Valuing the manufacturing externalities of wind energy: assessing the environmental profit and loss of wind turbines in Northern Europe

This study draws from a concept from green accounting, lifecycle assessment, and industrial ecology known as 'environmental profit and loss” (EP&L) to determine the extent of externalities across the manufacturing lifecycle of wind energy. So far, no EP&Ls have involved energy companies and none have involved wind energy or wind turbines. We perform an EP&L for three types of wind turbines sited and built in Northern Europe (Denmark and Norway) by a major manufacturer: a 3.2 MW onshore turbine with a mixed concrete steel foundation, a 3.0 MW offshore turbine with a steel foundation, and a 3.0 MW offshore turbine with a concrete foundation. For each of these three turbine types, we identify and monetize externalities related to carbon dioxide emissions, air pollution, and waste. We find that total environmental losses range from €1.1 million for the offshore turbine with concrete foundation to €740,000 for onshore turbines and about €500,000 for an offshore turbine with steel foundation—equivalent to almost one-fifth of construction cost in some instances. We conclude that carbon dioxide emissions dominate the amount of environmental damages and that turbines need to work for 2.5 to 5.5 years to payback their carbon debts. Even though turbines are installed in Europe, China and South Korea accounted for about 80% of damages across each type of turbine. Lastly, two components, foundations and towers, account for about 90% of all damages. We conclude with six implications for wind energy analysts, suppliers, manufacturers, and planners. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd

Feministiskt initiativ - en idéanalys

Feminist initiative – an idea analysis. On the fourth of April in the year 2005 Feministic initiative (Fi) was created, it was an main response to the slow changes in the Swedish society, which claimed to establish an equal society. Equality has become one of the major indicators of a contemporary democratic society. The Swedish government has long proclaimed to reach this goal, but even though Sweden currently lies in the front among the democratic societies, while you consider equality issues, especially between the sexes, there is still a lot that need to be done in the Swedish society. Feministic initiative began as an organization and established a political party and participated in the election during the year 2006, but failed to reach a place in the parliament. Recently Feministic initiative said that they will participate in the upcoming election in the year 2010. It made me wonder which feministic ideals that Feministic initiative actually practices. Feminism is a broad ideology, and a reaction against the society that claims to be democratic but systematically oppresses women. This oppression created feminism; but there is different views of feminism, my main objective in this paper is to present a few different feministic directions. These are, radicalfeminism, marxistic feminism, liberalfeminism, socialistic feminism, post-modernfeminism and black (women’s) feminism. From these theories will I create a analyze frame and try to locate different kinds of feministic ideas within Feministic initiatives policy documents called F! for a feministic policy, election manifest and platform for Feministic initiative Thus, the main focus in this paper to do an idea analyze and focus on Feministic initiative, do they really use the different ideas expressed within the different types of feminism that I consider in this paper in a equal manner? The conclusion is that Feministic initiative is tendentious, Feministic initiative uses ideas, perspectives and expressions that are typical for radicalfeminism more than they use ideas, perspectives and expressions from other types of feminism

Skoldemokrati : En kvalitativ intervjustudie som undersöker elevrådet och elevkåren som demokratiska forum för gymnasieelever i Stockholm.

The main objective in this study is to examine the pupil’s possibility to affect the upper secondary schools in Stockholm, Sweden. I was once active in the pupil’s council and experienced some hardships, feeling a great dissatisfaction among teachers and principals against pupil’s suggestions and chances to affect their school environment. Thus I wanted to do a contemporary study of where schools in Stockholm stand today within this issue. This study is based on Robert A. Dahl’s theory about democracy, from which I have created my theoretical template, I interpreted Dahl’s theory and formed my own seven institutions from his original theory. With this construction I developed survey questions, which were designed to measure school democracy. I used a qualitative survey method, where I interviewed pupils who are active in the pupil’s council in five different schools today, one of the respondents is a civil servant for the Swedish pupils council centralorganization (Seco). Based on my interviews I have analyzed whether the contemporary upper secondary schools is or is not democratic. My conclusion, I see a wide variety of democratic institutions in Stockholm today, but when comparing the schools today with schools just six years ago, I can trace down huge differences. The pupil’s have learned to organize in a wider manner than six years ago, moreover the main problem doesn’t seem to be a lack of opportunities to influence the school today, the general attitude against the pupil’s council seem to have changed considerably amongst principals and teachers for the better. The main problem for the schools to actually be democratic in a wide manner seems to lie on the pupil’s, if pupil’s showed more interest the schools would be more democratic. Because schools today strive to be as democratic as possible and with organizations like Seco the pupil’s council will be democratic as well, the schools in the Swedish (Stockholm) contemporary society today is according to my study democratic.    

Hbtq-kompetens? En kvantitativ studie av attityder, kunskaper och upplevd självförmåga hos psykologer.

En enkätstudie genomfördes i syfte att undersöka vilka faktorer som påverkar psykologers hbtq-kompetens. Via Facebook rekryterades 407 psykologer som besvarade den webbaserade enkäten. Hbtq-kompetens operationaliserades genom två komponenter: attityder till hbtq* (hbtq* används genomgående som förkortning för “hbtq-personer och hbtq-frågor”) och hbtq-kompetens (upplevd självförmåga att agera hbtq-kompetent i relation till en klient). Resultaten gick i linje med tidigare forskning och visade att deltagare med politiskt liberal orientering, intresse för genus- och diskrimineringsfrågor, synen på kön som ickebinär kategori, samt identitet som hbtq-person eller med många och nära relationer till hbtq-personer tenderade att ha mer positiva attityder till hbtq* och mer hbtq-kompetens. Regressionsanalyser visade att omfattningen av privata relationer var det som bäst predicerade attityder till hbtq* medan attityderna i sin tur bäst predicerade hbtq-kompetens, även om de privata relationerna förklarade ungefär lika mycket av variansen för dem båda. En tydlig skillnad var att attityder till hbtq* i mycket större utsträckning än hbtq-kompetens predicerades av politisk orientering och värderingar. Psykologers privata relationer till hbtq-personer visade sig ge ett eget, unikt bidrag till prediktionen av båda utfallsvariablerna. Sammantaget visade studien att hbtq-kompetens hos psykologer verkade avhängigt personliga omständigheter snarare än innehållet i psykologutbildningen och konsekvenserna av detta för hbtq-personer som klienter, kollegor och i allmänhet diskuteras.A survey was conducted to investigate psychologists’ lgbtq competence. A total of 407 psychologists were recruited through Facebook. The concept of lgbtq competence was operationalized through two components: attitudes towards lgbtq* (attitudes towards and knowledge about lgbtq people and issues) and lgbtq competence (lgbtq affirmative counseling self-efficacy). The results were in line with previous research and showed that participants with political liberal orientation, interest in gender and discrimination issues, the notion of gender as a non-binary category, identity as a lgbtq person or with many close relationships to lgbtq people, tended to have more positive attitudes about lgbtq* and higher levels of lgbtq competence. Regression analyses showed that the extent of private relationships was the best predictor of attitudes about lgbtq* while those attitudes best predicted lgbtq competence, although private relations explained about the same amount of variance for both components. A difference was that political orientation and values to a larger extent predicted attitudes about lgbtq* than lgbtq competence. Psychologists’ private relations with lgbtq people had a unique contribution to the prediction of both outcome variables. Overall, the study showed that psychologists’ lgbtq competence seemed dependent on personal circumstances, rather than insights from their education. The consequences of this for lgbtq-identified clients, colleagues and general public is discussed