From a snuggle in the surf to a surprise engagement, see the former couple's most romantic moments
Credit: Kevin Mazur/Wireimage
Updated: Friday Jan 11, 2013 | 07:00 AM EST
By: Cara Lynn Shultz
WASHINGTON (AP) — Nearly half the 70 employees at a Ford dealership in Clarksville, Ind., have been out sick at some point in the past month. It didn't have to be that way, the boss says.
"If people had stayed home in the first place, a lot of times that spread wouldn't have happened," says Marty Book, a vice president at Carriage Ford. "But people really want to get out and do their jobs, and sometimes that's a detriment."
The flu season that has struck early and hard across the U.S. is putting businesses and employees alike in a bind. In this shaky economy, many Americans are reluctant to call in sick, something that can backfire for their employers.
Flu was widespread in 47 states last week, up from 41 the week before, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Friday. The only states without widespread flu were California, Mississippi and Hawaii. And the main strain of the virus circulating tends to make people sicker than usual.
Blake Fleetwood, president of Cook Travel in New York, says his agency is operating with less than 40 percent of its staff of 35 because of the flu and other ailments.
"The people here are working longer hours and it puts a lot of strain on everyone," Fleetwood says. "You don't know whether to ask people with the flu to come in or not." He says the flu is also taking its toll on business as customers cancel their travel plans: "People are getting the flu and they're reduced to a shriveling little mess and don't feel like going anywhere."
Many workers go to the office even when they're sick because they are worried about losing their jobs, says John Challenger, CEO of Challenger, Gray & Christmas, an employer consulting firm. Other employees report for work out of financial necessity, since roughly 40 percent of U.S. workers don't get paid if they are out sick. Some simply have a strong work ethic and feel obligated to show up.
Flu season typically costs employers $10.4 billion for hospitalization and doctor's office visits, according to the CDC. That does not include the costs of lost productivity from absences.
At Carriage Ford, Book says the company plans to make flu shots mandatory for all employees.
Linda Doyle, CEO of the Northcrest Community retirement home in Ames, Iowa, says the company took that step this year for its 120 employees, providing the shots at no cost. It is also supplying face masks for all staff.
And no one is expected to come into work if sick, she says.
So far, the company hasn't seen an outbreak of flu cases.
"You keep your fingers crossed and hope it continues this way," Doyle says. "You see the news and it's frightening. We just want to make sure that we're doing everything possible to keep everyone healthy. Cleanliness is really the key to it. Washing your hands. Wash, wash, wash."
Among other steps employers can take to reduce the spread of the flu on the job: holding meetings via conference calls, staggering shifts so that fewer people are on the job at the same time, and avoiding handshaking.
Newspaper editor Rob Blackwell says he had taken only two sick days in the last two years before coming down with the flu and then pneumonia in the past two weeks. He missed several days the first week of January and has been working from home the past week.
"I kept trying to push myself to get back to work because, generally speaking, when I'm sick I just push through it," says Blackwell, the Washington bureau chief for the daily trade paper American Banker.
Connecticut is the only state that requires some businesses to pay employees when they are out sick. Cities such as San Francisco and Washington have similar laws.
Challenger and others say attitudes are changing, and many companies are rethinking their sick policies to avoid officewide outbreaks of the flu and other infectious diseases.
"I think companies are waking up to the fact right now that you might get a little bit of gain from a person coming into work sick, but especially when you have an epidemic, if 10 or 20 people then get sick, in fact you've lost productivity," Challenger says.
___
Associated Press writers Mike Stobbe in Atlanta, Eileen A.J. Connelly in New York, Paul Wiseman in Washington, Barbara Rodriguez in Des Moines, Iowa, and Jim Salter in St. Louis contributed to this report.
NEW YORK (Reuters) - After over a month of watching Capitol Hill and Pennsylvania Avenue, Wall Street can get back to what it knows best: Wall Street.
The first full week of earnings season is dominated by the financial sector - big investment banks and commercial banks - just as retail investors, free from the "fiscal cliff" worries, have started to get back into the markets.
Equities have risen in the new year, rallying after the initial resolution of the fiscal cliff in Washington on January 2. The S&P 500 on Friday closed its second straight week of gains, leaving it just fractionally off a five-year closing high hit on Thursday.
An array of financial companies - including Goldman Sachs
"The banks have a read on the economy, on the health of consumers, on the health of demand," said Quincy Krosby, market strategist at Prudential Financial in Newark, New Jersey.
