Online Eyeglass Company Offers Much-Needed Alternative
That’s what happened when I went shopping for eyeglasses the other day. The receipts in my file cabinet tell the story. In March 2006, my every-two-or-three-years update of frames and lenses, one regular pair and one prescription sunglasses, cost $457 at an optical shop that had been operating on New York’s Lower East Side for 100 years. In August 2009, I went online to find a discount price on a frame I had selected at a local eyeglass store , then printed out the Web page and gave the local merchant a chance to match the price. After giving me an impassioned speech about how the online competitor had no rent, no inventory, and no payroll, the local merchant cut his price by $150 to match the online offer — $250 for the frame and a polycarbonate lens with an anti-reflective coating — and I was out the door for $425 total, including some new sunglass lenses.( MORE: The Las Vegas Real Estate Agent Who Sold 931 Homes Last Year )
Then, last month, in August 2011, I managed to buy a nifty new pair of frames with polycarbonate lenses and an anti-reflective coating for just $90 from Warby Parker . That primarily online eyeglasses company has been attracting press attention and venture capital funding since it was founded last year by students at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton business school. Warby Parker isn’t yet selling prescription sunglasses, though it says it will start doing so soon. Even so, $90 for the one pair of glasses is $160 less than I spent for essentially the same thing two years ago, and a $310 savings over what the local eyeglass store’s asking price was.
Dominion Receives Federal Grant to Evaluate Ways to Reduce Cost of Offshore ...
Has received a two-year, $500,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Energy to look for ways to reduce the cost of offshore wind electricity generation by at least 25 percent."One of the biggest challenges to off-shore wind generation is bringing down the cost so it can be more competitive with other forms of electric power generation," said Mary C. Doswell, senior vice president-Alternative Energy Solutions. "The intent of the project is to achieve at least 25 percent reduction in the levelized cost of energy relative to a benchmark 600-megawatt power station design by integrating innovations in turbine, foundation, installation and electrical infrastructure into the most optimal combination."
The grant is one of 41 projects across 20 states totaling $43 million over the next five years that the DOE announced on Sept. 8 to speed technical innovations, lower costs, and shorten the timeline for deploying offshore wind energy systems. (See the DOE news release at: http://www.doe.gov/articles/department-energy-awards-43-million-spur-offshore-wind-energy )
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