Word: switches
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...Premacy Hydrogen RE Hybrid concept car. This "tribrid" has three energy sources--gasoline, electricity and hydrogen. The main combustion engine can burn either gasoline or hydrogen, which is fed to the engine from a tank in the trunk. The driver can change between the two by hitting a switch next to the steering wheel. Hydrogen as a fuel burns like gasoline, but it's about 10% more efficient, and emits only water. Throw in the hybrid function (an electric motor) and fuel efficiency rises again. Mazda hopes to have the car available in three years. In the meantime, Mazda plans...
...Companies such as Subaru and Mitsubishi are tinkering with hybrid systems that place the electric motors at the wheels to give the vehicles more power and traction when they switch to four-wheel drive. For now, these types of hybrids are specifically designed to appeal to drivers who like to go off-road. However, the same layout will also become more common as the hybrid evolves and electric motors at the wheels become the primary source of power, Gauthier predicts. "Over time, you move to a vehicle where the internal combustion engine isn't connected to the driveline," Gauthier says...
...costly defined-benefit plans and into much cheaper (for companies) and more risky (for workers) uninsured 401(k)s. In effect, employees took a hefty pay cut and barely seemed to notice. Lawmakers and supporters advocated the move by pointing to a changing economy in which employees switch jobs frequently. They maintained that because defined-benefit plans are based on length of service and an average of salaries over the last few years of work, they don't meet today's needs. But Congress could have revised the rules and made the plans portable over a working life, just like...
Congress's role has been pivotal. Lawmakers wrote bankruptcy regulations to allow corporations to scrap the health insurance they promised employees who retired early--sometimes voluntarily, quite often not. They wrote pension rules that encouraged corporations to underfund their retirement plans or switch to plans less favorable to employees. They denied workers the right to sue to enforce retirement promises. They have refused to overhaul America's health-care system, which has created the world's most expensive medical care without any comparable benefit. One by one, lawmakers have undermined or destroyed policies that once afforded at least the possibility...
...already headed in that direction," says Amory Lovins, director of the Rocky Mountain Institute, a think tank that advocates a radical restructuring of the energy economy. Shell has become the largest seller of biofuels, he says: "We're talking about new processes for turning woody, weedy plants like switch grass and poplar--also crop waste like wheat straw--into cellulosic ethanol...