensure that street lights were functioning in Khayelitsha. It also demanded that the City implement the installation of street lights where they were not available and fix damaged and vandalized lights within Lansdowne Road and Khayelitsha.
GroundUp ran a follow-up story in April, and it seems there has been some improvement.
Councillor Danile Khatshwa of Ward 96 (Makhaza in Khayelitsha) said street lights in his ward from Lindela Road to Baden Powell Drive have been fixed and are working.
"Since I submitted complaints from residents within my ward, the street lights have been fixed and are functioning. You would only find that about one or two street lights are not working, but I can say that there's been an improvement," he said.
Zodwa Sinkempele (20), a Community Librarian at Equal Education said that she has some mixed feelings when it comes to the issue of street lights. "Since the march, I have seen some improvement in the functioning of the [street] lights. But I don't know whether the City only fixed the lights because we were pressuring them, or they only fixed the lights to get us out of their way then discontinued with the work they were supposed to do."
Khatshwa admitted there are however some parts of Khayelitsha that still remain in the dark.
"Despite the improvements on street lights in Makhaza, major sections in Khayelitsha still remain without functioning street lights,How does a solar charger work and where would you use a solar charger? particularly along Lansdowne Road .. Even some of the newly implemented streetlights are not of the best quality."
Councillor Danile felt that the newly installed lights were not as bright as the previously installed lights,A solar lantern uses this sunlight that is abundantly available to charge its batteries through a Solar Panel and gives light in nighttime. and felt that much brighter streetlights should have been installed. GroundUp went out at night to see whether this statement was true. The streetlights at Makhaza are very bright, and about 15 floodlights are providing light for the Site B, Town Two and Makhaza areas.
In addition to the three small bedrooms, the one-story house has two discreet sleeping lofts.
"We wanted small rooms," says Mr. Christiansen, which he says encourages the family to get together in the large central living and dining area. The master bedroom has a wall that opens entirely onto a private deck overlooking a tree-lined yard.
They hoped to finish by Christmas 2011, but delays on foundation and basement work meant a half-year postponement. They finally moved in July 2012, spending more than $500,00 on the project.
A basement is unusual for a summer house in the area, says Mr. Christiansen, but it was necessary to conceal the complicated technology involved in making the house energy efficient. Outfitted with a heat pump, solar panels and photovoltaic cells, the house can generate all of its heating, and can contribute electricity to the grid when the family is away.
Triple-glazed windows and near-total insulation mean that controlled ventilation is essential, and the house is programmed to ventilate itself four times a day. Heating can be controlled by a smartphone app,Shop funtional and elegant solar lights, outdoor solar lighting, solar garden lights, path lights and decorative solar lights. which allows the house to be just the right temperature when the family arrives for winter weekends.
In addition to the main house, the property has a new free-standing sauna, lined with ash wood and equipped with a large picture window. The wood-burning sauna oven is imported from Finland. Mr. Christiansen designed the sauna himself. "It is beautiful sitting here in 175-degree heat," he says, of his winter sauna sessions, which end with a roll in the snow.
Saunas aren't rare in Denmark, but "most Danes who build a sauna end up using them for storage," says Mr. Christiansen. The couple, looking ahead to the property's resale value, built the sauna to be easily converted into a guesthouse.
Read the full story at www.soli-lite.com!
In February, GroundUp published a report on the issue of street lights in Khayelitsha, in particular on Lansdowne Road and Mew Way. Activist organizations -- the Social Justice Coalition (SJC), Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) and Equal Education (EE) -- held a march on 4 February in Khayelitsha.We have a great selection of blown glass backyard solar landscape lights and solar garden light.
City of Cape Town Mayor Patricia De Lille, who attended the march, received a memorandum that the City should ensure that street lights were functioning in Khayelitsha. It also demanded that the City implement the installation of street lights where they were not available and fix damaged and vandalized lights within Lansdowne Road and Khayelitsha.
GroundUp ran a follow-up story in April, and it seems there has been some improvement.
Councillor Danile Khatshwa of Ward 96 (Makhaza in Khayelitsha) said street lights in his ward from Lindela Road to Baden Powell Drive have been fixed and are working.
"Since I submitted complaints from residents within my ward, the street lights have been fixed and are functioning. You would only find that about one or two street lights are not working, but I can say that there's been an improvement," he said.
Zodwa Sinkempele (20), a Community Librarian at Equal Education said that she has some mixed feelings when it comes to the issue of street lights. "Since the march, I have seen some improvement in the functioning of the [street] lights. But I don't know whether the City only fixed the lights because we were pressuring them, or they only fixed the lights to get us out of their way then discontinued with the work they were supposed to do."
