A wind turbine was installed at Southwell Community Primary School, Portland, about 18 months ago thanks to a grant from the Department of Energy and Climate Change and, as John Shades imagines, it probably went a bit like this:
(1) We believed you when you said CO2 was a threat,
and that windmills were part of the answer.
(2) We believed you when you said children in primary schools
should be told of climate threats.
(3) We believed you when you said our wind turbine
would kill only one bird a year.
But then renewable reality reared its ugly head.
14 dead birds in six months.
Headteacher coming in early to clean them up before the children arrived.
Children being upset by birds killed during the school day.
So ...... the wind turbine is shut down.
"We've tried so hard to be eco-friendly but now we can't turn it on."
"We can't get rid of it either because when we bought the turbine we had to apply for grants and the grant from the Department of Energy and Climate Change states that it has to stay on site for five years."
Now perhaps the teachers, having realised that (3) was in fact a total lie, will review what they have done on (2), and that will hopefully lead them back to (1) and the dawn of a shocking realisation: Humanity's CO2 has a negligible effect on climate, but it does benefit plants, and thus in due course, insects, birds, bees, herbivores, and people.
To try and put things into perspective MicroDave was despatched to Portalnd in the GottyCopter to see if he could get a picture of the big green killing machine ...... and here is what he came back with:
This is the tiny turbine that has so far killed 14 birds, mentally disturbed a school full of children and also wasted £20,000 of taxpayers money. Oh, and let's not forget, they can't get rid of the fucking thing either!
Incidentally, if you're looking for that nice bit of irony, which so often accompanies a story like this, then believe me when I say that you're not going to be disappointed this time either. Another 'tip of the turbine' goes to MicroDave for discovering who awaits you when click on to the front page of the School's own website.
You couldn't fucking make it up!
21 comments:
Love the "couldn't make it up" twist at the end........ un-fucking-believable!
The last thing on God's earth you want is to be 'splatted' by a gull. What a very apprpriate name for the bloody thing.
There are hundreds of these things (all of which are much bigger than the one pictured) around the Port area of Rotterdam, Netherlands ..
They "accounted" for so many Gulls, Cormorants etc that a bloke wearing a boiler suit, face-mask & industrial rubber gloves .. used to be employed to drive a small, white van round the area, collecting the corpses in black plastic bags ..
The link - priceless!
There's a school near me getting a wind turbine, got the PR from it.
I imagine without the grants and green mania, if they had to properly cost it and properly evaluate the impact and benefits, it wouldn't happen.
It's a look-at-me-I'm-so-green fad, at best misguided at worst the abuse by fantasists.
Yet another classic example of life imitating art ;)
<span>" .... a very appropriate name for the bloody thing"</span>
In more ways than one, eh Cato ;)
Perhaps the fuckwit committee in charge of eco fuckwits should be mad to issue 'bird death' totals on a regular basis. That might make a few of the tree hugging twats think twice before poncing around the planet with that high and fucking mighty, holier than fucking thou, air about them.
"<span>It's a look-at-me-I'm-so-green fad"</span>
Quite. Meanwhile the tax payer is being fleeced for millions .... for fucking what. To make Jesus boot wearing, tofu eaters feel good? Fuck off!
Oi, Cleggeron, there's a big saving to be had here! Get the fuck on with it.
Sadly, its not only Gulls & Cormorants (both of which generally get a bad press, for various reasons) who fall victim to these bloody useless abominations ...
Endangered species such as the Red Kite are also suffering ..
http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/news/Rare-red-kite-found-dead.6383830.jp
http://www.gigrin.co.uk/w/wind_turbine_kills_kite.html
It doesn't require the brains of Einstein to see that Wind Farms are never going to provide sufficient energy to be viable .. they're just another "Eco" fad .. and one which is causing unnecessary damage and suffering ..
And No, I'm not a tree-hugger .... >:o
Wind power is such bollocks. It doesn’t work if it is windy (obviously), you can’t store the electric when it is, and the bloody things are ugly. Apparently if we don’t get a whole generation of major power stations online by about 2016, it’s lights out and bring your own candles to the operating theatre time.
