Our local newspaper, ‘Northumberland Today’, 8 July 2010, published a letter headed ‘Benefits of wind energy beyond clean’ whatever ‘beyond clean’ means. written by Robert Horning, president of the Canadian Wind Energy Association. The letter extols the benefits of wind power.
As a retired power engineer (hydro, fossil fuel and nuclear power generation), a long-term member of the Canadian National Technical Committee (on nuclear power QA), and contract manager of the (1952) 50Kw Orkney Island windmill (a feathered tri-blade unit), I am deeply concerned with the excess of bafflegab in President Horning’s letter. This communication lacks any detail by which readers can evaluate wind energy.
What is the unit of energy (Kwh) cost, amortized? How does this compare with hydro, nuclear, fossil fuel and solar energy costs? What is the average equipment and mean operating time? What are the maximum and minimum wind velocities for wind turbine operation? These and numerous other technical details are essential for readers to make sense of wind energy.
Statements such as ‘One of the many strengths of wind energy is its diversity notwithstanding its tremendous positive environmental attributes’ have no meaning. This is plain gobbledygook and publication of letters such as this in ‘Northumberland Today’ and other community newspapers is a disgrace, not to mention an insult, to the intelligence of readers.
Tags: Cobourg life
Art: This is a classic:
‘One of the many strengths of wind energy is its diversity notwithstanding its tremendous positive environmental attributes’ .
George Orwell would have been proud to include it as an exemplar of Newspeak. More recent observers of the language of politics would readily identify it as the kind of verbal porridge which passes for meaningful communication in today’s climate of obfuscation. In Australia, we call this bullshit. It doesn’t necessarily mean we’re any better at detecting it early enough to make a difference. Although the party machine just got rid of a Prime Minister who was a supreme exponent of it, we, like other polities, have shown ourselves more than ready to believe in it. And it comes back to writers taking on the ‘Quis custodiet’ role if we are to have any integrity whatsoever to a culture which is rushing towards illiteracy.