Khatshwa admitted there are however some parts of Khayelitsha that still remain in the dark.
"Despite the improvements on street lights in Makhaza, major sections in Khayelitsha still remain without functioning street lights,How does a solar charger work and where would you use a solar charger? particularly along Lansdowne Road .. Even some of the newly implemented streetlights are not of the best quality."
Councillor Danile felt that the newly installed lights were not as bright as the previously installed lights,A solar lantern uses this sunlight that is abundantly available to charge its batteries through a Solar Panel and gives light in nighttime. and felt that much brighter streetlights should have been installed. GroundUp went out at night to see whether this statement was true. The streetlights at Makhaza are very bright, and about 15 floodlights are providing light for the Site B, Town Two and Makhaza areas.
In addition to the three small bedrooms, the one-story house has two discreet sleeping lofts.
"We wanted small rooms," says Mr. Christiansen, which he says encourages the family to get together in the large central living and dining area. The master bedroom has a wall that opens entirely onto a private deck overlooking a tree-lined yard.
They hoped to finish by Christmas 2011, but delays on foundation and basement work meant a half-year postponement. They finally moved in July 2012, spending more than $500,00 on the project.
A basement is unusual for a summer house in the area, says Mr. Christiansen, but it was necessary to conceal the complicated technology involved in making the house energy efficient. Outfitted with a heat pump, solar panels and photovoltaic cells, the house can generate all of its heating, and can contribute electricity to the grid when the family is away.
Triple-glazed windows and near-total insulation mean that controlled ventilation is essential, and the house is programmed to ventilate itself four times a day. Heating can be controlled by a smartphone app,Shop funtional and elegant solar lights, outdoor solar lighting, solar garden lights, path lights and decorative solar lights. which allows the house to be just the right temperature when the family arrives for winter weekends.
In addition to the main house, the property has a new free-standing sauna, lined with ash wood and equipped with a large picture window. The wood-burning sauna oven is imported from Finland. Mr. Christiansen designed the sauna himself. "It is beautiful sitting here in 175-degree heat," he says, of his winter sauna sessions, which end with a roll in the snow.
Saunas aren't rare in Denmark, but "most Danes who build a sauna end up using them for storage," says Mr. Christiansen. The couple, looking ahead to the property's resale value, built the sauna to be easily converted into a guesthouse.
Read the full story at www.soli-lite.com!
Fuel as Lab in California Chases Dream
It sounds like magic, far-out fiction, a California dream. Yet
earnest scientists are hard at work on a new alchemy: brewing fuel for
cars -- synthetic gasoline -- from little more than water and sunshine.
Mimicking the way plants turn sunlight and carbon dioxide in the air into energy and oxygen, the Joint Center for Artificial Photosynthesis at the California Institute of Technology is in a race to trump nature and slow global warming. Nate Lewis, a Caltech professor and solar energy research star, has a plan to remake fuel as we know it.
“If we couldn’t get to that, we wouldn’t be doing it,” Lewis said in an interview last month.
The effort is backed with $122 million of U.S. Energy Department funds and combines the talents of 120 scientists at Caltech; Stanford University; the University of California’s Berkeley,How does a solar charger work and where would you use a solar charger?Shop funtional and elegant solar lights, outdoor solar lighting, solar garden lights, path lights and decorative solar lights. Irvine and San Diego campuses; and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
Along with electric powertrains, vehicles that drive themselves and cars rented by the hour, it’s another disruption of the global auto industry that dates back to the 19th century.
Just a few years ago, all-electric cars seemed fantastic, too. Now Tesla Motors Inc. (TSLA), which makes only battery-powered vehicles, has a higher market value than some old-line automakers, such as Suzuki Motor Corp. (7269) and Fiat SpA. (F)
Two Leaps
To revolutionize transportation fuel, Lewis has a two-step plan. Really, it’s two leaps.We carry a extensive line of Parking Lot Lighting inventory.
First, the coalition aims to develop a system to make large amounts of hydrogen fuel using cheap solar-panel-like devices. Liquid or gaseous hydrogen, which can power super-clean fuel-cell cars, is needed for chemical plants and refineries.
Then comes the second leap: Applying that same research to a system that can blend the hydrogen fuel with carbon dioxide from the air, much as a plant does, to make liquid fuels that can power cars, heavy trucks, boats or aircraft. JCAP aims to get to that point by the mid-2020s, Lewis said.
Synthetic, carbon-free gasoline won’t come easy, quick or cheap.
Research labs worldwide are racing to find renewable alternatives to petroleum. Some are private endeavors; others are government-funded. While some seek to make fuel from algae, corn or other crops, Lewis argues that such solutions require too much water or land that will be needed for food production.
