Due to another government boondoggle Ranger Rick is going to have to tell Yogi his pic-a-nic basket will be empty for decades to come. And we owe it all to the geniuses who run Yosemite National Park.
The problem? Solar energy, something many people and the government think is free or is going to quickly pay for itself.
Yosemite just spent $4.5 million on a solar installation to save them $50,000 per year. They also claim $700,000 in rebates. $4.5 million minus $700,000 leaves $3.8 million net cost, which divided by $50,000 per year means 76 years to break even, or about a lifetime.
That’s bad enough, but since solar panels only last about 25 years it means they’ll have to replace them about 2 more times over that 76 years, costing another $9+ million. Add that to the original $3.8 million and that’s $12.8 million total costs, which divided over 76 years equals $168,421 per year to save $50,000 per year. That’s a net loss of $118,421 x 76 years, a total loss of about $9 million of your tax dollars so a few people can be touchy-feely. (And we won’t even bother getting into the the accounting farce of one government agency counting a rebate from another government agency.)
With savings like that we can all now see why the United States is broke. As one can plainly see whomever approved this is not smarter than the average bear.
– Written by CO2Insanity
Source: Mother Nature Network
This post was last modified on August 20, 2011
View Comments (15)
Editor, you forgot to use libtard math to figure this out!
$4.5 million - 700,000 - 50,000 = 35 billion in profit!
My mistake. Please accept my apologies.
LOL
I did the math using carbon credits instead of dollars. We saved eleventy trillion offsets. Sounds like a lot at first. But, sadly enough the PotusAA+ blows through a quarter eleventy trillion credits every time he takes the posse golfing.
Yogi is smarter than the average bear. That was YOUR lunch he just stole.
Hey Mr Ranger Sir, the good news is that it will only take 90 years to have the energy savings payback to break even with the initial investment.
Well this kind of a thing happens when you let a cartoon bear balance a park budget.
Even though this is slightly off topic , but when I first read this , I remembered the wheel chair ramp at the Galehead Hut in the Huts in the Clouds in New Hampshire , that had to be installed due to the American's with Disabilities act . They wanted to upgrade the huts so the state required them to upgade , including a wheel chair ramp . It added only $ 30,000 in extra cost . Its only a 5 miles rough and rocky trail to the top. Yes , a group in wheelchairs actually made it to the top .
Life shoudn't be this hard . Neither should be wise thinking.
The ADA forced a friend of mine to add a wheelchair ramp to the entrance of his business, which effectively eliminated two parking spaces. What kind of business does he run, you ask? He is a custom saddle maker, catering exclusively to professional rodeo riders.
Un. Fffng. Believable.
The only time solar has much of a chance of saving money is in extremely remote areas, where there are no power lines, and the cost of running the lines would be prohibitive.
Progressive math + environmental common sense = taxpayers screwed again.
Is Al Gore still full of shit when in the woods?
It created jobs.