A lot of hot wind, but not nearly enough cool!
This month sees B&Q taking wind turbines off the shelf after revelations that not only do they not generate enough power to pay for themselves in our lifetime.
This is because there is not enough wind in our urban and suburban areas to spin the sails at any significant rate, but it appears (based on an Encraft study) that they may, in some instances, actually use more electricity than they produce. Some observations on these oh, so surprising findings.
1. Garden gnomes and weather vanes
I think we all knew that the leafy glades of suburbia were windy enough to power a gnome drawing water from a well with a windmill stuck on the top on his head, but a full blown domestic energy supply… c’mon, now!
Yet this illustrates either how blindly some individuals want to follow the green bandwagon or, more ominously, how far we have been brainwashed by the politicians into believing that any action we take is good enough.
After all, the Energy Saving Trust (more Govt. wage bills) are still offering grants if you are prepared to put a turbine on your roof if, of course, you can get planning permission!
David Cameron, please let us know how it turned since you went a bit quiet on the subject after 2006!
2. Its not just B&Q, though, is it?
Just because it has been pretty convincingly proved that putting a windmill on your roof is not the smartest move in the world and B&Q have pulled out, that hasn’t stopped the rest, leading to the conclusion that some of these ideas (not helped by bad advice from Govt.) are just a means of (a) deflecting attention from issues might damage re-election chances and (b) generating revenue for companies who no longer sell anything of value to society.
If you don’t believe me, Google domestic wind turbines and plough through the 445,000 entries it returns; there are numerous companies who’ll sell you what we now know to be useless and redundant kit.
3. Where does this leave the business sector?
We in the business sector, however, cannot wholly use these findings to bow out, though, can we? If you own a 70 storey office block, you can generate some serious wind-generated output, 24/7.
Got an R&D campus out in the wilds? Then you have a potential wind farm. And if you don’t, then take a leaf out of Gordon Brown’s book. His response to taking green action was to slap solar panels all over his Fife home!
A knee-jerk reaction it may be for a sole individual in Scotland, but a possible commercial solution for a company with the square footage to make it pay.
Whatever your take or opinion on the above, you have to start thinking about this subject; there may very likely be no easy answers but the reality is that within 5-8 years we will be enjoying (!) a much reduced service from our data providers as the US is forced to cut power to these facilities to allow the rest of the economy to fry their America fries and griddle their tea-time burgers.
Maybe if you generate a significant enough proportion of your own energy requirement, you can pass on the grid ‘surplus’ to your data provider. I’m sure it’s not that simple, but doing nothing is not an option!