Innovation Race
Research projects like JCAP have the luxury of not having to satisfy investors’ short-term demands, said Pavel Molchanov, a Houston-based analyst for Raymond James & Associates Inc.
“Companies that rely on private capital, even venture capital, in most cases aim to be commercial within the next three years,” said Molchanov, who follows biofuel companies. “If we think about what private developers of biofuels are focusing on now, none of them have a commercialization road map that goes out to 2025.”
Startups such as KiOR Inc., Solazyme Inc., Ceres Inc., Gevo Inc. and Amyris Inc. have a lead over JCAP because they’re already commercializing biofuel alternatives to petroleum and grain-based ethanol.
What JCAP has going for it is the Energy Department, which deemed it an Energy Innovation Hub, one of three Manhattan Project-like efforts. Others are to improve nuclear power plants and make buildings more energy-efficient. With the government funding, Lewis can be methodical in search of a breakthrough.
Wright Brothers
“The first five years of JCAP, our goal is to show that this can be done; to make the pieces, components, to build an artificial photosynthetic system,” he said. That prototype “isn’t going to be commercializable,We have a great selection of blown glass backyard solar landscape lights and solar garden light. in the same way the Wright Brothers’ plane wasn’t a 747. We first have to show people there’s a there there.”
About five years after that, with “faster, better, cheaper” fuel-making technology, JCAP may be able to license its system to oil and energy companies, Lewis said.
The program is talking with potential industrial partners to help expand its analysis of promising “earth-abundant” materials needed for its solar-fuel distillery. Lewis declined to identify specific companies. JCAP’s technicians daily are testing hundreds of alloys made from metallic salts, seeking the optimal recipe of low-cost, light-absorbing materials and catalysts needed for hydrogen generation.
Urgency to increase low-carbon energy sources has intensified as extreme weather adds to concerns that heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere are making the Earth a less hospitable planet.
President Barack Obama, whose administration funded JCAP, signaled in June that U.S. action to curb carbon emissions will intensify with new steps to pare such pollution from power plants,A solar lantern uses this sunlight that is abundantly available to charge its batteries through a Solar Panel and gives light in nighttime. the biggest source of carbon dioxide emissions, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
Transportation Fuels
Second is the use of petroleum-based fuel in transportation. Engines in autos, trucks, aircraft and ships produced 28 percent of the 6.7 million metric tons emitted by the U.S. in 2011, according to the EPA, trailing only electricity generation’s 33 percent. Obama also laid out a plan in 2011 to double vehicle fuel efficiency by 2025 to cut carbon pollution.
Carmakers are boosting vehicle efficiency with small, high-output engines; propulsion delivered by batteries; and even hydrogen fuel cells.
Click on their website www.streetlights-solar.com for more information.
Mimicking the way plants turn sunlight and carbon dioxide in the air into energy and oxygen, the Joint Center for Artificial Photosynthesis at the California Institute of Technology is in a race to trump nature and slow global warming. Nate Lewis, a Caltech professor and solar energy research star, has a plan to remake fuel as we know it.
“If we couldn’t get to that, we wouldn’t be doing it,” Lewis said in an interview last month.
The effort is backed with $122 million of U.S. Energy Department funds and combines the talents of 120 scientists at Caltech; Stanford University; the University of California’s Berkeley,How does a solar charger work and where would you use a solar charger?Shop funtional and elegant solar lights, outdoor solar lighting, solar garden lights, path lights and decorative solar lights. Irvine and San Diego campuses; and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
Along with electric powertrains, vehicles that drive themselves and cars rented by the hour, it’s another disruption of the global auto industry that dates back to the 19th century.
Just a few years ago, all-electric cars seemed fantastic, too. Now Tesla Motors Inc. (TSLA), which makes only battery-powered vehicles, has a higher market value than some old-line automakers, such as Suzuki Motor Corp. (7269) and Fiat SpA. (F)
Two Leaps
To revolutionize transportation fuel, Lewis has a two-step plan. Really, it’s two leaps.We carry a extensive line of Parking Lot Lighting inventory.
First, the coalition aims to develop a system to make large amounts of hydrogen fuel using cheap solar-panel-like devices. Liquid or gaseous hydrogen, which can power super-clean fuel-cell cars, is needed for chemical plants and refineries.
Then comes the second leap: Applying that same research to a system that can blend the hydrogen fuel with carbon dioxide from the air, much as a plant does, to make liquid fuels that can power cars, heavy trucks, boats or aircraft. JCAP aims to get to that point by the mid-2020s, Lewis said.
Synthetic, carbon-free gasoline won’t come easy, quick or cheap.
