Nick's story links

The tech blogosphere has been aflutter this week with the next, biggest thing to change our lives. Well, perhaps the lives of millions of pre-teens across the world.

On Thursday, Rick Wagoner, Chairman and CEO of General Motors came to San Francisco to speak about the future of the company and "green" auto technology.

San Francisco’s Climate Action Plan aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 25% of 1990 levels by 2012. To accomplish this goal, Mayor Gavin Newsom is now focusing on small scale wind generation and strengthening local building codes. This could be an effective strategy, since according to the U.S. Green Building Council, buildings account for 38% of CO2 emissions in the United States.

A study by the Kenexa Research Instituteindicates that organizations environmental initiatives significantly influence employee motivation and their opinions of senior management.

Thus is the verdict from MV Beluga Skysails captain Lutz Heldt upon completion of the vessel’s 12,000 mile round-trip maiden voyage. The crew and vessel were at sea for nearly two months, giving the “skysail” concept ample opportunity for testing and tweaking.

The journey took the ship from Germany to Venezuela, the United States, and then to Norway, arriving on March 13.

Sometimes even the best of us can't see the forest for the trees...

The “sub-prime meltdown” hit me personally when my bank calmly informed me one day last fall that they had ceased to be, and, due to the bank’s apparent policy of making questionable loans that were simply unsustainable for too many borrowers, had become insolvent and thus had gone into receivership by another bank.

So how would a builder profit in the current rough and tumble real estate market? Build a high quality home using green practices without cutting any corners that's how. David Hall of Deltec Homes has successfully led his company along this path and the profits continue to grow even in these hard times for builders and developers alike.

The US electricity distribution grid is around 100-years old and aging faster than new construction renews it while peak demand for electricity is projected to rise 19 percent nationally during the next decade--capital investments in electrical generation, transmission and distribution are forecast to grow by only 6 percent over the same period, according to the Electrical Power Research Initiative.

Is Murphy Oil actually thinking about the future or just trying to avoid bad PR?