Germany
Huge Expansion Of Solar Production Capacity Continues
August 18, 2010 by Mark Boslet
The manufacturing capacity of crystalline silicon solar panels is set to grow by about 80 percent this year as producers, especially in China, hastily build out factories.
The added capacity should amount to between 11 gigawatts and 13 gigawatts – or roughly the equivalent of this year’s entire market demand, equipment supplier Applied Materials said Wednesday. The company expects sales this year to be above 12 gigawatts.
It’s “a heck of a lot of capacity,” CEO Michael Splinter said on a conference call. “There is a huge expansion in China.”
The onrush of new capacity is likely to lead to further price declines in coming quarters. It also could pressure profit margins at producers.
Applied offered its observation on a third-quarter conference call, where it said it saw solar demand increasing next year in addition to supply. Growth in Germany, the world’s largest market, could moderate from this year. But sales elsewhere in Europe, in China and in parts of the United States should increase.
The company has a particular good vantage point from which to observe production increases since it sells manufacturing equipment to the industry. On the conference call, it said:
*Spending on equipment to make crystalline silicon…
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5 Things You Probably Didn’t Know You Could Rent
August 11, 2010 by Katherine Hui
There’s so much stuff in the world. At Green Thing, we like borrowing, re-gifting, reusing, sharing and renting. We’ve been having an All-Consuming Summer, looking at creative, inventive ways of using everything up, and wasting nothing, like renting, for example.
So, here are 5 unusual and interesting things you may not have known you could rent.
1. Goats. Yes, goats. You can hire a goat to manage your backyard and get all of the work completed that pesticides would have normally done, but not as toxic or damaging to the environment. Prices start from around $200 a day for a dozen goats. What a steal!
2. University Textbooks. Book Renter let’s you find the textbooks you need at a fraction of the cost. Not only does this make education more affordable, it addresses the issue of a surplus of textbooks that depreciate in value overnight, or when a course is finished. Plus, you can even open your own book rental store, using their platform.
3. Rent a garden. In Germany, there’s a service called ‘Meine Ernte‘ or My Harvest, for us English-speaking…
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Germany and Austria: Learning to Kill Two Biers with One Stein
August 6, 2010 by Kim and Clark Kays
To commemorate our two month anniversary as world travelers, we finally finished this post. Buses and trains are great, but it’s difficult to visit small towns using public transportation alone. So, we splurged a little and got a car. Three hundred bucks bought us a Nissan Micra (for the week, at least). Definitely pricey, but you only quit your jobs and travel the world once, right?
We did the typical Romantic Road route of Wurzburg to Fussen. The term was invented by travel agents in 1950 to describe the traditional, stereotypical German/Bavarian sights along the route. Apparently, there was some kind of conflict in the country five years earlier and tourism (along with the rest of the country) needed rebuilding.
This is a popular route for tourists, but we mostly avoided the hordes—except in Dinkelsbühl. We made it just in time for the Kinderzeche Festival, one of the biggest festivals in Bavaria. We had no idea this was going on.
The Swedes were all up in Germany’s shit during the Thirty Years’ War, and the Swedish army besieged the town of Dinkelsbühl for kicks. The city councilors would not surrender, and the decision was made to pillage the town. The…
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South Africa’s Drivers
August 4, 2010 by Fred Hatman
In really boring and over-regulated countries, such as Little Britain (as opposed to Great Britain which ceased to exist decades ago), Germany and many others (but not including those where they drink a lot of really strong coffee like Greece, Italy and Turkey), people drive very well. As in responsibly.
We don’t have that problem here in South Africa.
It is an indisputable fact that, in Durban, everybody drives very slowly and badly, except for those spiky-haired boys who wear Ferrari jackets over their Manchester United jerseys and drive black VW Golfs. With tinted windows. They drive really fast. and very, very badly.
In Cape Town, everybody stares zennishly at The Mountain while they drive, even when they are pointed away from The Mountain. Enough said.
In Jo’burg, people take South African driving to another level altogether.
With the help of Awesome SA’s pretty damn interesting Awesome South Africa book, let’s squeeze our eyes tightly shut, hope for the best and inspect Johannesburg’s “Rules of the Road”.
1. Indicators will give away your next move. A real Jozi motorist never uses them.
2.…
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200th Anniversary Oktoberfest in Munich
July 30, 2010 by Susan McKee
Two hundred years ago the six days of festivities for the marriage of Bavarian Crown Prince Ludwig to Princess Therese von Sachsen-Hildburghausen were so extraordinary that the citizens of this region of southern Germany decided to repeat the celebration annually.
