The mighty University of South Carolina is as thick as the Gorran Primary School

A few days ago I wrote, with my usual cruelty (God, I hate little kiddie-winkies!), about the Gorran Primary School whose 'grown-ups' are so thick they need to go back to school, er, but not the one they actually run!  I described how they blew £55k building a wind turbine which, in effect, 'crashed and burned'.  Laughable, or weepable if you were one of the mugs who contributed to the £55k, even so they have been outdone in the 'stoopids' department by the mighty University of South Carolina (USC) - well, they always do it bigger and better 'over there' even when it comes to 'stoopidity'.  Anthony Watts points to a report in The State newspaper which only managed to obtain its information under FOI demands.  Their reporter, Wayne Washington, describes it thus:

On June 28, 2009, an explosion rocked the biomass-fueled power plant on the campus of the University of South Carolina.

The force of the blast sent a metal panel some 60 feet toward the control office of the plant at Whaley and Sumter streets, according to documents obtained from USC by The State newspaper through a Freedom of Information Act request.

Well, you might think, that could happen anywhere anytime, you know, 'shit happens' as they say 'over there', or, 'best laid plans of mice and men' as we (rarely) say 'over here', and all that sort of thing.  Wrong!

USC, whose officials touted the plant “as the cat’s meow” before its startup in December 2007, closed it in March of this year after it had been shut down more than three dozen times. [My emphasis]  In one two-year period, the plant only provided steam – its purpose – on 98 out of 534 days , according to a USC review.

The prime mover behind this less-than-great Green idea was the faculty president, the late Andrew Sorenson.  He died this year and a quick read of his obits, once you dig beneath the platitudes, is that he was one of those get-rich-quick progressive operators who slither through the jungle of academia like snakes.  Always on the right, that is to say, Left, side of all the current movements of his day, he was active in the black community, in AIDS research and, as we have seen, in Greenery.  But all the way through his own personal interests were never far behind, as his obit in The State indicates:

Working with the Guignard family, major landowners in Columbia, to jointly plan development of a 500-acre swath of riverfront property in downtown Columbia.

Sorensen made his mark another way. In 2002, when he was hired, his salary from public and private sources was higher than any other USC president in history — $420,000 a year in addition to free university housing in the president’s mansion. By the time he left office, Sorensen made $550,877 a year.

After he retired, Sorensen continued to earn big money. He made a combined $446,000 per year from USC and the Greenville Hospital System as he worked to put together a deal between the university and the hospital system that would expand USC’s medical education program in Greenville.

Meanwhile, the Great Green (Dollar) Eating Machine which cost in the region of $55 million now resembles the set of one of those Hollywood apocalypse movies:

Now sitting idle, with spider webs and a thin film of dust replacing a plant’s hard-hat hustle and bustle, the biomass plant stands as a monument to the university’s failed push toward new, “green” technology, inadequate oversight and naïveté, some of its own officials acknowledge in internal documents.

The plant blemishes the legacy of the late Andrew Sorensen, the beloved, bow-tied president who was in charge of USC when the plant was conceived and constructed. And it also raises questions about whether USC’s revised system of oversight will be able to prevent future instances of idealism gone wrong that marred the biomass project from the beginning.

After pausing to ask ourselves, seriously, whether our government should have powers to shoot on sight any Greens seen within a 10-mile radius of a government department, let us, in the light of the USC's  stupendous $55 million effort, return to the the Gorran Primary School and their pathetic waste of a mere £55 thousand.  In considering their annual school report, I feel that only that classic summary, with which I, personally, am all too well-aquainted, will fit their efforts: Could do better! 

Comments

[dearieme]

".. the beloved, bow-tied president who was in charge of USC when the plant was conceived and constructed..": am I alone in wondering whether a American university president is really likely to be "beloved"? And by whom?

[David Duff]

It's called 'obit-lingo'!

[dearieme]

Ah, pious lies.

[dearieme]

Actually, I can think of one Vice-Chancellor I "served" under who was well regarded and well liked. He worked himself to death, alas.

[David Duff]

I trust you didn't add to his burdens, DM!