A Chinese-backed electric carmaker plans to build a $1 billion manufacturing plant outside Las Vegas.
A letter to Nevada officials that The Associated Press obtained Wednesday says the company will build in North Las Vegas. The letter is signed by billionaire Chinese investor Jia Yueting (ZHAW' YOO'-weh-ting), a major financial backer of California-based Faraday Future.
Nevada officials scheduled a news conference Thursday to formally announce the deal.
Lawmakers still would need to authorize tax incentives as part of the deal. Last year, the Legislature did so to secure a massive battery factory by another upstart electric carmaker, Tesla Motors.
Regulations governing Google’s experimental self-driving cars will come into effect on California’s roads starting 16 September. They have driven more than 1 million kilometers since the company started secretly developing them in 2009, but they have been tested only once by a government body on open roads—by Nevada Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) officials in May 2012.
IEEE Spectrum has now obtained the driving log of this test, and e-mails referring to it, under Freedom of Information legislation. Some of this information is not new. For example, Nevada officials shared that the Google’s autonomous Toyota Prius passed the test almost immediately. What has not been revealed until now, however, is that Google chose the test route and set limits on the road and weather conditions that the vehicle could encounter, and that its engineers had to take control of the car twice during the drive.
Tesla has finally decided that it will build its $5 billion lithium-ion battery plant—dubbed the gigafactory—in Nevada, sources say.
"That's a go, but they are still negotiating the specifics of the contract," a source within the Nevada's governor's office told CNBC Wednesday afternoon. The source noted that it could be a week before the deal is official.
Nevada Governor Brian Sandoval will hold a news conference on Thursday in Carson City, Nevada to make a "major economic development announcement,'' according to a media advisory from the state. Tesla spokesman Simon Sproule declined to give details but confirmed Tesla officials would be at the event.
In July, the automaker announced that it had partnered with Japanese electronics firm Panasonic to build the 35 GWh cell factory. It also said it would announce additional partnerships in the coming months.
Analysts at Lux Research expect the "gigafactory" to reduce the cost of the Tesla Model 3 by $2,800, which it says is "not enough to sway the success of the planned lower-cost EV."
A Multicellular Alga With Exceptional Preservation From the Ediacaran of Nevada
Authors:
Rowland et al
Abstract:
Elainabella deepspringensis new genus new species is a one-mm-wide, non-biomineralized, three-dimensionally preserved fossil with segmented branches and apparent cellular structure. A single specimen was recovered from an interval of black shale within the Ediacaran portion of the Esmeralda Member of the Deep Spring Formation at Mt. Dunfee in Esmeralda County, Nevada. We interpret the fossil to be the thallus of a multicellular alga of uncertain division. EDS spectral analysis indicates that the exceptional preservation is not due to phosphatization or pyritization. Rather, it appears to be a case of Burgess Shale-type preservation, involving the kerogenization of non-mineralizing organisms. The fossil-bearing shale is closely associated with stromatolites, and we suggest that E. deepspringensis may have been an epibiont on stromatolites or other firm substrates. This is the first multicellular alga and the first occurrence of Burgess Shale-type preservation reported from the Ediacaran of Laurentia.
"We direct the NRC Staff to complete and issue the Safety Evaluation Report (SER) associated with the construction authorization application.” So states the Memorandum and Order issued by the commissioners of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) in compliance with an August decision of the U.S. Court of Appeals to restart the review of the Yucca Mountain high-level radioactive waste repository.
Paleoecology and geochemistry of Early Triassic (Spathian) microbial mounds and implications for anoxia following the end-Permian mass extinction
Authors:
1. Pedro J. Marenco (a)
2. Julie M. Griffin (a)
3. Margaret L. Fraiser (b)
4. Matthew E. Clapham (c)
Affiliations:
a. Department of Geology, Bryn Mawr College, Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania 19010, USA
b. Department of Geosciences, University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee, Milwaukee, Wisconsin 53201, USA
c. Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, University of California–Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, California 95064, USA
Abstract:
Large microbialite mounds (1–2 m in height) have previously been reported from two units within the Spathian section of the Virgin Limestone Member of the Moenkopi Formation at Lost Cabin Spring, Nevada (United States). Previous investigations led to the interpretation that the mounds were formed under anoxic and alkaline conditions that suppressed metazoan grazers and delayed the biotic recovery from the end-Permian mass extinction. Here we report low organic carbon and total sulfur abundances throughout the section that suggest that anoxia was not prevalent during deposition. We also report that the upper mound-bearing unit contains stromatolite-sponge patch reefs in which mutual encrustation between stromatolites and sponges contributed to the building of a reef framework. The stromatolite-sponge patch reefs contain discrete burrows within stromatolitic laminations, suggesting that there was sufficient oxygen for grazing during the formation of the upper unit mounds. The enhanced ecological complexity of the upper unit mounds leads us to conclude that the mounds represent the transition to biotic recovery following the end-Permian mass extinction.
Mulling here still.
