I have been saving this one for you - no, no, not out of consideration for you but for me! Written by a Lord, no less, it has lain undisturbed in my 'Blog Feeder' file because I took one look at all the sums (or mathematics, if you want to be posh) and decided to work it up as a post - tomorrow. And we all know about the constant non-appearance of 'tomorrow'! Anyway, with my usual selfless dedication - no cheques, please, just cash in the usual plain envelope - I have summoned up my energy and decided to concentrate on the literary part of his Lordship's original paper to give you the flavour of the thing, and let you swots go and check his mathematics for yourself.
The particular Lord I have in mind is the Viscount Monckton of Brenchley who has written an excellent essay for the equally excellent blog, Watts Up With That. In it, his Lordship describes a 'cutesy-wootesy' little scheme in some dump called Oldbury - north of the M25 so barely worth consideration but even so - in which all the little kiddie-winkies at some primary school were presented with their very own wind-turbine and told that they were thereby saving the planet. This little 'toy' cost - wait for it and brace yourselves - £5,875 ($9694)! But, hey, we're saving the planet, kids, so what the hell!
Alas, his Lordship, a real party-pooper if ever there was one, has committed the unforgiveable sin in HAF (Hot Air Fanatic) circles by actually doing the sums:
In the first full year of the Oldbury White Elephant’s 20-year life it generated a gratifying 209 kilowatt-hours of electricity – enough to power a single 100-Watt reading-lamp for less than three months. The rest of the year you’ll have to find something else to do in bed.
Gross revenue for the year, at 11p (18 cents) a kilowatt-hour, was, um, almost £23 ($40). Assuming that there are no costs of finance, insurance or maintenance, and after subtracting 20 years’ revenue at last year’s rate, the net unamortized capital cost is £5,415.20 ($8,900).
Not content with knocking the top of the kiddies' ice creams and popping their balloons, Lord 'Gradgrind' gets down and dirty:
How much “global warming” will Jumbo the Albino forestall? While it is in operation, it will generate 209,000/365/24 or almost 24 Watt-hours per hour on average: just about enough to drive an electric toothbrush.
Mean UK electricity consumption, according to the Ministry of Transparency, is 43.2 GW. Electricity contributes one-third of UK carbon emissions, and the UK contributes 1.5% of world emissions. So the proportion p of global carbon dioxide emissions that the Worthless Windmill will forestall is 24 / 43,200,000,000 / 3 x 0.015, or 2.76 x 10–12, or, as Admiral Hill-Norton used to call it, “two-thirds of three-fifths of b*gger all”. Skip the next few paragraphs if mathematics makes your head hurt.
My head is hurting so I will skip quickly to the end where his Lordship sums up the whole wind-turbine/global warming scam in his usual elegant style:
So there you have it. After the biggest and most expensive propaganda campaign in human history, leading to the biggest tax increase in human history, trying to stop “global warming” that isn’t happening anyway and won’t happen at anything like the predicted rate is the least cost-effective use of taxpayers’ money in human history, bar none – and that’s saying something.
The thing about gesture politics is that the politicians (that’s us) get to make the gestures and the proles (that’ll be you) get to get the bill.
Read the whole thing - and weep!
Then watch the 'lesbian-straightener' on the news today as he unveils his Big Idea for stopping global warming - and try really hard not to top yourself!
I love Lord Monckton. He makes more sense to me than all of the green doomsayers put together.
I don't care what his qualifications are or anything else. I understand and believe what he is saying and I'm sticking with that.
I thought these wind turbines were maybe the way to go a few years ago and then I found out how big they are and how noisy they are and how much they destroy everything around them and so I have had to give that thought up.
Maybe we should go back to using more hydro-electricity plants. They were popular in the 50's and 60's and still seem to be holding up well, at least in Australia.
I think, from what I have read, most of the new-age ideas are proving to just be stupid (like the Prius) and cost more in fuel than they could possibly save.
I am frugal with my water and power and that's why I can save up to buy the odd Krugerrand from time to time.
And you keep your paws off my gold bits you nasty old man!
Posted by: Sassyandra | Wednesday, 18 May 2011 at 02:58
I never touched your gold bits, honestly, I didn't, but I might have leered at them a little.
Posted by: David Duff | Friday, 03 June 2011 at 10:45