Sources Energy

In the battle over the pricing of e-books, the current score is Publishers 1, Amazon.com (AMZN), 0.

Amazon on Sunday threw in the towel in its battle with Macmillan, which wants to see the end to $9.99 pricing on e-books.

“Ultimately we will have to capitulate and accept Macmillan’s terms because Macmillan has a monopoly over their own books,” Amazon said, according to the Wall Street Journal. Amazon two days earlier had stopped selling Macmillan books; Amazon said it will resume selling Macmillan books, but didn’t say when.

Amazon caved in the face of a new pricing scheme for e-books proposed by Apple (AAPL) for its new bookstore for the iPad tablet. The piece notes that Google (GOOG) will launch its own e-bookstore later this year - and will allow publishers to set their own prices.

Apple’s new pricing plan suggests selling best sellers at $12.99 to $14.99, with a 70/30 revenue split in favor of the publishers.

It is safe to bet that a flying motorcycle will never be a practical transportation option. Yet that has not stopped Samson Motorworks, a small engineering firm in California’s Sierra Nevada foothills, from playing the long odds. The company is building a prototype called the Switchblade Multi Mode Vehicle, and it hopes to sell a do-it-yourself kit as early as 2011.

Sexy design and the promise of air-ground transport have kept alive dreams of a flying vehicle in every garage. Samson chose a three-wheel design because it meets the definition of a motorcycle, which is not as highly regulated as cars are. For example, motorcycles need not have bumpers, which would add weight and expense to a flying vehicle.

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Sucking carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases from smokestacks and burying them underneath the ground is a key technology cited by politicians and scientists as a way to help combat climate change. One open question is where best to store the CO 2 . A recent analysis points to the volcanic rock off the East Coast of the U.S.

Such rock, known as basalt, might be better than other sites, such as deep saline aquifers or nearly empty oil wells, because the rock not only stores CO 2 but also over a relatively short period of years forms carbonate minerals out of it–in other words, limestone. And coastal basalt has the added benefit of having an overlying ocean, which acts as a second barrier of protection against the gas leaking out.

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Sustainable Industries opens nominations for Top 10 Green Building Products Awards.

AP - Herbie, the giant American elm tree, is giving his trunk over to science.

Reuters - Suppliers that fail to manage their greenhouse gas emissions could lose clients, said a report published on Monday.

LONDON (Reuters) - Britain needs to focus on more than just carbon dioxide emission cuts and manage its water, waste and food resources better to remain competitive, a report by the Aldersgate Group said on Monday. The group is a coalition of businesses, non-governmental organisations, think-tanks and individuals.

President’s budget proposal will call for tripling government loan guarantees for new nuclear reactors, an administration official said on Friday.

Herbie, the giant American elm tree, is giving his trunk over to science.

United States - Elm - Arts - New England - Herbie

AFP - The International Monetary Fund is planning a 100 billion dollar fund to help countries mitigate the effects of climate change, the agency’s head said.