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DEFINITION vam-pahy-r i-lek-tron-iks n. Unused appliances, like cell-phone chargers and coffeemakers, that quietly suck up electricity when left plugged into sockets. Constant consumers, they spike electric bills and put more strain on the nation's power grid...
Matcor's U.S. projects include designing and installing a corrosion-protection system for a plant in Louisiana owned by Sempra Energy, an energy utility company headquartered in San Diego. The pipeline runs for 50 miles and ties into a much larger pipeline grid heading up the East Coast. And in Hugoton, Kans., Schutt's team recently completed a job it had begun two years ago for BP. "The pipelines weren't damaged, but there wasn't enough of a force field on them," he says. Currently, Matcor's work is about 75% domestic, but it's looking to grow globally...
Real reform, Babson says, would require North Korea to abandon its pipe dream of agricultural self-sufficiency--with a dearth of arable land, the country is literally dirt poor--and invest in labor-intensive manufacturing. But rebuilding the country's roads and ports and installing a reliable electrical grid would take billions of dollars in international loans--hardly a bright prospect given the country's history of defaulting on its obligations...
When State Grid Corp. wanted to do good in Chinese communities, the Beijing-based utility turned to what it knows best: electricity. In rural villages nationwide last year, State Grid's "Power for All" project ran electric lines to 545,000 previously unserved households, offering the occupants free power indefinitely. Families bought their first refrigerators, televisions, even computers. Farmers stopped hauling buckets of water and installed automated irrigation systems. "We transformed people's lives," says Liu Fuyi, the project's chief. "We brought them into modernity." Over the next two years, the utility plans to spend $3 billion...
...also F1 drivers Anthony Davidson and David Coulthard, and McLaren test driver Gary Paffett. Hines is no less pumped about his current crop: Young Gun Oliver Rowland, 15, clinched the British title in his class in mid-September. His gritty style - after being relegated to the back of the grid at a recent race, Rowland sliced his way through the field to win - prompted McLaren to sign him to the Formula One team's Young Driver Support Program earlier this year. (One of its first recruits in 1998: a 13-year-old Hamilton.) As with similar schemes run by racing...