Research labs worldwide are racing to find renewable alternatives to petroleum. Some are private endeavors; others are government-funded. While some seek to make fuel from algae, corn or other crops, Lewis argues that such solutions require too much water or land that will be needed for food production.
Innovation Race
Research projects like JCAP have the luxury of not having to satisfy investors’ short-term demands, said Pavel Molchanov, a Houston-based analyst for Raymond James & Associates Inc.
“Companies that rely on private capital, even venture capital, in most cases aim to be commercial within the next three years,” said Molchanov, who follows biofuel companies. “If we think about what private developers of biofuels are focusing on now, none of them have a commercialization road map that goes out to 2025.”
Startups such as KiOR Inc., Solazyme Inc., Ceres Inc., Gevo Inc. and Amyris Inc. have a lead over JCAP because they’re already commercializing biofuel alternatives to petroleum and grain-based ethanol.
What JCAP has going for it is the Energy Department, which deemed it an Energy Innovation Hub, one of three Manhattan Project-like efforts. Others are to improve nuclear power plants and make buildings more energy-efficient. With the government funding, Lewis can be methodical in search of a breakthrough.
Wright Brothers
“The first five years of JCAP, our goal is to show that this can be done; to make the pieces, components, to build an artificial photosynthetic system,” he said. That prototype “isn’t going to be commercializable,We have a great selection of blown glass backyard solar landscape lights and solar garden light. in the same way the Wright Brothers’ plane wasn’t a 747. We first have to show people there’s a there there.”
About five years after that, with “faster, better, cheaper” fuel-making technology, JCAP may be able to license its system to oil and energy companies, Lewis said.
The program is talking with potential industrial partners to help expand its analysis of promising “earth-abundant” materials needed for its solar-fuel distillery. Lewis declined to identify specific companies. JCAP’s technicians daily are testing hundreds of alloys made from metallic salts, seeking the optimal recipe of low-cost, light-absorbing materials and catalysts needed for hydrogen generation.
Urgency to increase low-carbon energy sources has intensified as extreme weather adds to concerns that heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere are making the Earth a less hospitable planet.
President Barack Obama, whose administration funded JCAP, signaled in June that U.S. action to curb carbon emissions will intensify with new steps to pare such pollution from power plants,A solar lantern uses this sunlight that is abundantly available to charge its batteries through a Solar Panel and gives light in nighttime. the biggest source of carbon dioxide emissions, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
Transportation Fuels
Second is the use of petroleum-based fuel in transportation. Engines in autos, trucks, aircraft and ships produced 28 percent of the 6.7 million metric tons emitted by the U.S. in 2011, according to the EPA, trailing only electricity generation’s 33 percent. Obama also laid out a plan in 2011 to double vehicle fuel efficiency by 2025 to cut carbon pollution.
Carmakers are boosting vehicle efficiency with small, high-output engines; propulsion delivered by batteries; and even hydrogen fuel cells.
Click on their website www.streetlights-solar.com for more information.
2013年8月19日 星期一
Eugene art project makes light
Pedestrians and drivers in downtown Eugene might
notice something different about the traffic signal boxes that occupy space at
street corners with traffic lights.The difference will be if they notice the
boxes at all.Last month, the gray cubes, which house electrical equipment to
operate traffic lights, were made over with loud, whimsical, colorful murals,
turning infrastructure into art.
You might have mistaken Bayne Gardner for a graffiti artist if you saw him drawing a masked face on the steel box at the corner of 10th Avenue and Oak Street. In fact, Eugene’s city government was paying Gardner to paint the drab, unassuming box with eye-catching art.Most modern headlight designs include Wholesale HID Kit.
Using money from Eugene’s percent-for-art ordinance, which dedicates 1 percent of the budget for eligible city-funded construction projects to public art, the city’s Cultural Services Department took an unusual approach to its latest project.
“People were tired of bronze sculptures,” says Isaac Marquez, the city’s public art manager.
Since last month, murals from four local artists have cropped up on 15 downtown street corners. A final one will be completed at the corner of Franklin Boulevard and Onyx Street within the next week or so.
The murals, which are unusual in appearance and in placement, interact with citizens more strongly than an oil painting tucked away in the library, and reflect the current art scene more aptly than a metal sculpture in the park. Marquez says city officials took the new approach in response to a 2010 survey, in which citizens expressed a desire for interactive, two-dimensional art in everyday settings.
The city recruited artists through social media and newspaper advertisements. Applicants were asked to submit an image of their proposed box, and a committee selected three winners — Alex Southworth, Wendy Huhn and Bryan Putnam — from a pool of 12 applicants.