"What we're looking for is demand. Demand from small business owners, from consumers."
EARNINGS AND ECONOMIC EXPECTATIONS
Investors were greeted with a slightly better-than-anticipated first week of earnings, but expectations were low and just a few companies reported results.
Fourth quarter earnings and revenues for S&P 500 companies are both expected to have grown by 1.9 percent in the past quarter, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.
Few large corporations have reported, with Wells Fargo
The KBW bank index <.bkx>, a gauge of U.S. bank stocks, is up about 30 percent from a low hit in June, rising in six of the last eight months, including January.
Investors will continue to watch earnings on Friday, as General Electric
HOUSING, INDUSTRIAL DATA ON TAP
Next week will also feature the release of a wide range of economic data.
Tuesday will see the release of retail sales numbers and the Empire State manufacturing index, followed by CPI data on Wednesday.
Investors and analysts will also focus on the housing starts numbers and the Philadelphia Federal Reserve factory activity index on Thursday. The Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan consumer sentiment numbers are due on Friday.
Jim Paulsen, chief investment officer at Wells Capital Management in Minneapolis, said he expected to see housing numbers continue to climb.
"They won't be that surprising if they're good, they'll be rather eye-catching if they're not good," he said. "The underlying drive of the markets, I think, is economic data. That's been the catalyst."
POLITICAL ANXIETY
Worries about the protracted fiscal cliff negotiations drove the markets in the weeks before the ultimate January 2 resolution, but fear of the debt ceiling fight has yet to command investors' attention to the same extent.
The agreement was likely part of the reason for a rebound in flows to stocks. U.S.-based stock mutual funds gained $7.53 billion after the cliff resolution in the week ending January 9, the most in a week since May 2001, according to Thomson Reuters' Lipper.
Markets are unlikely to move on debt ceiling news unless prominent lawmakers signal that they are taking a surprising position in the debate.
The deal in Washington to avert the cliff set up another debt battle, which will play out in coming months alongside spending debates. But this alarm has been sounded before.
"The market will turn the corner on it when the debate heats up," Prudential Financial's Krosby said.
The CBOE Volatility index <.vix> a gauge of traders' anxiety, is off more than 25 percent so far this month and it recently hit its lowest since June 2007, before the recession began.
"The market doesn't react to the same news twice. It will have to be more brutal than the fiscal cliff," Krosby said. "The market has been conditioned that, at the end, they come up with an agreement."
(Reporting by Gabriel Debenedetti; editing by Rodrigo Campos)
OLONGAPO CITY, Philippines — A fast-moving fire ripped through a small hotel early Friday morning near the former United States naval base in Subic Bay, killing seven people, including four foreign visitors to the area, officials said.
The fire started on the ground floor of the Dryden Hotel Subic, in the Barrio Barretto entertainment district, sending flames and smoke into upstairs rooms where guests were sleeping, Jose Borlagdatan, Olongapo City’s chief fire investigator, said in an interview outside the establishment.
Fire investigators on the scene described a hellish situation as the fire raged through the hotel’s upper floors, where guests died trying to escape fast-moving flames and intense smoke. One woman was found dead cowering in a cabinet apparently trying to avoid the smoke.
“The casualties were the people sleeping upstairs,” said Mr. Borlagdatan, who added that the cause of the blaze was still under investigation.
Mr. Borlagdatan said hotel front desk registration records helped identify three American fatalities – James Brigati of Kodiak, Alaska, and Patrick Burt and Joseph Valuso, whose cities of residence were not known. A South Korean national was identified as Kyung Ook Kim of Suwan City.
The other casualties were nationals of the Philippines whose identities had not yet been determined, Mr. Borlagdatan said.
The fire department received the initial report of the blaze at 3:37 a.m. Friday morning and quickly extinguished it upon arriving at the scene, said Mr. Barlagdatan.
Jovy Lustre, a cashier and front desk clerk working at the hotel when the fire broke out, that she was alerted when a co-worker ran from the back of the establishment yelling “fire.”
Ms. Lustre said she checked the back of the hotel and saw fire near a back office, with flames licking the ceiling and sending smoke gushing forward. She said she tried to call the fire department but the hotel phone had no dial tone. She ran to a nearby community center to report the incident.
“The fire got bigger and bigger,” she said. “It was fast.”
