Word: solarized
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With oil prices heading toward $79 a barrel, the age of the solar panel is dawning at last, and electronics companies from the land of the rising sun are leading the way. Decades of money-losing research and development are finally paying off at Japanese electronics giants like Sharp, Sanyo, Mitsubishi and Kyocera, who together control about 50% of the global market. "The solar units of these companies are already real businesses, and they are only going to become larger parts of their operations," says Yuki Sugi, a Lehman Bros. analyst in Tokyo who covers Sharp and Sanyo...
Sharp, the world's market leader, sold more than $1 billion worth of solar panels last year and expects a 28% increase this year. Sanyo expects a 60% sales increase this year, and at Kyocera, solar panels account for 5% of the company's total sales and 12% of its operating profit. "Solar is a booming business," says Sharp president Katsuhiko Machida, "and it is one of our core targets for growth...
With few oil resources of its own, Japan has long made alternative-fuel research and conservation national priorities. Meanwhile, electronics companies have been deeply interested in the power management of their devices and in silicon-based materials like computer chips--technologies at the heart of silicon solar-panel manufacturing. Unlike in other countries, where oil and gas companies tend to research solar energy, electronics companies here have no other energy divisions to worry about compromising...
Located 30 miles west of Cambridge, Oak Ridge’s 61-inch-wide Wyeth telescope has a rich history. It was used to discover the first potential planet orbiting a star outside the solar system, and has been used regularly by undergraduates for research. Although it is currently the largest telescope in the country east of Texas, the Oak Hill technology doesn’t measure up to newer models, which have gotten progressively larger and more powerful. Its closure reflects plans to bring the Harvard-Smithsonian Center For Astrophysics’ (CFA) international battery of telescopes...
Basically it's a vast mosaic of tax breaks. Among the big winners: electric utilities (they'll save $3.1 billion over 10 years), the coal industry ($2.9 billion) and the oil-and-gas business ($2.7 billion). Consumers get tax credits for rooftop solar panels, $500 for home energy improvements and from $500 to $3,400 in credits for the purchase of hybrid gasoline-electric cars or other "cleaner" vehicles...