The artists painted five boxes each, at a rate of $300 for small boxes and $500 for large boxes. Gardner won a people’s choice contest on Facebook and a $500 contract to paint the box on 10th and Oak. “I tried to make each side a little different,” he says. “I wanted, since it’s a four-sided object, to capture someone to look at all the sides.” Eugene isn’t the first to use its utility boxes as canvases. Santa Cruz, Calif., Seattle, Little Rock, Ark., and several other cities in the U.S. and abroad have sponsored initiatives similar to “Art the Box.”
In Eugene, artists’ work was strategically placed to fit the aesthetic of downtown streets.
Southworth’s murals, with their edgy, severe vibe, lined street corners on West 11th Avenue, near a heavy metal bar, a roller derby supply store and a tattoo parlor. Huhn’s bright and poppy murals line 13th Avenue,We installed flexible LED Strip lighting in our kitchen for under cabinet and within cabinet lighting. where a hair salon, a coffee shop and a computer repair store lead to the University of Oregon campus. “The response I wanted was exactly what I got from people,” Huhn says. “They said, ‘Oh, these just make me happy.'"Putnam’s work, inspired by Northwest mythology, is in the park blocks, where huge sequoia trees tower overhead.
As the artists worked, passers-by stopped to take pictures, offer lemonade, donuts and money, and inquire about whether the work was legal. “A couple of people called the cops on me,” Southworth says. The images are designed to last two years. They serve a dual purpose of enlivening a bland surface and deterring graffiti taggers. Each is covered with a layer of graffiti prevention coating. If a box is tagged, the graffiti can be wiped off without damaging the artwork.
Citizens toured the boxes during August’s First Friday ArtWalk, and listened as the artists talked about their work. Marquez says no more public events are planned, but those interested in touring the boxes can easily do so. Use the map with this story to conduct a personal walking tour of the artful infrastructure.There are all kinds of car daytime running lights with good quality.
You might have mistaken Bayne Gardner for a graffiti artist if you saw him drawing a masked face on the steel box at the corner of 10th Avenue and Oak Street. In fact, Eugene’s city government was paying Gardner to paint the drab, unassuming box with eye-catching art.Most modern headlight designs include Wholesale HID Kit.
Using money from Eugene’s percent-for-art ordinance, which dedicates 1 percent of the budget for eligible city-funded construction projects to public art, the city’s Cultural Services Department took an unusual approach to its latest project.
“People were tired of bronze sculptures,” says Isaac Marquez, the city’s public art manager.
Since last month, murals from four local artists have cropped up on 15 downtown street corners. A final one will be completed at the corner of Franklin Boulevard and Onyx Street within the next week or so.
The murals, which are unusual in appearance and in placement, interact with citizens more strongly than an oil painting tucked away in the library, and reflect the current art scene more aptly than a metal sculpture in the park. Marquez says city officials took the new approach in response to a 2010 survey, in which citizens expressed a desire for interactive, two-dimensional art in everyday settings.
The city recruited artists through social media and newspaper advertisements. Applicants were asked to submit an image of their proposed box, and a committee selected three winners — Alex Southworth, Wendy Huhn and Bryan Putnam — from a pool of 12 applicants.
The artists painted five boxes each, at a rate of $300 for small boxes and $500 for large boxes. Gardner won a people’s choice contest on Facebook and a $500 contract to paint the box on 10th and Oak. “I tried to make each side a little different,” he says. “I wanted, since it’s a four-sided object, to capture someone to look at all the sides.” Eugene isn’t the first to use its utility boxes as canvases. Santa Cruz, Calif., Seattle, Little Rock, Ark., and several other cities in the U.S. and abroad have sponsored initiatives similar to “Art the Box.”
In Eugene, artists’ work was strategically placed to fit the aesthetic of downtown streets.
Southworth’s murals, with their edgy, severe vibe, lined street corners on West 11th Avenue, near a heavy metal bar, a roller derby supply store and a tattoo parlor. Huhn’s bright and poppy murals line 13th Avenue,We installed flexible LED Strip lighting in our kitchen for under cabinet and within cabinet lighting. where a hair salon, a coffee shop and a computer repair store lead to the University of Oregon campus. “The response I wanted was exactly what I got from people,” Huhn says. “They said, ‘Oh, these just make me happy.'"Putnam’s work, inspired by Northwest mythology, is in the park blocks, where huge sequoia trees tower overhead.
As the artists worked, passers-by stopped to take pictures, offer lemonade, donuts and money, and inquire about whether the work was legal. “A couple of people called the cops on me,” Southworth says. The images are designed to last two years. They serve a dual purpose of enlivening a bland surface and deterring graffiti taggers. Each is covered with a layer of graffiti prevention coating. If a box is tagged, the graffiti can be wiped off without damaging the artwork.
