T. Boone Pickens goes long in windmills

Forbes, What The Pickens Fiasco Means To Green

He's stuck with $2 billion worth of General Electric turbines, which he hopes to move to smaller projects throughout the Midwest and Canada. He's also decided to wait for the government to build transmission to carry wind power in Texas.

Transmission is a critical and often overlooked component to making green energy work, particularly because wind and solar resources are often located in rural areas far from major transmission backbones.

With respect to this project, Pickens was always tilting at windmills.

Good line:

In May 2008, Pickens announced that his company, Mesa Power LP, would order 687 wind turbines, or 1,000 megawatts of capacity, from GE for about $2 billion. By 2014, he expected to expand the Panhandle wind farm to 4,000 megawatts.
...
GE will start delivering them in the first quarter of 2011. Pickens has about 18 months to find a place to put them.

"I don't have that big a garage to put them in, so I've got to start getting ready to use them," he said.

Pickens said company officials are considering six sites, including places in Wisconsin, Oklahoma, Kansas and Texas. He aims to build three or four wind farms with around 150 turbines each.

The Emirates has lots of wind and solar potential. The "only problem" is how to you get it to market? Transmission is a problem. There's only so much local demand.

But Helene Pelosse thinks the transmission problem of shipping out Gulf generated solar and wind could be surmounted. It's not as easy, though, as it might be in China. Even if substantial technological progress in shipping electricity great distances was made, you have the same political problems you have with getting pipelines completed across several political jurisdictions.

You only have to look to the troubled history of electrical interconnectivity between Dubai, Sharjah -- and the rest of the seven Emirates for the matter.

Addendum:

WESTON, W.Va. - The Lewis County Commission has become the fifth county commission in West Virginia to formally oppose a proposed high voltage multistate transmission line.

The county has filed for intervenor status with the state Public Service Commission. That would allow it to present written testimony and participate in cross examination at evidentiary hearings.

The PSC is considering whether to approve the Potomac-Appalachian Transmission Highline, or PATH, a joint venture of Pennsylvania's Allegheny Energy Co. and Ohio's American Electric Power Co.

It would run from AEP's John Amos plant in Putnam County, across parts of northern Virginia, and end at a substation near Kemptown, Md.

6 Minute Man

Apparently all it takes is 6 minutes to a new you:

In one of the group’s recent studies, Gibala and his colleagues had a group of college students, who were healthy but not athletes, ride a stationary bike at a sustainable pace for between 90 and 120 minutes. Another set of students grunted through a series of short, strenuous intervals: 20 to 30 seconds of cycling at the highest intensity the riders could stand. After resting for four minutes, the students pedaled hard again for another 20 to 30 seconds, repeating the cycle four to six times (depending on how much each person could stand), “for a total of two to three minutes of very intense exercise per training session,” Gibala says.

Each of the two groups exercised three times a week. After two weeks, both groups showed almost identical increases in their endurance (as measured in a stationary bicycle time trial), even though the one group had exercised for six to nine minutes per week, and the other about five hours. Additionally, molecular changes that signal increased fitness were evident equally in both groups.

6 minutes doesn't sound like much more than zero. Not that I resemble that remark.

You might want to reconsider that name

Russia has entered a natural gas venture with Nigeria with the name Nigaz.

Will that be with or without attitude? Apologies to N.W.A.

An invisible curriculum you learn from having a job

Some news from the U.S.

While Obama blames the unexpectedly steep rise in unemployment this month on the Bush administration, it could have more to do with the hike in the minimum wage.

Forbes

The outlook for teen jobs is so bleak that it's weighing down the entire employment report, which the Bureau of Labor Statistics released on Thursday. The country is headed for an entire decade with no job growth. In June, the report showed unemployment climbed to 9.6% from 9.5%, and 467,000 jobs were lost, thanks in large part to the decline in jobs for teens.
...
Minimum wage increases raise the bar for entry-level employment. From 1997 until 2007, the minimum wage stood at $5.15. Congress raised it to $5.85 in 2007, to $6.55 last year, and in July it is scheduled to increase again to $7.25.

In June 2006, 7 million teens were working. Since the wage hikes and recession kicked in, 1.4 million of those jobs have disappeared. For African-American teens, the job market is even worse--their unemployment rate is 38%.

"For teens who are not in the work force, as many as 10 years later there are financial impacts to that. Ten years later, if you were not employed, you're lagging behind your peers," says Lopez Eastlick. "There's an invisible curriculum you learn from having a job."

Dubai continues restructuring of finances

Dubai's 2nd $10B Bond May Get UAE Govt Guarantee (WSJ)

"It will be the first time an emirate's bond has been backed by the federal government," the Dubai government official, who is involved with the bond told Zawya Dow Jones. Dubai is seeking federal support to help sell the bond to international banks who otherwise may be reluctant to buy the debt as the emirate continues to restructure its finances. The bond issue will be the first by Dubai backed by the federal government.
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The bond program will support government spending plans and the private sector at a time when loans from international banks have dried up as global lenders have become too nervous to lend. At the same time, local banks are grappling with a large loan-to-deposit gap of about AED90 billion.

S&P cuts ratings on 3 Dubai GREs (AP)

A leading international ratings service said Tuesday it had cut its credit rating of three Dubai government-backed entities, voicing concerns about the emirate’s willingness to continue backing some companies in the one-time Arab boomtown hard hit by the global recession.

