Real capacity factor of wind farms compared to vendor advertisements

From this web page, the following table, actually only the first 3 lines are showed.  I added some rows and calculated:

• Annual MWh at 100%
• This would be produced if the wind turbine would work as advertised 100% of the time
• Capacity factor advertised
• This is the capacity factor, see wikipedia for a good explanation
• Real capacity factor
• This is one real number from 2008 on a wind farm in India, where they got a "good" year.
• Real MWh produced
• So with a capacity factor of 25% in the real world, you only produce 3614 MWh annually from an advertised (named plate) capacity of 14454 MWh

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	1981	1985	1990	1996	1999	2000
Rotor (meters)	10	17	27	40	50	71
Rating (KW)	25	100	225	550	750	1650
Annual MWh advertised	45	220	550	1480	2200	5600
Annual MWh at 100%	219	876	1971	4818	6570	14454
Capacity factor advertised	21%	25%	28%	31%	33%	39%
Real capacity factor						25%
Real MWh produced						3614

---

This means that 75% of the energy will come from another source of energy (Coal, Natural gas) to compensate for the intermittent nature of wind farms.

So claiming that a wind farm does not produce any form of pollution is not really telling the whole story.

Quelques comédies pour rire de nos malheurs

BP Spills Coffee



Government – Bank Symbiosis

I know, Arnold, I know.

Et finalement..

Violent Video Games May Increase Aggression in Some but Not Others

As we often see in the reports, there are some good games and some bad games.  The questions that comes to mind are.

Why do we need as a society to show those images to our kids?

Why do we need to create games that immerse our kids in extreme violence that train their brain in saying that it is "OK" to "kill" others, that put the life of others with no more importance than some bug we crush with our feet walking in the forest?

Source

ScienceDaily (June 8, 2010) — Playing violent video games can make some adolescents more hostile, particularly those who are less agreeable, less conscientious and easily angered. But for others, it may offer opportunities to learn new skills and improve social networking.

In a special issue of the journal Review of General Psychology, published in June by the American Psychological Association, researchers looked at several studies that examined the potential uses of video games as a way to improve visual/spatial skills, as a health aid to help manage diabetes or pain and as a tool to complement psychotherapy. One study examined the negative effects of violent video games on some people.

"Much of the attention to video game research has been negative, focusing on potential harm related to addiction, aggression and lowered school performance," said Christopher J. Ferguson, PhD, of Texas A&M International University and guest editor of the issue. "Recent research has shown that as video games have become more popular, children in the United States and Europe are having fewer behavior problems, are less violent and score better on standardized tests. Violent video games have not created the generation of problem youth so often feared."

In contrast, one study in the special issue shows that video game violence can increase aggression in some individuals, depending on their personalities.

In his research, Patrick Markey, PhD, determined that a certain combination of personality traits can help predict which young people will be more adversely affected by violent video games. "Previous research has shown us that personality traits like psychoticism and aggressiveness intensify the negative effects of violent video games and we wanted to find out why," said Markey.

Markey used the most popular psychological model of personality traits, called the Five-Factor Model, to examine these effects. The model scientifically classifies five personality traits: neuroticism, extraversion, openness to experience, agreeableness and conscientiousness.
Analysis of the model showed a "perfect storm" of traits for children who are most likely to become hostile after playing violent video games, according to Markey. Those traits are: high neuroticism (e.g., easily upset, angry, depressed, emotional, etc.), low agreeableness (e.g., little concern for others, indifferent to others feelings, cold, etc.) and low conscientiousness (e.g., break rules, don't keep promises, act without thinking, etc.).
Markey then created his own model, focusing on these three traits, and used it to help predict the effects of violent video games in a sample of 118 teenagers. Each participant played a violent or a non-violent video game and had his or her hostility levels assessed. The teenagers who were highly neurotic, less agreeable and less conscientious tended to be most adversely affected by violent video games, whereas participants who did not possess these personality characteristics were either unaffected or only slightly negatively affected by violent video games.

"These results suggest that it is the simultaneous combination of these personality traits which yield a more powerful predictor of violent video games," said Markey. "Those who are negatively affected have pre-existing dispositions, which make them susceptible to such violent media."

