Manufacturing & Technology News articles from January 2009

Manufacturing & Technology News archives from January 2009

Nobel-prize winning economist says bottom just fell out of U.S. economy.
January 16, 2009... The United States economy is in a "steep nosedive" that is proving to be "horrific and awesomely dangerous," according to the most recent recipient of the Nobel Prize for economics. Few of the normal prescriptions for reversing a traditional...

Promise of Optoelectronics is headed to Asia: Optoelectronics will be a major global growth industry and will play a pivotal role in reducing U.S. energy consumption over the coming decades, but wide-scale deployment of the technology may not lead to many new American jobs.(Industry overview)
January 16, 2009... Optoelectronics are used in photovoltaic panels, in new solid-state lighting systems that reduce electricity consumption by a factor of five; in a new generation of televisions and telecommunications networks; and in sensors that will be...

U.S. companies doing business in China begin to worry about growing Chinese protectionism.
January 16, 2009... American companies operating in China increased sales and profits through the first half of 2008, but they are facing growing problems in operating there, according to the U.S.-China Business Council. In its annual survey of the Chinese...

Good cities breed good citizens and healthier economies.
January 16, 2009... An ongoing study by Gallup has found a direct link between the success of a local economy and the passion that people have in living there. When people connect with their community for its openness, social offerings and physical beauty, the...

Obama will burn through his economic team the way Lincoln jettisoned his generals.(Essay)
January 16, 2009... I am on an airplane headed from Washington, D.C., to San Francisco. It is late Christmas Day, 2008. I am at 32,400 feet flying just south of Indianapolis on a Virgin America flight at 458 mph. It is negative 57 degrees F. outside my window and...

Harvard man to head pres. science office.
January 16, 2009... President-elect Barack Obama has selected another Harvard man to serve in a top position in his White House. John Holdren, a 64-year-old professor of environmental policy at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government and director of the...

The economic state of the union: 2009.
January 16, 2009... For a generation, the U.S. lifestyle and role in the world has relied largely on wildly unsustainable asset appreciation and, even more, on the rocketing of private and public debt. The unsustainable has now stopped. America and the world face...

The offshoring of engineering: facts, unknowns and potential implications.(Recent Reports)
January 16, 2009... The Offshoring of Engineering: Facts, Unknowns and Potential Implications from the National Academies of Sciences says outsourcing activities "will continue to expand in scale and sophistication," but that shifting engineering work overseas...

The role of space in addressing America's national priorities.(Recent Reports)
January 16, 2009... The Role of Space in Addressing America's National Priorities from the Aerospace Industries Association is a white paper for the incoming Obama administration that recommends it "develop a mechanism to look at our space capabilities as a single...

2008 Global temperature ties as eighth warmest on record.(Recent Reports)
January 16, 2009... 2008 Global Temperature Ties as Eighth Warmest on Record from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says that global land surface temperature was the sixth warmest on record, with an average temperature that was 1.46 degrees F...

Assessment of achievable potential from energy efficiency and demand response programs in the U.S. (2010-2030).(Recent Reports)
January 16, 2009... Assessment of Achievable Potential from Energy Efficiency and Demand Response Programs in the U.S. (2010-2030) from the Electric Power Research Institute says the United States could reduce the rate of growth of electricity use by 22 percent...

The fiscal survey of states.(Recent Reports)
January 16, 2009... The Fiscal Survey of States from the National Governors Association is located at http://www.nga.org/Files/pdf/FSS0812.PDF.

University-private sector research partnerships in the innovation ecosystem.(Recent Reports)
January 16, 2009... University-Private Sector Research Partnerships in the Innovation Ecosystem from the Office of Science & Technology Policylocated at http://www.ostp.gov/ galleries/PCAST/past_research_partnership_report_BO OK.pdf

Final report on the collapse of world trade center building 7.(Recent Reports)
January 16, 2009... Final Report on the Collapse of World Trade Center Building 7 from the National Institute of Standards and Technology http://wtc.nist.gov/NCSTAR1/ PDF/NCSTAR%201A.pdf

Benchmarking for success: ensuring U.S. students receive a world-class education.(Recent Reports)
January 16, 2009... Benchmarking for Success: Ensuring U.S. Students Receive A World-Class Education is a new report from the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers. It describes five steps needed to build globally...

More variable and uncertain water supply: global warming's wake-up call for the Southeastern U.S.(Recent Reports)
January 16, 2009... More Variable and Uncertain Water Supply: Global Warming's Wake-Up Call for the Southeastern U.S. is a report from the National Wildlife Federation: http://www.nwf.org/news/clickThru.cfm?path=/nwfweba...

2028 vision for mechanical engineering.(Recent Reports)
January 16, 2009... 2028 Vision for Mechanical Engineering from ASME is available at http://www.admeconferences.org /asmeglobalsummit/index.cfm.

Save America's economic future commission proposed.
January 16, 2009... President-elect Barack Obama is being asked by prominent Republican Rep. Frank Wolf (Va.) to support a new commission that would have the teeth needed to put in place a new financial blueprint to save the federal government from potential...

America's worst state economy has the highest tax burden.
January 16, 2009... Michigan's economy is in turmoil, but the state has the highest property tax rate on industrial property in the nation, at 3.23 percent, compared to Delaware, which has the lowest effective tax rate at 0.52 percent. Michigan also tops the list...

Stanford creates energy institute.
January 16, 2009... Stanford University has created a $100-million research institute that will focus on energy issues. The center will hire additional faculty members and support new graduate students. Lynn Orr has been named president of the new institute,...

NIST awards first TIP contracts.
January 16, 2009... The National Institute of Standards and Technology has made nine awards for new research projects to develop sensing technologies aimed at monitoring and inspecting bridges, roadways and water systems. The awards are the first to be made...

Container trade growth ends.
January 16, 2009... Retail container traffic in the nation's ports fell for the 16th straight month in November 2008, reports the National Retail Federation. Volume is expected to be 15.3 million twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) in 2008, down from 16.5 million...

Air cargo trade growth ends.
January 16, 2009... International air cargo took a sharp drop of 13.5 percent in November, 2008, according to the International Air Transport Association. Such a decline in international cargo from the same month in 2007 "is shocking," says IATA CEO Giovanni...

Air conditioning is in the tank.
January 16, 2009... The air conditioning industry went into a trough in November, 2008, according to the Air-Conditioning, Heating and Refrigerating Institute (AHRI). Combined factory shipments of central air conditioners and heat pumps totaled 231,995 units, down...

Quotable.(Quotation)
January 16, 2009... QUOTABLE: "Economists like to tell me I'm not a trained economist and I don't know what I'm talking about, but my personal economic theory is that we're in this mess because for the last 15 years the United States has been producing essentially...

Bush put in same category as Hoover.
January 16, 2009... "It might seem premature to compare President George W. Bush to Herbert Hoover, the president who helped steer the economy into the Great Depression in 1929 and then presided over steady economic deterioration until the end of his term in 1933,...

Cap and trade works.
January 16, 2009... More than 102 million Americans are breathing cleaner air due to decreases in emissions of nitrogen oxides that have come about from the national cap-and-trade program, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. "The 2007 summertime NOx...