Copper end use trends

8. Energy efficiency and demand response generate smart grid savings

Unlike most major auto manufacturer, Porsche doesn’t think the market for hybrids will be very big and has decided against producing the hybrid Panamera executive sports sedan according to Fast Lane Daily.

here is just one problem. How did these delegates, from around the world, get to the conference? For the most part, they flew over land and sea in airplanes. Airplanes are known to be one of the bigger offenders of CO2 emissions. The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change estimates that air travel causes 3.5 percent of global warming. This could increase to 15 percent by 2050.When landed, some potentates traveled by gas-guzzling limousine.

addressed the conference in a 3-D animated avatar version of himself. In doing this, Markey saved an estimated 5.36 tons of CO2 emissions. Citizens from many different countries are reported to have attended the virtual Bali conference the same way Markey chose to attend.

Would electric cars really be any better for the environment than our current gas guzzlers? So much of our electricity comes from coal, after all, which isn't exactly the cleanest source of energy. Might we all be better off simply upgrading to more fuel-efficient vehicles—that is, ditching our Hummers in favor of Toyota Corollas? >

Rinspeed’s concept car, sQuba, is set to make its debut at the 2008 Geneva Motor Show (March 6th thru 16th, 2008). The car is similar to past concepts from Rinspeed in that it also operates in water but, this time, it will be motoring under the surface - acting like a submarine. The sQuba will have two propellers and dual jet drives, thrusting it through water up to 10 meters deep.

The Virtual Cable is the next generation of in-car navigation devices. This gadget uses lasers and mirrors to produce a seemingly real ‘cable’ outside the vehicle’s window to show drivers where to turn.

In a measure to protect their cyclists, the Danish city of Grenå is funding a large-scale project called “See Mi” that will make navigating the city’s busiest streets easier for both cyclists and drivers.  The initiative will see the installation of battery-powered RFIDs in the steering columns of 300 bikes as well as receivers at seven of the city’s most dangerous intersections.

The appeal of online virtual worlds such as Second Life is such that it may trigger an exodus of people seeking to "disappear from reality," an expert on large-scale online games has said.

As you probably are aware, future communications networks will certainly be based on optics. A research team led by Duke University physicists has done an important discovery which might lead to these future super-fast optical communications networks. The team has found a way to store information coming from a beam of light by converting it to sound waves. More importantly, it was able to retrieve it again as light waves. These reversible data transfers from light to sound are today limited to labs. Several years will pass before commercial companies can use this technique because there are still some technical issues to solve. But read more…

The first solar-powered development in Costa Rica is breaking ground in the remote beach town of Malpais.

We’d love to see real estate developers in Costa Rica starting to compete on how energy efficient and eco-friendly their houses are! Costa Rica is the ideal country for something like that.”

If you don’t live in the southern part of the earth, you may have to wait ‘til the spring to enjoy this pop-up 42” plasma screen outdoor TV. By the looks of the Cal Flame U8000, it might just be worth being patient for as this could device could take center stage at your next barbecue party.

So long as the user writes on paper printed with a special pattern, the smartpen transforms what is written into interactive text. For example, the pen has a recording function, called paper replay, that can record sound and connect it to what the user writes while the sounds are being recorded. Later, the user can tap the pen over what she wrote and replay the associated sounds. "We're starting to make the whole world of printable surfaces accessible and functional,

A Delaware-based startup called WildCharge thinks that it has a better approach. The company is selling a small metal pad, about the size of a sheet of paper, that can simultaneously charge multiple devices laid on top of it--as long as they're equipped with adaptors. WildCharge is now selling an adaptor for Motorola Razr phones, and it's developing others.

Wind Capital Group (WCG), one of America’s fastest-growing independent developers of wind energy, announced today that it has sold its 200 megawatt Buffalo Creek Wind Farm in Franklin County, Iowa, to Interstate Power and Light Co

"We have already announced a commercial contract with Think Electric Vehicle in Norway," Charles Gassenheimer, chairman of Ener1, Inc. (OTCBB: ENEI) added, referring to a $70 million development and supply agreement signed in October. "It's the largest electric vehicle company in Europe. You will see our batteries in their cars by the end of 2008.

With the European Union next year set to launch its Institute of Innovation and Technology, some EU capitals have already started their bids to house the institute. Austria, Hungary and Poland have said they would like to host the new European body, which is being promoted in Brussels as a flagship project to boost innovation, research and higher education.

"Here we show that if men are abundant, this will influence the market value of their desired traits, that is, women can demand more. This aspect, namely individual decision making as a function of the mating market (local abundance or scarcity), has been relatively neglected within the literature on human mate choice."