Les USA sont de retour

[Malek]

Apple to build new manufacturing facility in Arizona with solar-power, will create 2000+ jobs

 

http://9to5mac.com/2013/11/04/apple-to-build-manufacturing-facility-in-mesa-arizona-will-create-2000-jobs/

[jesseps]

Google and Microsoft aren’t just battling for supremacy in search engines, mobile phones and tablet computers. They’re competing to be the top tech do-gooder in renewable energy.

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Microsoft announced today it has signed its first big green power deal, a 20-year agreement to purchase all the electricity generated by a 110-megawatt (MW) Texas wind farm to be built next year near Fort Worth.

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The Keechi wind project, owned by a subsidiary of UK firm RES, will deliver electricity into the grid that powers a Microsoft data center in San Antonio. Like Google, Microsoft has pledged to go carbon neutral by tapping renewable energy sources like wind and solar. And that has the two companies competing to lock up deals in Texas, which has undergone a wind farm-building boom in recent years.

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Google, for instance, announced an agreement on Sept. 17 to buy 240 MW of electricity to be produced by the Happy Hereford wind farm to be built near Amarillo, Texas. That power will flow in the grid that powers a Google data center in Oklahoma.

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“By purchasing wind, we will reduce the overall amount of emissions associated with operating Microsoft facilities in this region and hopefully spur additional investment in renewable energy in Texas,” said Microsoft in a statement.

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As we’ve written, such a strategy increasingly pits companies like Google and Microsoft against local utilities in the race to obtain clean, green electricity. Microsoft and Google have not revealed the financial terms of the latest deals but in the past Google has paid a premium for renewable energy. But such competition is good for green energy; if developers know they can lock in long-term contracts with tech companies, they’ll be quicker to build more wind farms. And they’ll avoid the bureaucratic hassles that involve negotiating with their regional utilities.

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Microsoft has a long way to go in matching its rival in the green energy sweepstakes; Google has invested more than $1 billion in wind and solar and has contracts to purchase 570 MW worth of wind energy. Among its investments is the $168 million it has put into a 370 MW solar thermal power plant that is set to come online in the southern California desert by year’s end.

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The software behemoth, however, has been innovative in the way it funds its renewable energy purchases. Last year it began levying an internal carbon tax on its various divisions to encourage them to reduce their greenhouse gas spew. The company sets a carbon price and then divisions must offset the emissions associated with electricity use and travel. Otherwise they pay a fee into a fund that finances renewable energy purchases and carbon credits.

 

QUARTZ

 

 

I know it isn't the same as what Apple is doing, but it is still pretty impressive.

[Né entre les rapides]

Ce qui m'impressionne le plus dans la plupart des nouvelles rapportées sur ce fil, c'est que cela concerne la production de biens (y compris se rapportant à l'énergie) destinés à l'exportation et/ou au remplacement d'importations. C'est fondamentalement différent des investissements massifs en immobilier qui avaient supporté la croissance durant les premières années de la décennie 2000-2009. Pour le Canada (y compris le Québec évidemment), une relance de l'économie américaine est en principe une très bonne chose. Mais cette fois il y a un MAIS: pour le secteur énergétique, cela veut dire des prix plus bas (et donc des investissements moindres), à tout le moins aussi longtemps que le rythme de croissance de la production énergétique américaine dépasse celui de son économie dans son ensemble; au Québec, l'impact sur HQ est déjà palpable. Pour le secteur manufacturier, on ne peut pas ne pas noter que la compétitivité canadienne (et québécoise) a reculé par rapport aux USA, ce qui s'est déjà traduit par une détérioration de notre balance commerciale avec ce pays. Il y aura toujours des "success stories" québécoises, mais en même temps, les entreprises, dont les multinationales (pas seulement américaines mais aussi européennes) ont maintenant tendance à délocaliser d'ici vers les USA--un exemple étant la suédoise Electrolux. Pour redresser la situation, nombre de mesures sont nécessaires. Il sera facile de dire qu'il faut se concentrer sur nos "avantages comparatifs" et "d'accroître notre productivité", mais il faudra aussi se résoudre à considérer des mesures visant à abaisser nos "coûts salariaux"--c'est d'ailleurs ce qui s'est produit aux USA, dans certains Etats plutôt que d'autres. En tout cas, on ne pourra plus compter sur l'industrie de la construction comme moteur premier de la croissance.

[Malek]

Ford to add 5,000 US jobs plus 3 plants and 23 vehicles globally

 

Posted Dec 13th 2013 3:30PM

 

16 of the 23 new launches will be for the North American market.

 

2014 is shaping up to be a big year for Ford Motor Company, as it's announced an onslaught of 23 new global product launches which will help create 5,000 new jobs in the US. As part of the new product push, three more manufacturing plants will be opened.

 

"Next year, we are embarking on our most ambitious global launch year ever to meet customer demand for our products around the world," Raj Nair, Ford's group vice president of global product development said. "We are investing even more through our One Ford plan to serve more customers, in more segments – and deliver profitable growth."

 

16 of the 23 new launches will be for the North American market and will include new products for long-suffering Lincoln. While we know about a few of these – Lincoln MKC, Ford Mustang, Transit and Transit Connect are named specifically – we don't have a full list of the new offerings (that's a cue for speculation to begin in Comments).

 

Those 5,000 new US employees, which will include 3,300 salary positions, will represent the company's biggest hiring push since 2000. The hiring surge will focus largely on product development experts, as well as manufacturing, quality and IT personnel. They'll be joined by 6,000, mostly hourly employees in China.

 

Two of the three new factories will be in China - an assembly plant and a transmission facility in Chongqing – while the other plant will be in the Camaçari Engine Plant in Brazil. "This is the fastest and most aggressive manufacturing expansion the company has undergone in 50 years," Ford's executive vice president of global manufacturing, John Fleming, said." The last time Ford was growing like this, Dwight D. Eisenhower was the US president."

 

We have an extensive press release on Ford's 2014 plans that you can view down below. As for what we asked above, of those 16 new US products and seven out-of-market additions, what are you expecting? Is there any segment you'd like to see Ford or Lincoln play in that they aren't currently part of? Have your say in Comments.

 

http://www.autoblog.com/2013/12/13/ford-adding-5-thousand-jobs-3-plants-23-vehicles/