On Friday afternoon, the hotel – which is along a national highway about 100 miles north of Manila – appeared gutted. The windows on the second floor, where guests where sleeping when the fire broke out, were broken and the panes were charred.
The hotel, lodged between the Lollipop and Rum Jungle nightclubs, which were also damaged in the fire, offered rooms from $20 to $30 for visitors to the beach and entertainment district near Subic Bay.
The United States turned over the Subic Bay Naval Base to the Philippines in 1991 and since then the facility has been transformed into a special economic zone. Neighboring Olongapo City was a booming red-light district for decades while the navy base supported the operations of the American navy’s Seventh Fleet.
In the 20 years since the base was handed over, Olongapo has retained a red-light district but has also gained popularity as a popular beach resort area for Filipino families seeking to escape the heat and congestion of Manila.
OTTAWA (Reuters) – Native Canadians are so angry that they could resort to blocking resource development and bring the economy “to its knees” unless the Conservative government addresses their grievances, an influential chief said on Thursday.
Native Canadian chiefs are due to meet with Prime Minister Stephen Harper on Friday to discuss the poor living conditions facing many of Canada’s 1.2 million aboriginals.
“We have had enough. Our young people have had enough. Our women have had enough … . We have nothing left to lose,” said Grand Chief Derek Nepinak from the province of Manitoba.
Activists have already blockaded some rail lines and threatened to close Canada’s borders with the United States in a campaign they call “Idle No More.”
Canada has 633 separate native “bands,” each of which have their own communities and lands, and not all share the same opinions. The chief of the Assembly of First Nations, the aboriginal umbrella group, said his members had come to a tipping point, but he made no mention of damaging the economy.
“You cannot ignore what is happening with Idle No More… We will drive the final stake in the heart of colonialism and it will happen in this generation,” Shawn Atleo told a separate news conference.
“First Nations are not opposed to resource development, they are just not supportive of development at any cost,” he said.
Native Canadian leaders say they want more federal money, a greater say over what happens to resources on their land and more respect from the federal Conservative government.
“These are demands, not requests,” said Nepinak. “The Idle No More movement has the people – it has the people and the numbers – that can bring the Canadian economy to its knees. It can stop Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s resource development plan,” Nepinak told reporters in Ottawa.
“We have the warriors that are standing up now, that are willing to go that far. So we’re not here to make requests, we’re here to demand attention,” he said.
Aboriginal bands are unhappy about Enbridge Inc’s plans to build a pipeline from the oil sands of Alberta to the Pacific province of British Columbia, and some say they will not allow the project to go ahead.
Some aboriginal bands oppose the Enbridge pipeline on the grounds that it is too environmentally dangerous while others say the company did not do enough to consult them before applying for permission to go ahead with the project.
“DIPLOMATIC HAND”
Nepinak said he wants to extend a “diplomatic hand” toward resolving the issues and gave no details about what he meant by bringing the economy to its knees.
Nepinak and other Manitoba chiefs are also demanding that Ottawa rescind parts of two recent budget acts they say reduce environmental protection for lakes and rivers, and make it easier to sell lands on the reserves where many natives live.
“We’ve been working tirelessly to gain access through various channels into this Harper regime … . How do we trust the words of this prime minister?” Nepinak asked.
Successive Canadian governments have struggled for decades to improve the life of aboriginals.
Ottawa spends around C$ 11 billion ($ 11.1 billion) a year on its aboriginal population, yet living conditions for many are poor, particularly for those on reserves with high rates of poverty, addiction, joblessness and suicide.
As part of the Idle No More campaign, protesters blocked a Canadian National Railway Co line in Sarnia, Ontario, in late December and early January.
($ 1=$ 0.99 Canadian)
(Reporting by David Ljunggren; Editing by Peter Galloway, Xavier Briand and David Brunnstrom)
Internet News Headlines – Yahoo! News
Audrey Hepburn with her son, Luca Dotti, in 1985
Audrey Hepburn Childrens Fund
She thought her nose too big, her feet too large and her neck too long. She loved to shop for groceries (but not clothes), didn't wear makeup at home, never went to the gym and enjoyed two fingers of Scotch every night.
"She was not this ethereal creature," says Robert Wolders, 76, the Dutch actor who was her companion for the last 13 years of her life. "She was an earthy woman with a ribald sense of humor."
What Hepburn had, adds Wolders, "was more than beauty. It was this extraordinary mystique."