Citizens toured the boxes during August’s First Friday ArtWalk, and listened as the artists talked about their work. Marquez says no more public events are planned, but those interested in touring the boxes can easily do so. Use the map with this story to conduct a personal walking tour of the artful infrastructure.There are all kinds of car daytime running lights with good quality.
For more information, please visit www.hmhid.com.
DAN HARVEY was a fat kid
DAN HARVEY was a fat kid, which is probably why we became friends in
the first place. In the rigid corporeal hierarchy of childhood, you’re
either the right weight or you’re not: too big and you’re a fat-ass; too
skinny and you’re a faggot. We were a perfect pair, like something out
of a children’s tale: the Elephant and the Giraffe, as we nicknamed
ourselves during a trip to the Toronto Zoo. What might it be like to
take up a different kind of space in the world? But Dan and I were stuck
with the bodies we had.
We grew up on neighbouring cul-de-sacs in Guelph, Ontario, and our elementary school was nearby. During recess, Dan sat by himself near the school doors, flicking pebbles at nothing. I was stick thin and bookish. Without a father, I had never learned to move like the other boys, didn’t know how to throw a football or swing a bat. So Dan and I found each other. In junior high, as cliques hardened, we drew closer, sitting for hours in his wood-panelled basement, where we talked about bands—Radiohead, Tool, Pink Floyd—in the rockist shorthand of teenage boys.
Dan played the saxophone then, and he looked as if he were fighting the thing, his cheeks red and puffed, his pudgy fingers manipulating the keys. He was, more than anyone I’ve ever known, an embodied person, moving like a tank and altering the gravity of any room he entered. He highlighted his curly brown hair with blond, and often wore two shirts at a time, as if trying to constrain his bulging proportions.
In grade nine, Dan and I attended the Halloween dance. Kids strutted around like pubescent bowerbirds, and we lurked on the fringes, terrified of the costumed girls around us. A few of them approached. One, a short brunette with blue eyes and a wide smile, had noticed Dan. She was dressed as a bee, black and yellow antennae wiggling on her head. I pushed Dan—who was convinced that he’d die a fat virgin—in her direction.
“I hear you like me,” Dan said.
“Yeah.”
“Do you want to go out?”
“Yeah.”
They danced the rest of the night, the girl’s hands reaching up to rest on Dan’s shoulders, his fingers closing around her waist. As we walked home, Dan realized that he had forgotten to ask her name. It was Jess.
By now, Dan’s rolls were starting to solidify. While I remained gawky, he developed into a natural athlete, his size—six feet four and nearly 300 pounds—an asset instead of a humiliation. He played football and basketball but grew to adore rugby, addicted to the sheer physicality of the sport. Acting also drew him in, and though he was usually typecast as the dumb jock or the idiot sheriff, he loved the attention. It was a way of attracting the spotlight on his own terms; you couldn’t call him fat if he called himself fat first. When we formed a band—I took up the guitar, Dan played bass—he sometimes prefaced performances with an apology. “If I mess up, it’s not my fault,” he told the audience. “I was born with fat fingers.”
He was still the closest friend I had, but I resented him, too. He had buddies on the football team and a girlfriend; he lost his virginity two years before I did. When he got his driver’s licence, I started treating him like a chauffeur. I was not allowed to stay out past midnight, and I was terrified of driving, so after parties Dan took me home in his parents’ Sebring before returning to the kegger to get drunk and sleep on the couch. Even as he ferried me around, I made sure he knew which of us was the smart one,We installed flexible LED Strip lighting in our kitchen for under cabinet and within cabinet lighting. who was the better musician, and who could name the studio where “The Bends” was recorded. Dan rarely said a word in reply. He just fidgeted uncomfortably, pushing his mass deeper into the seat, lifting one hand from the steering wheel to adjust his blue Tar Heels cap.
At the beginning of grade eleven, Dan got the red and yellow Superman logo tattooed on his right bicep. He had always been obsessed with the superhero, collecting comic books and Christopher Reeve movies and T-shirts.Most modern headlight designs include Wholesale HID Kit. Superman,There are all kinds of car daytime running lights with good quality. originally from the dying planet Krypton, is an attractive idol, his body a hard pile of muscle, capable of scattering bullets and soaring through solar systems. In “Superman: The Movie,” from 1978, he even turns back time by reversing Earth’s rotation. Superman is so unbeatable that his creators had to invent an antidote to his abilities: kryptonite, a mysterious green element that renders him powerless.
Read the full story at www.hmhid.com!
