SOL’s Solar Lighting Moves from Remote Spots to City Parking Lots

When it became commercially available two decades ago, outdoor solar lighting was prohibitively expensive, used mainly for locations far from existing electrical grids. Recently, solar lighting material costs have decreased and efficiency has increased.

Michael Sonnenfeldt, 55, president and CEO of SOL, a Palm City, Fla., manufacturer that specializes in building systems for such commercial applications as parking lots and pathways, says the 45-employee company is well- positioned to benefit. Lighting and consumer products behemoth Philips (PHG) estimates the global market for solar lighting at $1 billion within a decade.

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Bill Gates Funds Human Waste To Biofuel Project In Ghana

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation recently awarded Columbia University professor Kartik Chandran a $1.5 million grant to develop a "Next-Generation Urban Sanitation Facility" in Accra, Ghana along with Waste Enterprisers (a private American-led, Ghanaian company) and the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology. The facility, which has not yet been built, will turn organic compounds from fecal sludge into biodiesel and methane (two energy sources).

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Smithfield posts first profitable year since 2008

By  Christopher Leonard, Ap Agribusiness Writer – Thu Jun 16, 5:30 pm ET
ST. LOUIS – Smithfield Foods Inc. recorded its first profitable year since 2008, when recession gripped the country, and posted record fourth-quarter profits as the world's largest hog producer was able to command higher prices.

The pork industry had stagnated as consumers pulled back on spending in restaurants and on pricier ham in favor of cheaper food as the economy struggled after the recession. There are signs that demand has returned and Smithfield was finally able to pass on the higher costs it had been paying for corn and soybeans to feed its hogs.

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Medicare goes high-tech to head off fraud

By Ricardo Alonso-zaldivar, Associated Press – Fri Jun 17, 2:49 pm ET
WASHINGTON – Tired of paying bogus claims, then chasing the scammers, Medicare announced Friday it is deploying screening technology similar to what's widely used by credit card companies to head off fraud.

Up to now, the $500 billion-a-year government health program for seniors has basically paid claims first and asked questions later in a system dubbed "pay and chase."

The technology upgrade should help deter flagrant abuses such as the small clinic that suddenly starts billing more for a particular outpatient procedure — intravenous infusions, for example — than major hospitals in its area. But it's not likely to help crack sophisticated schemes that involve outwardly respectable companies with the expertise to cover their tracks.

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