Hepburn left Hollywood at age 34 at the height of her fame, moving into a 1732 farmhouse in Tolochenaz, a small Swiss village, where she found happiness raising two sons and purpose in her charity work for UNICEF.
Two decades after her death from abdominal cancer at 63 on Jan. 20, 1993, her children and her last love remember the Audrey they adored.
NEW YORK (AP) — From the Rocky Mountains to New England, hospitals are swamped with people with flu symptoms. Some medical centers are turning away visitors or making them wear face masks, and one Pennsylvania hospital set up a tent outside its ER to deal with the feverish patients.
Flu season in the U.S. has struck early and, in many places, hard.
While flu normally doesn't blanket the country until late January or February, it is already widespread in more than 40 states, with about 30 of them reporting some major hot spots. On Thursday, health officials blamed the flu for the deaths of 20 children so far.
Whether this will be considered a bad season by the time it has run its course in the spring remains to be seen.
"Those of us with gray hair have seen worse," said Dr. William Schaffner, a flu expert at Vanderbilt University in Nashville.
The evidence so far points to a moderate season, Schaffner and others say. It looks bad in part because last year was unusually mild and because the main strain of influenza circulating this year tends to make people sicker and really lay them low.
David Smythe of New York City saw it happen to his 50-year-old girlfriend, who has been knocked out for about two weeks. "She's been in bed. She can't even get up," he said.
Also, the flu's early arrival coincided with spikes in a variety of other viruses, including a childhood malady that mimics flu and a new norovirus that causes vomiting and diarrhea, or what is commonly known as "stomach flu." So what people are calling the flu may, in fact, be something else.
"There may be more of an overlap than we normally see," said Dr. Joseph Bresee, who tracks the flu for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Most people don't undergo lab tests to confirm flu, and the symptoms are so similar that it can be hard to distinguish flu from other viruses, or even a cold. Over the holidays, 250 people were sickened at a Mormon missionary training center in Utah, but the culprit turned out to be a norovirus, not the flu.
Flu is a major contributor, though, to what's going on.
"I'd say 75 percent," said Dr. Dan Surdam, head of the emergency department at Cheyenne Regional Medical Center, Wyoming's largest hospital. The 17-bed emergency room saw its busiest day ever last week, with 166 visitors.
The early onslaught has resulted in a spike in hospitalizations. To deal with the influx and protect other patients from getting sick, hospitals are restricting visits from children, requiring family members to wear masks and banning anyone with flu symptoms from maternity wards.
One hospital in Allentown, Pa., set up a tent this week for a steady stream of patients with flu symptoms. But so far "what we're seeing is a typical flu season," said Terry Burger, director of infection control and prevention for the hospital, Lehigh Valley Hospital-Cedar Crest.
On Wednesday, Boston declared a public health emergency, with the city's hospitals counting about 1,500 emergency room visits since December by people with flu-like symptoms.
All the flu activity has led some to question whether this year's flu shot is working. While health officials are still analyzing the vaccine, early indications are that it's about 60 percent effective, which is in line with what's been seen in other years.
The vaccine is reformulated each year, based on experts' best guess of which strains of the virus will predominate. This year's vaccine is well-matched to what's going around. The government estimates that between a third and half of Americans have gotten the vaccine.
In New York City, 57-year-old Judith Quinones skipped getting a flu shot this season and suffered her worst case of flu-like illness in years. She was laid up for nearly a month with fever and body aches. "I just couldn't function," she said.
But her daughter got the vaccine. "And she got sick twice," Quinones said.
Europe is also suffering an early flu season, though a milder strain predominates there. Flu reports are up, too, in China, Japan, the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, Algeria and the Republic of Congo. Britain has seen a surge in cases of norovirus.
On average, about 24,000 Americans die each flu season, according to the CDC. That's an estimate — the agency does not keep a running tally of adult flu deaths each year, only for children. Some state health departments do keep count, and they've reported dozens of flu deaths so far.
Flu usually peaks in midwinter. Symptoms can include fever, cough, runny nose, head and body aches and fatigue. Some people also suffer vomiting and diarrhea, and some develop pneumonia or other severe complications.
Most people with flu have a mild illness and can help themselves and protect others by staying home and resting. But people with severe symptoms should see a doctor. They may be given antiviral drugs or other medications to ease symptoms.
Flu vaccinations are recommended for everyone 6 months or older. Of the 20 children killed by the flu this season, only two were fully vaccinated.
