Bloomberg: After Trump Fallout, Uber Can’t Shake Its Elon Musk Envy

While Uber got shellacked for its link to President Donald Trump, the electric carmaker and sometimes-rival Tesla Inc. has comfortably weathered its association with a president who has lower approval ratings than any predecessor in his first days in office.

Uber Technologies Inc. lost customers and drivers and became the subject of a campaign on Twitter that encouraged people to delete their Uber apps. The opposition compelled Uber Chief Executive Officer Travis Kalanick to quit Trump’s Strategic and Policy Forum. Meanwhile, Tesla faced relatively minimal backlash, and there’s been no comparable effort to boycott the carmaker’s products. Tesla CEO Elon Musk has said he has no plans to quit the committee.

The contrast is viewed as a double standard within Uber’s headquarters in San Francisco.

Associated Press: Renewable Energy Can Help Trump Create Jobs, Says Jimmy Carter

Former President Jimmy Carter said Wednesday millions of jobs could be created in the United States if President Donald Trump embraced renewable energy sources such as geothermal, solar and wind power.

Carter, a Democrat who was the first U.S. president to install solar panels at the White House, said he hoped the Republican Trump would give it "deep consideration."

"Sometimes there's a philosophical objection to this by some -- I'll say right-wing Republicans -- but he has a high priority of job creation," Carter said in an interview with The Associated Press. "If they just remember the tremendous potential of creating millions of jobs in America just from renewable energy sources, that would be a very good counter-argument to those who oppose the concept of global warming being caused by human activity."

Guardian: Electricity Market Operator Denies Being ‘Asleep at the Wheel’ During Blackout

The Australian Energy Market Operator says it was not asleep at the wheel after another electricity shortage in South Australia on Wednesday caused blackouts for 40,000 people.

Senior managers from the electricity market operator faced combative questioning about their management of the South Australian weather event during a Senate committee hearing in Canberra on Friday.

As other states battled extreme temperatures, and faced the risk of blackouts, and as political debate continued to rage about energy policy, David Swift, executive general manager of corporate development at Aemo, defended the performance of his agency despite admitting there had been an error in their forecasting on the day of the blackout this week.

“We certainly weren’t asleep at the wheel,” Swift told the committee.

Engadget: Researchers Make a Graphene Superconductor

Graphene is the miracle cream of the physics world, with scientists all across the globe looking to unlock its powers. Researchers at the University of Cambridge believe they've found a way to transform the substance into a superconductor. Superconductors are nothing new, of course, but they normally have to be cooled to very low temperatures to be effective. In this experiment, however, the materials were left at the current temperature. Now, like so many graphene projects, it's still early days, but if it works, it could upend the way we build electronics forever.

All materials have a level of resistance, which is a measure of the fight it puts up to stop electricity passing through it. A copper wire, for instance, has quite a low level, which is why it's used a lot to build electronics and computers. Wood's at the other end of the spectrum, at least when it's dry, which is why your smartphone isn't hewn from trees.

Reuters: EU Softens Proposal on Extension of Chinese Solar Duties

The European Commission has proposed extending import duties on solar panels from China by 18 months, a shorter period than initially planned, and with a gradual phase-out, Commission Vice President Frans Timmermans said on Wednesday.

Anti-dumping and anti-subsidy duties have been in place on Chinese solar panels and cells since 2013 and are currently under review as to whether they should be maintained. A majority of EU countries last month opposed a proposed two-year extension.

Timmermans told a news conference that it was a sensitive issue. The commission's proposal, revealed by Reuters on Tuesday, will be put to the EU's 28 member states later this month.