Wall Street Journal excerpts, 9/24/15 International Business Machines Corp. announced a new San Francisco location for its artificial intelligence unit Watson, signaling an expansion of the business widely known for its artificial intelligence that beat human contestants on the “Jeopardy” quiz show. The new California location is the second for Watson, which has been based in
San Diego’s $3.5 billion plan to fight the drought by recycling sewage into drinking water is forcing state regulators to rewrite their water recycling rule book. State rules call for purified sewer water to be pumped into large natural basins under ground before it can enter the local water supply, partly because that’s how it’s
Fewer of tomorrow's freeways will be free. In exchange, drivers willing and able to pay will avoid the traffic congestion that bedevils everyone else. Toll lanes are an increasingly common solution in metropolitan regions with limited public space or money to widen highways. One increasingly popular idea is to convert carpool lanes to let solo
French firm Air Liquide has started operating a carbon dioxide liquefaction plant in Tulare County that captures carbon emissions and transforms them into products used in the manufacturing and food service industries. The plant is located in Pixley, next to the Calgren Renewable Fuels ethanol plant, which has a capacity to produce 55 million gallons
One month after mounting a legal challenge to San Benito County's ban on the controversial oil exploration practice of fracking, a Southern California oil company has withdrawn its lawsuit. The decision now means that none of the local bans on fracking in California is under legal challenge, environmentalists said Monday, even as several more counties
On a quiet Sunday morning last April, power plants were pumping far more energy into California's electricity grid than residents needed for their refrigerators, microwaves and television sets. So officials made an odd request in a state that prides itself on leadership in renewable energy: They asked wind and solar plants to cut back their
Excerpted from The Wall Street Journal At an annual meeting with analysts yesterday, IBM announced that it will shift $4 billion in 2015 spending to what it calls the “strategic imperatives” of cloud, analytics, mobile, social and security technologies. The spending plan prompted IBM Chief Executive Virginia Rometty to set a new financial target for
Last week, while thousands of farmers and others involved in the agricultural industry attended World Ag Expo in Tulare, a much smaller group visited the Calgren Renewable Fuels plant in Pixley. Only they weren't there to see how the plant makes ethanol. Instead, the group of dairy operators, county officials and business people were there
California has one of the nation's largest concentrations of "advanced industry" workers, but a new study points out that the state still faces big challenges in Stockton, Fresno, the Inland Empire and elsewhere. The study from the Brookings Institution zeros in on clusters of high-skill industries such as those in Silicon Valley, saying they are
A local demonstration project announced Tuesday would treat up to 136,500 gallons per day of oil field wastewater for reuse in agriculture and steam-based well stimulation. OriginOil Inc., the Los Angeles-based developer of "Electro Water Separation," said it has partnered with Bakersfield oil producer Vaquero Energy Inc. to install a pair of facilities treating "produced