___
AP Medical Writer Maria Cheng in London contributed to this report.
___
Online:
CDC flu: http://www.cdc.gov/flu/index.htm
TOKYO (Reuters) - Asian shares and Brent crude futures fell on Friday as a pick-up in Chinese inflation prompted profit-taking, although an improving outlook for global economies curbed losses, while the yen slid on renewed expectations for bold monetary easing in Japan.
China's annual consumer inflation rate accelerated to a seven-month high of 2.5 percent in December on rising food prices, narrowing the scope for the central bank to boost the economy by easing monetary policy. The producer price index fell 1.9 percent in December from a year earlier, marking the 10th consecutive month of declines, but improved from November's 2.2 percent annual drop.
Brent crude futures fell 0.4 percent to $111.50 a barrel and U.S. crude trimmed earlier rises to trade nearly flat at 93.86.
"China's inflation was hotter than expected which might add a little bit of downside risk and some investors may be cashing in profits," said Ben Le Brun, market analyst at OptionsXpress.
MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan <.miapj0000pus> eased 0.2 percent, erasing morning gains that brought the index near its highest level since August 2011 hit last week. The index looked set to end the week virtually flat after starting the first week of 2013 with a 2.4 percent jump.
Shanghai shares <.ssec> tumbled 1.3 percent, dragging Hong Kong shares <.hsi> into negative territory, while Australian shares <.axjo> ended down 0.3 percent.
"It's not the end of the world. We have been trending in overbought territory for more than a week anyway, so this higher headline inflation is a trigger for some profit-taking. We are in a consolidation phase," said Hong Hao, Bank of Communication International's chief equity strategist, based in Hong Kong.
Hirokazu Yuihama, a senior strategist at Daiwa Securities in Tokyo, said the China inflation data offered some positive signs but, given the market's rapid rally over the past month, it was probably used as an excuse to book profits.
"The slight pickup in inflation is still well below the 3.5 percent forecast by China, and may also reflect recovery in consumption," he said, adding that the data was unlikely to significantly dent an overall trend in improving risk appetite.
Unexpectedly strong Chinese trade data on Thursday buoyed hopes that demand from the world's second-largest economy will rise, while cautiously optimistic comments from European Central Bank President Mario Draghi eased anxiety over the euro zone debt problems.
European markets will likely sustain optimism. Financial spread-betters predicted London's FTSE 100 <.ftse>, Paris's CAC-40 <.fchi> and Frankfurt's DAX <.gdaxi> would open as much as 0.3 percent higher. U.S. stock futures were little changed, hinting at steady Wall Street start. <.l><.eu><.n/>
EPFR Global noted that equity mutual funds have brought in $6.8 billion of inflows over the last four business days, with equity flows exceeding bond flows.
In a sign of some stability, South Korea's central bank held interest rates steady for a third consecutive month on Friday as expected, to assess the effect from two cuts last year. However, the bank also revised down its outlook for South Korea's GDP growth in 2013 to 2.8 percent from 3.2 percent, which along with a sharp rise in the won hurt Seoul shares.
ABE FUELS NIKKEI BUYING
Japan's benchmark Nikkei stock average <.n225> closed up 1.4 percent at a 23-month high as the yen's further slide boosted exporters. Japanese financial markets will be closed on Monday for a public holiday. <.t/>
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe "is seen seriously committed to making the economy better as he is becoming more detailed, and investors are feeling it is possible under his government," said Kyoya Okazawa, head of global equities at BNP Paribas in Tokyo.
Japan's cabinet approved on Friday an economic stimulus package in the biggest spending boost since the financial crisis as Abe pursues an ambitious agenda to spur growth and end stubborn deflation.
The dollar jumped to 89.35 yen, its highest since June 2010, on strengthening speculation Abe will exert strong pressure on the Bank of Japan to pursue aggressive easing steps. Abe said in an interview with the Nikkei newspaper on Friday that the BOJ should consider maximizing employment as a monetary policy goal to help boost the economy.
The euro surged to 118.58 yen, its highest since May 2011.
The yen selling gained momentum after data on Friday showed Japan had logged a current account deficit in November for the first time in 10 months at 222.4 billion yen ($2.5 billion), overshooting a 3.5 billion yen deficit forecast.
"Fresh short-term players, who know nothing about Japan and have never traded the yen before, are now joining the yen selling, and these fresh faces are responding to headlines," said Yunosuke Ikeda, a senior FX strategist at Nomura Securities.