Although the original festivities were October 12-17, 1810, the Bavarians decided it was too cold by then. So, to take advantage of warmer weather, Oktoberfest always begins in September. This year’s celebration is September 17 through October 4, 2010, in Munich, Germany.
The locals fondly refer to Oktoberfest as “die Wiesn” because of its location: Theresienwiese. The huge meadow was named for the bride, Princess Therese.
Because it’s a special anniversary, there’ll be an historic reconstruction of the original festival using an antique tent plus an exhibition of historical fun fair attractions. Horse races, also part of the royal fête in 1810, will be held daily. The mayor of Munich conducts the official tapping of the first beer barrel at noon on September 18. Once he has proclaimed “O’zapft is!”—confirming that the tapping was successful— those in the other tents…
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Brahms and Ravel on the Vuvuzela
July 15, 2010 by Simon Barber
In Berlin, they show how it’s done.
World Cup Report: Whither Europe? and a New Germany
June 21, 2010 by Ray Lewis
Through Sunday’s World Cup matches here are the records for each continent (W-L-T):
Asia 2-4-3
Africa 1-7-4
Europe 8-7-8
Americas 8-1-5
The hope was that two or even three African teams would make it to the Round of 16 on their home continent but Ghana looks to be the only side with a decent chance to advance and even that is not certain – we’ll find out on Tuesday.
The big news, though, is that Europe is barely above water against the rest of the world, and the nations performing well are for the most part the smaller countries (Slovenia, Denmark, Switzerland). The great powers of the European Soccer Empire are mostly faltering.
Those of you following the drama of the World Cup as well as the action know that France is providing the center-stage soap opera. The blog headline in this link is hilarious, like the front page of a newspaper on an historic day with more story developments than can fit. How long before the first creative person assembles a montage of the team’s self-immolation to the lyrics of “When Irish Eyes Are Smiling”?
Across the Channel, England’s hopes for the second round are better but…
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10 Things We Learned from the World Cup’s 1st Weekend
June 13, 2010 by Ray Lewis
1. U.S. interest in the tournament, which has been growing slowly since we hosted in 1994, has accelerated. ESPN is showing every match in spite of the time differential. Locally, San Francisco had the second-highest U.S. city rating for the match against England (11.2, second to San Diego’s 11.5). That is lower than this year’s U.S.-Canada Olympic gold medal hockey game (15.9 in SF) but the Cup is a social event and it was absurdly good weather yesterday so there was much more buzz in town for the soccer than for hockey in February, including well-attended open-air presentations of the game at both the baseball stadium and the plaza at City Hall.
2. The World Cup is bigger than anyone. Except Maradona. TV cameras showed the Argentine legend-coach more than world star Lionel Messi, eternally damned Robert Green or any other single person this weekend, and that’s not including any youTube videos of Maradona using his royalty toilet (please, no hand of God jokes). Also, he must have set a record for touches by a coach. I counted six times he kicked the ball back into play. Letting go is hard.
3. Since when doe
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What Schools Do Not Teach
May 24, 2010 by Justin Locke
Okay, first, a little history lesson here:
During World War II, the Nazis created a code for military messages that they thought was completely unbreakable.
No doubt about it, it was a fabulous code machine. Even so, the British were able to break the code, and they read a large number of Nazi military messages. During the Battle of the Atlantic, the British knew where all the German U-boats were. This was very helpful in either sinking them or diverting convoys around them. During the Battle of North Africa, the British knew when and where every supply ship for Rommel’s forces was leaving Italy. They were able to intercept and sink almost every single ship. The only time the allies could not read German messages was just before the Battle of the Bulge, as by that time the Germans finally figured out that maybe there was something wrong with the code. oops. Too late.
A similar thing happened in the Pacific. While we weren’t able to pinpoint the attack on Pearl Harbor, American code breakers were able to decipher Japanese messages that led to the victory at Midway over a massively superior Japanese force. Had the Japanese been a little…
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U.S. Premier of Harlekin
May 20, 2010 by Renee Blodgett
Since its founding, DEREVO has toured throughout Europe and overseas performing in more than 30 countries on three continents. The cast has lived and worked in Prague, Amsterdam and Florence before they chose Dresden as their new working location in 1996. They have been based at Festspielhaus Hellerau Dresden since 2003.
From the very beginning DEREVO refused to characterize the style of its work. The press creates definitions such as “silent theatre,” “new dance,” “Russian Butoh” and others. A common feature of all pieces is the fact that there is not a word uttered on stage.
