Forget 'What are your strengths and weaknesses?' If you want to get the real dope on prospective employees, ask job candidates these seven questions.
Goldman Sachs (GS) apologized for its role in the financial crisis this week and announced it would invest $500 million in small businesses as a mea culpa. But corporate reputation expert Eric Dezenhall believes the move may be an expensive and pointless kabuki show for the unwashed masses who don't understand how the firm really works.
How’d you like to earn a few thousand dollars for less than an hour of your time? This is no get-rich-quick come-on. The extra income is the potential payoff for making a few simple and painless money moves.
July 2009
Backers of Sahara solar power plant project sign initiative — A dozen major companies including Siemens, German insurer Munich Re and utilities RWE and Eon signed a renewable energy initiative Monday aimed at developing electricity via solar power plants and wind farms in the Sahara desert. The Desertec Industrial Initiative is the first small step in what promises to be a technically...
Suntech, which likes to bill itself as the “world’s largest crystalline silicon photovoltaic manufacturer,” has raised its already ambitious sights to a new high. According to a company press release sent out this morning, it plans to build a set of four projects in China totaling 1.8 gigawatts of electricity, pending some regulatory approvals. Split among four different...
Chevron Corp.’s interim second-quarter report provides a glimpse of what the rest of the country’s refiners are facing these days: a weak dollar, higher crude prices and sluggish demand for oil and gas are squeezing their bottom line. Chevron, the second-largest U.S. oil company by market value, said Thursday in its interim report, U.S. refining margins were down sharply, more...
Poor nations refuse emission cut goals – Nations led by China and India refused at the G8 nations’ meeting to commit to goals for limiting greenhouse gas emissions, instead opting for the vague goal of making “meaningful” contributions. Others at the meeting were reaching for a commitment to keep temperature increases under two degrees celsius by 2050. [Source: New York...
A working version of the American climate bill will likely be finalized this month, according to The New Republic, the first step on its painful road to a vote in the full Senate. As the legislation is already large on everyone’s mind, there’s a good deal of pre-game analysis and polling of senators happening, although the actual vote may be delayed until September or beyond. It has...
The number of active drilling rigs worldwide in June 2009 was 39 percent lower than the same month last year, according to Houston, Texas-based Baker Hughes, an oil and gas equipment services company. There were a few glimmers of recovery in the company’s monthly international report, which shows rig counts bottoming out in May 2009 and rising slightly in June. Baker Hughes announced...
As one of the world’s largest appliance makers, anything General Electric does will certainly catch the market’s attention. Now, with a startup called Tendril, it’s bringing energy demand software to refrigerators, dishwashers and other power-hungry equipment, a move that could eventually have big effects for electrical utilities. Tendril’s business involves a lot of...
U.S. biodiesel producers — already suffering from low oil prices, weak domestic demand and a delayed Environmental Protection Agency mandate — were hit Tuesday with a five-year tariff on exports to Europe. The European Union imposed a provisional tariff on imports of U.S.-made biodiesel back in March in response to complaints the subsidized and discounted American product was...
Pickens scales down plans for world’s largest wind farm – The lack of a transmission line has disrupted T. Boone Pickens’ plan to build a 1,000-megawatt wind farm — the world’s largest — in Pampa, Texas. Pickens’ company Mesa Power ordered 687 turbines from GE for about $2 billion and now has 18 months to find a home for them. Pickens now plans to...
A number of state-owned energy companies are reportedly circling Repsol YPF’s Argentine arm — and not all of them are Chinese. Update: China National Petroleum Company has bid between $13.2 billion and $14.5 billion for a 75 percent stake in YPF, the South China Morning Post reported Tuesday. In a post last week, BNET discussed implications of CNPC interest in reviving its $17...
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