EoW March 2007

Transat lant ic Cable

Alcatel-Lucent is the new company formed from the merger of Alcatel and Lucent Technologies on 1 st December 2006. On the basis of results for 2005, the combined company can be expected to have annual revenues of approximately $25 billion. According to the US Department of Energy, the nation’s poorly maintained network of transmission lines has not been sufficiently expanded to meet growing demand. In areas where there are not enough lines to transmit electricity from the most efficient generating stations, utilities are sometimes compelled to buy from costlier power plants nearby. The problem has already raised the electricity bills of about 40 million people from metropolitan New York to Virginia as well as 18 million in Southern California. Smaller price increases can be expected to hit New England, the San Francisco Bay Area, and the Seattle-Portland and Phoenix-Tucson corridors until new power lines are built. The Energy Department estimates that in 2008 these higher costs, known as congestion charges, will add some $8 billion or so – about $40 a person – to electricity costs on the Eastern grid, which serves almost 200 million people east of the Rockies except for Texas. The department has not made an estimate for the Western grids. ❈

Recycling crisis ahead

Electronic waste: the menace lurking in America’s closets and basements

While federal law regulates the disposal of electronics by US businesses and government agencies, it does not extend to individual consumers, who according to the Environmental Protection Agency account for more than half the electronic waste produced in the United States each year. The agency estimates that Americans threw away 2.5 million tons of electronic equipment in 2005, the latest information available. Only about 10% of this e-waste was recycled. Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University, in Pittsburgh, estimate that dumps outside of the nation’s major cities hold more than 60 million computers. Every computer monitor alone contains about four pounds of lead, and other parts are full of such heavy metals as mercury, arsenic, cadmium, and chromium. These emit toxins that linger in the air after incineration or leach into the water supply when buried in landfills.

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EuroWire – January 2006 Euro ire – March 20 7