By Mencken’s Ghost
Feb. 1, 2012
In one of the rare times that I
have risked brain damage by watching television news, I
recently watched a chirpy segment on the local Fox affiliate
about a high school in Buckeye, Ariz. that has installed
acres of solar panels to generate its own electrical power.
The bad news is that I have
incurred slight brain damage from watching the segment. The good news is that
I can now get one of those ubiquitous handicap mirror
hangers that allow people without serious disabilities to
park in those ubiquitous handicap parking places, which even
can be found at trailheads and outside of health clubs. The nation might not
be producing the brightest people in the world, but it
certainly leads the world in producing the most sensitive,
caring and gullible ones.
Anyway, the chirpy segment
featured a chirpy school administrator chirping about the
school saving a couple hundred thousand dollars in utility
bills a year and being a model of environmental
responsibility for the students.
My damaged brain immediately
began having demented thoughts. It wondered, for example, why public
institutions are installing solar power to a greater degree
than private businesses are. After all, if businesses are as greedy, money-hungry
and despicable as they are portrayed in the media and by the
White House, it would seem that in the interest of cutting
costs and improving the bottom line, they would be racing to
install solar power, if it were indeed more cost-effective
than fossil power.
Incidentally, have you noticed
that media businesses are not portrayed as greedy,
money-hungry and despicable by the media?
Although damaged, my brain was
still able to remember that natural gas prices are falling
due to a glut of this fossil fuel, which is used more and
more to generate electricity. My brain waited anxiously for the chirpy reporter to
ask the chirpy school administrator about this, or at least
about a cost comparison between solar power and fossil
power, or at least about the life expectancy of solar
panels, or at least about how much it costs to keep them
clean in the desert, where blowing dust is common and where
mud can fall out of the sky during rain storms. It is still waiting.
The segment did mention that the
panels cost $19 million. But
this was mentioned so quickly among all the chirping that my
dazed brain almost missed it.
Upon hearing this, my brain
exclaimed “Ah-ha!” and directed me to my computer to do a
Google search on the life expectancy of solar panels. If the life expectancy
were known, a rough estimate of the annual cost of the
school’s panels could be determined by dividing the $19
million by the number of years of life expectancy. This number could then
be compared against the annual cost of fossil power to
determine if solar power is actually cost-effective.
Something strange happened in the
Google search, however. The
search listed pages of sources that were either companies in
the solar industry, or shills for the industry, or media or
academic sources that have a pro-solar bias. In other words, the
supposed brightest minds in the world that reside at the
supposed brightest company in the world, Google, have
produced a search engine that is as trustworthy and credible
as television news.
In any event, the consensus of
these sources was that the panels have a life expectancy of
20 to 30 years. Therefore,
the annual cost of solar power for the high school is
somewhere between $633,000 and $950,000, calculated as
follows:
$19 million divided by 30 years =
$633,000
$19 million divided by 20 years =
$950,000
These costs exceed the annual
utility savings reported by the chirpy newscast.
Of course, a reliable
cost-benefit analysis would be more complicated than this. For one thing,
maintenance costs have to be added to the cost of the solar
panels. For
another, the cost of fossil power is not going to remain
fixed over the next 20 to 30 years, but the cost of the
school’s installed solar panels will remain fixed over their
life expectancy, except for the cost of maintaining them. The time value of
money also comes into play.
It then dawned on my enfeebled
brain that it would be a great learning opportunity if
students at the chirpy green high school were given an
assignment to calculate the true costs and benefits of solar
(and wind) power, including how much land across the country
would have to be converted from farming to power generation
for fossil power to be replaced. They would learn economics, finance, math,
science, geography, and a healthy skepticism about not only
Internet searches but also about what they are told by the
government, by public schools, and by the media.
That my brain would think such a
crazy thought is proof that I am not right in the head. Well, at least I’ll be
able to park near the door at the mall.
_______________
Mencken’s Ghost is the nom de
plume of an Arizona
writer who can be reached at ghost@menckensghost.com.