"Violent video games are like peanut butter," said Ferguson. "They are harmless for the vast majority of kids but are harmful to a small minority with pre-existing personality or mental health problems."
The special issue also features articles on the positives of video game play, including as a learning tool. For example:

• Video games serve a wide range of emotional, social and intellectual needs, according to a survey of 1,254 seventh and eighth graders. The study's author, Cheryl Olson, PhD, also offers tips to parents on how to minimize potential harm from video games (i.e., supervised play, asking kids why they play certain games, playing video games with their children).
• Commercial video games have been shown to help engage and treat patients, especially children, in healthcare settings, according to a research review by Pamela Kato, PhD. For example, some specially tailored video games can help patients with pain management, diabetes treatment and prevention of asthma attacks.
• Video games in mental health care settings may help young patients become more cooperative and enthusiastic about psychotherapy. T. Atilla Ceranoglu, M.D., found in his research review that video games can complement the psychological assessment of youth by evaluating cognitive skills and help clarify conflicts during the therapy process.

Obama Uses BP Oil Spill to Push Corporate-Welfare-Filled Global Warming Bill That BP Once Lobbied For

A good article by Hans Bader
Source

Talk about chutzpah.  President Obama, the biggest recipient of campaign cash from BP, is using BP’s oil spill to push for a global warming bill that is chock full of corporate welfare and environment-destroying ethanol subsidies.  And the bill is one crafted by lobbyists for big companies like BP: “For years, BP has lobbied for climate change legislation, until recently running around with the U.S. Climate Action Partnership.”

The Obama Administration has done little about the oil spill, even though “BP’s oil gusher is in federal waters, on seabed leased from the federal government,” giving the government the moral responsibility to do something to stop the spill.  Instead, it is adding insult to injury for suffering Gulf Coast residents by imposing a ban on oil drilling that will wipe out at least 20,000 jobs in the Gulf, and perhaps more, according to Louisiana’s governor.

The ban doesn’t apply just to BP, a company with an unusually bad safety record which has been described as a “serial environmental criminal.” 

Instead, it applies to the oil industry generally, including the vast majority of oil companies that make safety a priority in drilling (and whose oil wells did not spill even during hurricanes).
Democratic strategist James Carville, who was raised in Louisiana, called Obama’s handling of the oil spill “lackadaisical“ and “unbelievable“ in its “stupidity.”

Until recently, the Obama administration ignored the pleas of Louisiana’s governor to allow Louisiana to build barrier islands to contain the damage from the oil spill, citing bureaucratic procedures.  Yet the Obama administration granted BP a waiver from environmental regulations in April 2009. ABC News reports that the “top recipient of BP-related donations during the 2008 cycle was President Barack Obama himself, who collected $71,000.”

The global warming legislation backed by President Obama would also drive jobs overseas, since it would impose a costly cap-and-trade carbon rationing scheme on American industry, while leaving foreign plants operated by multinational corporations unregulated.  Companies with plants overseas are lobbying for the global-warming legislation, which would give them an advantage over American competitors.  The legislation Obama backs may perversely increase pollution driving industry overseas to places with fewer environmental regulations.

Different points of view of the Israel Gaza humanitarian aid convoy

There are always different points of view on any conflict.

Here I list 3 points of view that I stumble upon.

First you have the point of view of pro-Israel and terrorist plot.

Al Qaeda on Board? Who Was on the Flotilla the Israelis Raided?

Second you have the humanitarian point of view, I would say not pro-Israel view of Democracy now.

Huwaida Arraf, chairperson of the Free Gaza Movement, and retired US Col. Ann Wright were on the flotilla when it was attacked. They join us to describe the assault and their subsequent detention in Israeli prison. We also speak to Sawsan Zaher, a staff attorney at Adalah, the Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, who interviewed many of the activists in detention.


Source 

Israel’s deputy ambassador to the United Nations, Daniel Carmon, speaks to Democracy Now! and defends the Israeli attack on the Gaza aid flotilla that killed at least nine people in international waters. "Israel enforced a maritime blockade, which is a measure that is totally legal in international law, to enforce a blockade when there is a possibility of a danger emanating from some source. And this was exactly the case."


Source

Third, you have the common sense point of view of Dan Carlin on the subject.
Everything discussed in this show is likely to get a lot of people angry.  From Israeli naval raids to U.N. control of U.S. foreign policy, Dan probably won't be able to avoid making you mad. Sorry.


Any opinions?