Yogi Bear goes solar. Consider it a boo-boo.
August 21, 2011 · 3 comments
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.
yogi-bear
Smarter than your average environmentally-conscious National Park Service bureaucrat
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.