The euro was last at $1.3261 after earlier hitting a one-week high of $1.3280, helped by a smooth first bond sale of the year from Spain on Thursday, which pushed benchmark 10-year Spanish government bond yields to a 10-month low of 4.90 percent.
As the yen fell, Tokyo gold futures rallied to a record high on Friday to as high as 4,820 yen per gram, exceeding the previous record of 4,754 yen marked on September 7, 2011.
(Additional reporting by Ayai Tomisawa in Tokyo, Clement Tan in Hong Kong and Ramya Venugopal in Singapore; Editing by Shri Navaratnam, Paul Tait and Chris Gallagher)
Alexander F. Yuan/Associated Press
The chief of MiaSolé, John Carrington, left, at the announcement of the company’s purchase by Hanergy Holding Group, for which Zhou Jiesan is an executive.
Just a few years ago, Silicon Valley investors were pouring money into solar technologies and talking about how they would bring the same kind of innovation to green energy that they had to the computer chip.
But few anticipated that prices for silicon, the main component of traditional solar panels, would plummet or that Chinese manufacturers, backed by enormous subsidies from their government, would increase solar production capacity by a factor of 17 in just four years.
The resulting plunge in solar panel prices wiped out the dream of a new Solar Valley. Despite making advances in the new technology, known as thin-film solar, the American companies just couldn’t compete.
The federal government’s imposition of steep tariffs last year on Chinese conventional panels helped, but the industry had waited so late to apply for the tariffs that balance sheets had already been crippled with accumulated losses and investors had lost interest.
Some thin-film companies went bankrupt, including Solyndra, which had received half a billion dollars in federal subsidies. Others, like Stion, licensed their technology or formed strategic partnerships with large corporations.
On Wednesday, the chief executive of MiaSolé, one of the most promising Silicon Valley solar start-ups, appeared in Beijing for the announcement that Hanergy Holding Group of China had completed the purchase of his company and its technology for a fraction of what investors had put in. Hanergy made its money building hydroelectric dams.
Hanergy’s purchase of the 100-employee MiaSolé, based in Santa Clara, Calif., follows its acquisition in September of the 400-employee thin-film solar unit of Q.Cells, an insolvent German solar company. The two deals have allowed Hanergy to acquire at low cost an array of patents developed for hundreds of millions of dollars of venture capital investments.
“Going head to head against the Asian low-cost, mass-volume crystalline silicon manufacturers is not a wise strategy if you’re trying to produce an ultracheap module in the United States or in high-cost markets,” said Neil Z. Auerbach, managing partner of Hudson Clean Energy Partners, a SoloPower investor. “But if you’re adopting advanced technology, you have a niche strategy in which those incumbents do not have a competitive edge because they don’t really have a product that suits.”
The industry’s broad competitive challenges have prompted American investors to shun the sector. Last year, venture capital financing in the solar sector plummeted nearly 50 percent to $992 million in 103 deals from $1.9 billion in 108 deals in 2011, according to Mercom Capital Group, a clean-tech research and communications company.
Chinese regulators, too, have begun trying to deal with the overcapacity, discouraging their banks from making more large loans to the solar panel sector.
Li Hejun, the chairman of Hanergy, said at the news conference in Beijing that the company’s hydroelectric dams produce several hundred million dollars a year in free cash flow, so it can finance its own investments in solar, which already include six thin-film solar factories, plus three more under construction.
“Everyone knows about the overcapacity in solar energy industry in China, but for us industrial insiders, this overcapacity is but a relative one,” he said. “For those who have technology, the situation is the opposite.”
The thin-film technology championed by the Silicon Valley start-ups uses more exotic materials than conventional solar panels, which are made from crystalline silicon.
Most thin-film modules are slightly less efficient at converting sunlight into electricity than conventional panels, but they are much lighter, which makes them easier to mount in locations that may not support the weight of conventional panels.
Supporters of thin-film technology contend that it has the potential for considerable further efficiency gains that may not be possible for conventional panels, which have been researched for decades. And some research has shown that thin-film can outperform conventional silicon-based panels at high temperatures, such as in deserts, where solar farms are often located.
The technology’s promise attracted the attention of the Obama administration, which provided clean-energy grants and loans to some of the companies, although not to MiaSolé.
Copyright © News rhapsodic. All rights reserved.
Design 
And Business Directories