We grew up on neighbouring cul-de-sacs in Guelph, Ontario, and our elementary school was nearby. During recess, Dan sat by himself near the school doors, flicking pebbles at nothing. I was stick thin and bookish. Without a father, I had never learned to move like the other boys, didn’t know how to throw a football or swing a bat. So Dan and I found each other. In junior high, as cliques hardened, we drew closer, sitting for hours in his wood-panelled basement, where we talked about bands—Radiohead, Tool, Pink Floyd—in the rockist shorthand of teenage boys.
Dan played the saxophone then, and he looked as if he were fighting the thing, his cheeks red and puffed, his pudgy fingers manipulating the keys. He was, more than anyone I’ve ever known, an embodied person, moving like a tank and altering the gravity of any room he entered. He highlighted his curly brown hair with blond, and often wore two shirts at a time, as if trying to constrain his bulging proportions.
In grade nine, Dan and I attended the Halloween dance. Kids strutted around like pubescent bowerbirds, and we lurked on the fringes, terrified of the costumed girls around us. A few of them approached. One, a short brunette with blue eyes and a wide smile, had noticed Dan. She was dressed as a bee, black and yellow antennae wiggling on her head. I pushed Dan—who was convinced that he’d die a fat virgin—in her direction.
“I hear you like me,” Dan said.
“Yeah.”
“Do you want to go out?”
“Yeah.”
They danced the rest of the night, the girl’s hands reaching up to rest on Dan’s shoulders, his fingers closing around her waist. As we walked home, Dan realized that he had forgotten to ask her name. It was Jess.
By now, Dan’s rolls were starting to solidify. While I remained gawky, he developed into a natural athlete, his size—six feet four and nearly 300 pounds—an asset instead of a humiliation. He played football and basketball but grew to adore rugby, addicted to the sheer physicality of the sport. Acting also drew him in, and though he was usually typecast as the dumb jock or the idiot sheriff, he loved the attention. It was a way of attracting the spotlight on his own terms; you couldn’t call him fat if he called himself fat first. When we formed a band—I took up the guitar, Dan played bass—he sometimes prefaced performances with an apology. “If I mess up, it’s not my fault,” he told the audience. “I was born with fat fingers.”
He was still the closest friend I had, but I resented him, too. He had buddies on the football team and a girlfriend; he lost his virginity two years before I did. When he got his driver’s licence, I started treating him like a chauffeur. I was not allowed to stay out past midnight, and I was terrified of driving, so after parties Dan took me home in his parents’ Sebring before returning to the kegger to get drunk and sleep on the couch. Even as he ferried me around, I made sure he knew which of us was the smart one,We installed flexible LED Strip lighting in our kitchen for under cabinet and within cabinet lighting. who was the better musician, and who could name the studio where “The Bends” was recorded. Dan rarely said a word in reply. He just fidgeted uncomfortably, pushing his mass deeper into the seat, lifting one hand from the steering wheel to adjust his blue Tar Heels cap.
At the beginning of grade eleven, Dan got the red and yellow Superman logo tattooed on his right bicep. He had always been obsessed with the superhero, collecting comic books and Christopher Reeve movies and T-shirts.Most modern headlight designs include Wholesale HID Kit. Superman,There are all kinds of car daytime running lights with good quality. originally from the dying planet Krypton, is an attractive idol, his body a hard pile of muscle, capable of scattering bullets and soaring through solar systems. In “Superman: The Movie,” from 1978, he even turns back time by reversing Earth’s rotation. Superman is so unbeatable that his creators had to invent an antidote to his abilities: kryptonite, a mysterious green element that renders him powerless.
Read the full story at www.hmhid.com!
JPMorgan’s China hiring
US regulators are investigating the hiring practices of JPMorgan
Chase in Hong Kong,The world’s most efficient and cost effective hid lights?
in a move that could cast an unflattering light on the relationships
between Wall Street banks and the sons and daughters of Chinese
government officials.
JPMorgan disclosed in a recent regulatory filing that it has received a request from the US Securities and Exchange Commission “seeking information and documents relating to, among other matters, the firm’s employment of certain former employees in Hong Kong and its business relationships with certain clients”.The world's largest independent online retailer for solar lighting, street lights & outdoor lighting fixtures.
A person familiar with the investigation said that it involves the bank’s hiring of Tang Xiaoning, son of a former Chinese banking regulator who is now chairman of the state-owned China Everbright Group, and Zhang Xixi, the daughter of a Chinese railway official.
A Beijing-based spokesperson for JPMorgan said the bank was fully co-operating with the US authorities but declined to comment further.
The investigation is likely to cause consternation on Wall Street and in the corridors of power in China, where hiring the sons and daughters of prominent politicians or business leaders is considered de rigueur as part of a system that places heavy emphasis on “guanxi,” or personal connections, as a way of securing new business.
