Rob Safuto › Comments

When tiny Fisker Automotive Inc. hit a financing glitch last year, threatening its plan to build a fancy gasoline-electric hybrid car in Finland, it turned to the U.S. Department of Energy. The DOE had a bolder idea. Why not also step up the company's plans to develop a less-expensive model, and assemble it in a closed U.S. auto plant? - Rob Safuto

Vestas Wind Systems, which committed to building four factories in Colorado, is going to furlough the 500 workers at its Windsor plant, company officials said Monday. The furloughs will take place in the first half of 2010, said Andrew Longeteig, a spokesman for Copenhagen-based Vestas. The length of the furloughs was not disclosed. - Rob Safuto

"It looks great Mark but here's the problem. Why invest any time in the service if the chances are that it won't make it? Seriously. We've seen FriendFeed, which was well capitalized and well staffed, basically get folded into Facebook because they weren't gaining mainstream adoption. And no matter what FriendFeed may say the fact is that they weren't getting the traffic to justify continuing as a free service. And now the traffic over there is steadily declining. Storytlr was a very promising, and very similar, service to Flavors.me and they're shutting down at the end of the year. So what I need to know from new services before I put in the time setting it up, and tweaking it, and telling others about it is how they plan to survive the first couple of years. It sounds like a harsh assessment I know but we've seen enough social services come and go to realize that most aren't worth the investment of time. And with so many services (Tumblr, Posterous, Netvibes and Facebook to name some..." - Rob Safuto

Is saving $40,000 at the showroom enough to get drivers behind the wheel of an electric car? With a program in the works to add easy access to charging stations, Denmark is about to find out. - Rob Safuto

New York Power Authority (NYPA) President and Chief Executive Officer Richard M. Kessel announced today the release of a request for proposals (RFP) for the development of offshore wind power projects in the New York State waters of Lake Erie and/or Lake Ontario. Not only will this represent the first initiative in the Great Lakes, it will be the first wind power development of any kind in a fresh water body in the nation. - Rob Safuto

Gamesa USA’s decision to furlough more than half its employees at the local turbine blade plant came as a surprise to many. But Gov. Ed Rendell remains optimistic the action is a bump in the renewable energy journey, a spokesman said Friday. - Rob Safuto

Asking for free advertising can't hurt but real businesses should be willing to pay to take up space on people's websites. In short, begging is rarely an effective business model. - Rob Safuto

Forget about "jobs that can't be exported." Now we've got jobs that can't be taken by local Boy Scouts. - Rob Safuto

To be fair I should point out that Mr. Gore was only off the mark on the temperature at 2KM beneath the surface by 1.99 million degrees. - Rob Safuto

Evergreen Solar said it will move its solar panel production from Massachusetts to China—dealing a blow to the clean technology economy in the commonwealth. - Rob Safuto

American Electric’s 29-year-old Mountaineer facility this month became the first coal-fired power plant in the U.S. to capture a portion of its carbon dioxide emissions and inject them underground. - Rob Safuto

This is a sad story line that we've seen play out many times in recent years. Here's what gets me about it. The woman initially took out a $500K loan to give the money to her son who then stuck her with it by not making payments. And Washington Mutual is the villain here? What about her son? - Rob Safuto

I dunno. I'm a bit sick of seeing people texting and driving. I always wonder who they will eventually hit and how bad the injuries will be. People seem to have less of an attention span in meetings too. You're a minute into a presentation and inevitable some people are looking down and tapping away on Blackberries or iPhones. - Rob Safuto

I knew that stuff like this would happen. - Rob Safuto

Very soon we'll be talking about tort reform in the energy space. Yes, frivolous lawsuits blaming energy companies for the damage that results from hurricanes will increase everyone's energy costs and generally make the U.S. less competitive. Companies faced with such lawsuits will initially raise their prices to cover the lawsuit expenses and over the long term they will take their business (and the jobs, healthcare, retirement, etc.) elsewhere. - Rob Safuto

Gains in the U.S. stock markets are partially offset by the falling value of the dollar and increasing commodity prices. One very key quote in the article is, "The point is that having more dollars isn't the same as having more wealth." - Rob Safuto

Talk about bleeding ratepayers. FirstEnergy was going to charge $0.60 per month for three years which would come to about $21 for two bulbs worth considerably less than that at a retail store. - Rob Safuto

More layoffs from Caterpillar. Weren't they supposed to start hiring again once the stimulus package was enacted into law? - Rob Safuto

A victim of a local stimulus project? The owner states in the article that they shut down because, "The combination of slower business over the past six months as a result of the financial crisis and a marked decline during the ongoing construction on Delaware Avenue prompted Tiu to pull the plug..." - Rob Safuto

"This rocks. Can't wait to integrate it into one of my own sites." - Rob Safuto

I just discovered this and it looks like a pretty worthwhile tool for creating and editing simple audio podcasts. - Rob Safuto

This is insane. Emblematic of the times we live in. Big brother is hell bent on "saving" us from ourselves. Certain things the general public needs protection from. But carrot cake? - Rob Safuto

This is insane. Emblematic of the times we live in. Big brother is hell bent on "saving" us from ourselves. Certain things the general public needs protection from. But carrot cake? - Rob Safuto

U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu today announced the first round of funding from $1.4 billion from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act for the selection of 12 projects that will capture carbon dioxide from industrial sources for storage or beneficial use. - Rob Safuto

E.ON Climate and Renewables said on Thursday it has built the world's biggest wind farm by completing the final phase of its Roscoe, Texas wind farm, bringing the installed capacity to 781.5 megawatts. - Rob Safuto

Seeking to boost solar and other types of renewable energy, Vermont has joined a small but growing number of states enacting guarantees for what utilities will pay for green power. - Rob Safuto

Neither of the companies that announced the transfer of development rights for a massive wind farm on Lake Erie owns those rights, Ontario authorities told The Associated Press on Thursday. - Rob Safuto

"My wife and I saw The Boy From Oz with Hugh Jackman on Broadway a few years ago. He had some good fun then with a few people who had seats down in the front and entered after the curtain had gone up." - Rob Safuto

Things won't be that easy in a world that gets much of its energy from renewable sources, which come and go at nature's whim. Wind tends to blow hardest at night -- a problem, since people use electricity mostly during the day. Sunshine can lose its intensity in seconds if eclipsed by a cloud -- inconvenient for people who like their air conditioners to run steadily on summer days. - Rob Safuto

This bad news for the many companies who offer subscription anti-virus software packages. I can't think of a good reason to keep paying $29.99 a year to keep the current program I'm using at home. - Rob Safuto

I think we're going to be seeing a lot of innovation in the mobile OS space of the next year. Microsoft knows they're in trouble and need to step it up. Palm needs to continue innovating to keep the company afloat. And Apple will have to keep coming up with new tricks to prevent bleeding market share. It's all good for mobile device users. - Rob Safuto