Standard & Poor’s Ratings Service said it downgraded the ratings for port operator DP World, the Jebel Ali Free Zone and Dubai Multi Commodities Centre Authority, all of which had been on credit watch with negative implications since the end of April.

“The rating actions reflect Standard & Poor’s reappraisal of the likelihood of extraordinary financial support by the Government of Dubai to its GREs to ensure the timely repayment of their financial obligations,” the agency said in a statement. S&P said the reappraisal also was the result of “increased uncertainty regarding the government’s willingness to provide such support” to Nakheel, the property developer famed for building Dubai’s manmade islands.

UAE Banks in Talks with Saudi Debtors (Khaleej Times)

Although UAE banks refused to specify their individual exposures to the Saudi borrrowers, Central Bank Governor Sultan bin Nasser Al Suwaidi, speaking earlier this week, described their combined exposure as “significant.” Media reports peg total outstanding loans from UAE banks at around $767 million — more than one-tenth the estimated $7.4 billion that all banks worldwide have lent to the Saudi groups.

“Some of the banks in the UAE have large gross exposure to these groups but they also have large collateral,” said Emmanuel Volland, Senior Director for Financial Institutions Ratings at Standard & Poor’s. “You need to look not at the gross exposure but (the) net of the collateral. Of course, you have to evaluate the quality of this collateral — cash being the best.”

Standard & Poor’s does not rate all UAE banks and cannot comment on their total exposure, said Volland, who is based in Paris. “We rate two banks in Abu Dhabi, NBAD and ADCB.

Both banks have recently received (a) capital infusion by the [federal] government.

No doubt Abu Dhabi will attach strings to the loan guarantees to Dubai, and has examined the quality of the collateral Dubai has to offer.

In other news Dubai continues to think big, and studying the possibility of submitting a bid for the 2020 Olympics. The construction costs are estimated in the billions of dollars.

al-Maktoums and al-Nahyans at odds in court?

In the UAE slander is broadly defined and taken seriously. Abu Dhabi has reached out to help Dubai weather the worldwide economic downturn. One wonders whether a disagreement over the publication of horse doping story could harm that relationship.

Q: Slip 78. Sherif Abd el Mayin of Slip 68 becomes el Main, el Mayein, el Muein, el Mayin, and el Muyein.

A: Good egg. I call this really ingenious.

From an exchange between T.E. Lawrence and his proofreaders.

Also,

Q: Slip 20. Nuri, Emir of the Ruwalla, belongs to the 'chief family of the Rualla.' On Slip 23 'Rualla horse,' and Slip 38, 'killed one Rueli.' In all later slips 'Rualla.'

A: Should have also used Ruwala and Ruala.

Q: Slip 28. The Bisaita is also spelt Biseita.

A: Good.

Q: Slip 47. Jedha, the she-camel, was Jedhah on Slip 40.

A: She was a splendid beast.

Read it all.

There are 32 ways to spell Mu`ammar al-Qadhafi.

Online instruction wins: It's about time

A new empirical study by the US Department of Education finds that education outcomes in online environments are superior to face-to-face instruction. And that a blend of the two seems to be best. The key reason seems to be that students spend more time studying when they are doing it online.

Inside Higher Ed:

Notably, the report attributes much of the success in learning online (blended or entirely) not to technology but to time. "Studies in which learners in the online condition spent more time on task than students in the face-to-face condition found a greater benefit for online learning," the report says.

In noting caveats about the findings, the study returns to the issue of time.

"Despite what appears to be strong support for online learning applications, the studies in this meta-analysis do not demonstrate that online learning is superior as a medium," the report says. "In many of the studies showing an advantage for online learning, the online and classroom conditions differed in terms of time spent, curriculum and pedagogy. It was the combination of elements in the treatment conditions (which was likely to have included additional learning time and materials as well as additional opportunities for collaboration) that produced the observed learning advantages. At the same time, one should note that online learning is much more conducive to the expansion of learning time than is face-to-face instruction."

Interestingly, online quizzes had no effect: "The use of video or online quizzes -- frequently encouraged for online education -- 'does not appear to enhance learning,' the report says."

What recession? Colleges offer students valet parking

Inside Higher Ed:

When the concept of starting a valet parking service came up at a recent Florida Atlantic University Board of Trustees meeting, it seemed less out of place than one would think. With the number of students growing, and the number of convenient parking spaces on campus unchanged, the idea to charge students and faculty for such a convenience did not seem unreasonable.

Florida Atlantic is just talking about valet service. Other colleges have implemented it. Florida International University and Columbia University introduced valet programs this spring. The University of Southern California has had a program in place since 2008, and High Point University brought in valet at the behest of its president, Nido Qubein, to provide a better student experience. California State University at Sacramento has also begun a premium parking program.

At Florida International, valet service started this spring as a way for visitors to find convenient parking. The valet stand was set up on a busy part of campus -- one where a lot of visitors arrive, according to Bill Foster, executive director of parking and transportation. The service was meant for visitors, but students, faculty, and staff were not precluded from using the service, and commuter students had a particular demand for it.

I can see this going over very well in the UAE. University administrators, are you listening?

The power of crowds

From Dailymotion:

Battle w/ Police - Tehran, Iran - June 20th 2009
Uploaded by mightier-than. - News videos from around the world.

But you can't throw back bullets.