In their rush to capitalise on China’s economic growth, virtually all the big Wall Street and European financial institutions with operations in the country have habitually hired “princelings”, as the children of senior Chinese officials are known.
Goldman Sachs once hired Jiang Zhicheng, grandson of the former Chinese president Jiang Zemin, for its direct private investment arm, for instance.
A senior Chinese official told the Financial Times that the Chinese government had not launched its own investigation into JPMorgan or its hiring practices in the country, but that the revelations are causing concern because the practice of hiring the children of senior officials to work at financial institutions is very common.
Some individual Chinese officials are worried their own children could also be named in media reports or in investigations in the US, the senior official said.
Two people familiar with the matter confirmed that Tang Xiaoning and Zhang Xixi had previously worked at JPMorgan and that Mr Tang left the company in December 2012. Attempts to reach Mr Tang and Ms Zhang were unsuccessful.
A spokesman for the SEC declined to comment on the investigation, which was first reported by the New York Times.Thank you for providing us with information to help us maintain street light.
US authorities have to date rarely investigated Wall Street’s business practices in China, though a former Morgan Stanley adviser was last year sent to prison after bribing a Chinese official to win lucrative real estate investments for the bank.
In recent years, foreign banks are said to have found it increasingly difficult to attract the offspring of the country’s most senior leaders thanks to the rise of a domestic private equity industry that provides lucrative opportunities for Chinese investors with powerful family backgrounds.
In private conversations, executives at western banks admit they are now more likely to hire the children of vice-ministers or provincial vice-governors, whereas a few years ago the parents of their recruits were usually minister level or above.
The investigation could add to JPMorgan’s recent regulatory woes. The investment bank faces a string of regulatory investigations related to its $6bn “London Whale” trading loss, as well as questions over its commodities and energy businesses.
Click on their website www.hmhid.com for more information.
JPMorgan disclosed in a recent regulatory filing that it has received a request from the US Securities and Exchange Commission “seeking information and documents relating to, among other matters, the firm’s employment of certain former employees in Hong Kong and its business relationships with certain clients”.The world's largest independent online retailer for solar lighting, street lights & outdoor lighting fixtures.
A person familiar with the investigation said that it involves the bank’s hiring of Tang Xiaoning, son of a former Chinese banking regulator who is now chairman of the state-owned China Everbright Group, and Zhang Xixi, the daughter of a Chinese railway official.
A Beijing-based spokesperson for JPMorgan said the bank was fully co-operating with the US authorities but declined to comment further.
The investigation is likely to cause consternation on Wall Street and in the corridors of power in China, where hiring the sons and daughters of prominent politicians or business leaders is considered de rigueur as part of a system that places heavy emphasis on “guanxi,” or personal connections, as a way of securing new business.
In their rush to capitalise on China’s economic growth, virtually all the big Wall Street and European financial institutions with operations in the country have habitually hired “princelings”, as the children of senior Chinese officials are known.
Goldman Sachs once hired Jiang Zhicheng, grandson of the former Chinese president Jiang Zemin, for its direct private investment arm, for instance.
A senior Chinese official told the Financial Times that the Chinese government had not launched its own investigation into JPMorgan or its hiring practices in the country, but that the revelations are causing concern because the practice of hiring the children of senior officials to work at financial institutions is very common.
Some individual Chinese officials are worried their own children could also be named in media reports or in investigations in the US, the senior official said.
Two people familiar with the matter confirmed that Tang Xiaoning and Zhang Xixi had previously worked at JPMorgan and that Mr Tang left the company in December 2012. Attempts to reach Mr Tang and Ms Zhang were unsuccessful.
A spokesman for the SEC declined to comment on the investigation, which was first reported by the New York Times.Thank you for providing us with information to help us maintain street light.
US authorities have to date rarely investigated Wall Street’s business practices in China, though a former Morgan Stanley adviser was last year sent to prison after bribing a Chinese official to win lucrative real estate investments for the bank.
In recent years, foreign banks are said to have found it increasingly difficult to attract the offspring of the country’s most senior leaders thanks to the rise of a domestic private equity industry that provides lucrative opportunities for Chinese investors with powerful family backgrounds.
In private conversations, executives at western banks admit they are now more likely to hire the children of vice-ministers or provincial vice-governors, whereas a few years ago the parents of their recruits were usually minister level or above.
The investigation could add to JPMorgan’s recent regulatory woes. The investment bank faces a string of regulatory investigations related to its $6bn “London Whale” trading loss, as well as questions over its commodities and energy businesses.
Click on their website www.hmhid.com for more information.
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