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To: Eric who wrote (218)	10/4/2008 3:18:12 PM
From: Eric	Respond to of 230

Europe agrees bank crisis action Europe's biggest economies have agreed to work together to support financial institutions - but without forming a joint bail-out fund. French President Nicolas Sarkozy hosted the meeting of the leaders of Britain, Germany and Italy in Paris. They agreed to seek a relaxation of the EU rules governing the amount of money individual states can borrow. Mr Sarkozy announced a series of allied measures - including unspecified action against the executives of failed banks. He said the four had agreed that the leaders of a financial institution that had to be rescued should be "sanctioned". Mr Sarkozy added: "Each government will operate with its own methods and means, but in a co-ordinated manner." Each country must take its responsibilities at a national level The leaders also issued a joint call for a G8 summit "as soon as possible" to review the rules governing financial markets. UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown said governments would continue to take measures to ease the credit shortage. "The message to families and to businesses is that, as our central banks are already doing, liquidity will be assured in order to preserve confidence and stability," he told reporters after the mini-summit. He said European leaders should send the message that "no sound, solvent bank should be allowed to fail through lack of liquidity". German Chancellor Angela Merkel - who said she was not happy with Ireland's action in guaranteeing bank deposits - said each country must act in "a balanced way" that did not cause harm to other EU member states. "Each country must take its responsibilities at a national level," she said. The head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Dominique Strauss-Kahn, had earlier urged the EU to take co-ordinated action, saying the financial crisis was presenting Europe with a "trial by fire". It has to be indicated to the markets... that European countries will not react as every man for himself He held talks with Mr Sarkozy before the EU leaders' meeting and said that although the EU was a more complex organisation than the US, Europe needed to take "concerted collective action". He said: "It has to be indicated to the markets... that European countries will not react as every man for himself." He also said he would be scaling back his world economic growth forecasts. European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso, Central Bank chief Jean-Claude Trichet and the chairman of the eurozone group of finance ministers, Jean-Claude Juncker, also attended the meeting. Mr Sarkozy suggested the EU's budget rules - requiring nations using the euro common currency to keep their budget deficits below 3% and overall public debt below 60% of gross domestic product - would be adapted to deal with financial crisis, reflecting the current "exceptional circumstances". Mr Barroso said the rules would be applied with "flexibility". Germany and UK sceptical Ahead of the meeting, Germany had made clear its opposition to any co-ordinated European bail-out plan. UK PM Gordon Brown was also sceptical of the need for any Europe-wide plan. The president of the European Parliament has criticised the summit, warning that the leaders of Europe's four largest economies have no power to decide for the entire European Union. Calls for European action follow the bail-out of both Bradford and Bingley in the UK and Fortis Bank by the governments of Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands. news.bbc.co.uk

To: Eric who wrote (218)	10/5/2008 10:20:17 PM
From: Lynn	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 230

Scientists develop solar cells with a twist By Julie Steenhuysen Sun Oct 5, 1:02 PM ET CHICAGO (Reuters) - U.S. researchers have found a way to make efficient silicon-based solar cells that are flexible enough to be rolled around a pencil and transparent enough to be used to tint windows on buildings or cars. ADVERTISEMENT The finding, reported on Sunday in the journal Nature Materials, offers a new way to process conventional silicon by slicing the brittle wafers into ultrathin bits and carefully transferring them onto a flexible surface. "We can make it thin enough that we can put it on plastic to make a rollable system. You can make it gray in the form of a film that could be added to architectural glass," said John Rogers of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, who led the research. "It opens up spaces on the fronts of buildings as opportunities for solar energy," Rogers said in a telephone interview. Solar cells, which convert solar energy into electricity, are in high demand because of higher oil prices and concerns over climate change. Many companies, including Japanese consumer electronics maker Sharp Corp and Germany's Q-Cells are making thin-film solar cells, but they typically are less efficient at converting solar energy into electricity than conventional cells. Rogers said his technology uses conventional single crystal silicon. "It's robust. It's highly efficient. But in its current form, it's rigid and fragile," he said. Rogers' team uses a special etching method that slices chips off the surface of a bulk silicon wafer. The sliced chips are 10 to 100 times thinner than the wafer, and the size can be adapted to the application. Once sliced, a device picks up the bits of silicon chips "like a rubber stamp" and transfers them to a new surface material, Rogers said. "These silicon solar cells become like a solid ink pad for that rubber stamp. The surface of the wafers after we've done this slicing become almost like an inking pad," he said. "We just print them down onto a target surface." The final step is to electrically connect these cells to get power out of them, he said. Adding flexibility to the material would make the cells far easier to transport. Rogers envisions the material being "rolled up like a carpet and thrown on the truck." He said the technology has been licensed to a startup company called Semprius Inc in Durham, North Carolina, which is in talks to license the technology. "It's just a way to use thing we already know well," Rogers said. (Editing by Maggie Fox and Eric Walsh) news.yahoo.com BTW, this is the first high speed Internet connection posting I have made in almost a year! I am in RI for a few days visiting friends after a yearly weekend gathering of the local amateur astronomy club. Getting back to dial-up when I get back to PA Wednesday is going to be more torture than usual. Regards, Lynn