power deal: USA-based Enron Corporation has won a bid to build a US $500-million gas pipeline and power plant in the Mato Grosso state of Brazil. Enron is among the first to benefit from the concessions made by the Brazilian government to companies that will produce electricity in the energy-starved country. The pipeline and the plant will funnel power from the high plains of Bolivia to Brazil's industrial heartland. Enron will operate the plant for a period of 20 years and hopes to generate 480 MW of power, roughly enough to supply the 1.4 million people who live there.
suppressing depression: The Indianapolis-based pharmaceutical company, Lilly, will launch an advertising campaign to bolster the sales of its antidepressant, Prozac, throughout the US. According to Lilly, only two-third of Americans who suffer clinical depression -- of a total of about 17 million -- receive adequate treatment. This is the company's latest attempt to sell drugs directly to customers rather than through the doctor's prescription. Many psychiatrists stress that while antidepressants are overprescribed to people who don't need them, the drugs are also underprescribed in other cases, either because depression is not diagnosed properly or because the dosage is inadequate.
medical merger: Norway's Nycomed and UK's Amersham International are to merge, creating one of the world's biggest medical diagnostics groups. Both the companies specialise in medical imaging. Nycomed sells chemicals that improve the quality of X-ray images when injected and Amersham has radioactive imaging materials.
clean curd maker: Nagasawa Kikai Seisakusho, a leading Japanese manufacturer of tofu-making equipment (tofu is a curd made from mashed soya beans) has won an order worth US $707,964 for its environment-friendly Tofu Robot from a Beijing Tofu maker. The company, based in Saitama Prefecture near Tokyo, will supply six units of the equipment, which makes the bean curd. The company's model generates waste water with oxygen levels of about 75 per cent less than the earlier tofu-making equipment, which encouraged micro-organic life.
recycling waste: Siemens' pilot project for large scale commercial thermal waste recycling here in southern Germany has proved successful. Once the technology is fully commercialised by AD 1998, it would substantially eliminate the need for using the municipal waste for land filling. Results gathered to date indicated that the combination of waste conversion and high temperature combustion transformed nearly 100 per cent of residual waste into recyclable, high grade secondary raw materials and generated clean energy with very low emission levels below even the standard but tough German norms.
energised pact: Hyderabad-based Titan Energy Systems which manufactures solar photovoltaic modules and power systems, has entered into a tie-up with US-based ASE Americas Inc to promote photovoltaic products in India. The arrangement will help Titan build solar electric panels using high-quality crystalline cells of ASE. Titan offers a wide range of monocrystaline photovoltaic modules suitable for a variety of uses. Applications of photovoltaics include power for electric lights, communications, medical centres, schools and pumping water.
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