Which will be good, because then all the eco-beardies will be strung up from the nearest tree and we can get on with building some proper nuclear powered ones with nice leaks so we can glow in the dark like we used to, and great big coal fired fuckers belching smoke, which will sort out the global warming anyway. <span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span>
G the M
Wind power is such bollocks. It doesn’t work if it is windy (obviously), you can’t store the electric when it is, and the bloody things are ugly. Apparently if we don’t get a whole generation of major power stations online by about 2016, it’s lights out and bring your own candles to the operating theatre time.
Which will be good, because then all the eco-beardies will be strung up from the nearest tree and we can get on with building some proper nuclear powered ones with nice leaks so we can glow in the dark like we used to, and great big coal fired fuckers belching smoke, which will sort out the global warming anyway. <span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span>
G the M
"<span>because then all the eco-beardies will be strung up from the nearest tree" </span>
I've got a better idea - strap them to the blade tips of their wonderful turbines! Then they can enjoy the view at 165mph, or what ever speed they whizz round at... And they could try and catch the birds as they fly into the bloody things.
On a related matter - even if you ARE a fan of wind turbines (and I'm not) they are never efficient when surrounded by buildings and trees. This disturbs the airflow, reducing the output, and in extreme cases damaging them due to vibration. So putting them out to sea has an advantage, but even then, when a row are facing directly into the wind only the front machine works efficiently. The others are, once again, sitting in disturbed air, as the following picture shows:
http://ict-aeolus.eu/images/horns_rev.jpg
It also becomes more difficult to count the mangled seabirds...
That reminds me microdave - I do need a new blender!
Gildas the Monk
PS I didnt really intend to incite the mass lynching of those wearing sandals and afflicted by beards. My Abbot Stig Bloodaxe has pointed out that that could be construed as a reference to Our Lord, although as far as I know, he had no firm views on wind turbines.
Mea culpa.
And on a positive note, the school-dinners budget was reduced by 10% due to the windfall (no pun intended) free-meat harvested from the locality.
They could have included seagull meat in their "Carbon Neutral" menu, like this School:
http://www.newportlearn.net/caerleon/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=153
You can't get much more "Locally Sourced" than the school playing field...
By the way, do they catch Tuna of the Welsh coast?
Oh dear, it kills some birds. It's a wonder that they have banned cars already with the amount of road kills they create. What a pity the kids see some dead birds. I bet they've seen worse in road kills or even what their cat brings in or just finding out in a field somewhere. Stop thinking kids are innocents - they're fucking not. At age 3 when they realise they can lie and age 6 when they become independent and age 10 when they become teenagers they are always a nightmare.
Ok. So wind power in built up areas is a totally stupid idea. And the size of the turbine at the school is puny. So the amount they paid, sorry wasted of our money, for their (or is it ours now?) windmill is totally over the top compared to the actual cost. I think the installers made a bit of a bundle there.
However wind power is not supposed to be a replacement for all the other forms of generation. The eco greenies go too far when they say it's the bees knees. It's supposed to help alleviate the demand on the others when the wind is in the right direction (and speed). Wind power and other eco power generation can only be a solution when society works out a way to cut back on it's energy usage and wastage. The only time wind power works is in isolated farms on hill tops who control their energy usage to use as much wind power as possible and save it in some form (battery or compressed air or heat) when they can't.
In fact I like the look of them. I can see some from my work and I always have a look out the window to watch them.
SBML - your name just about sums your post up! You obviously didnt read about how wonderful these turbines were during the freezing spell (caused by global warming no doubt) we had earlier this year. They produced so little electricity that it was negligible.
As for looking good; well I believe that you should have gone to Specsavers.
Err I did read. Did you not read my comment. I did say that windmills are not very good except in some very specific circumstances which includes the energy users being able to react to the wind power and also to have other forms of energy as well as wind is not continuous. No where did I say that I was a mad proponent for wind power. The only thing I have for them is that I like looking at them slowing spinning - very relaxing.
I'm with SBML. I thought I was the only person I know who didn't mind the look of the things much. Yeah, not super attractive and I wouldn't go out of my way to see one, but a lot less ugly than an electricity pylon for example. The trouble is they're also a lot less useful than an electricity pylon unless you have a need for (a) electricity somewhere windy and a long way from the grid, or (b) intermittent showers of bird mince dropping from the sky.
It's Portland. The little fuckers would eat the dead birds. Raw. And then marry their sisters.
Duck (Scary) (Weymouth)
hows about a 'bird body count ' website?
(i think righteous elitoids like those things, don't they?)
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