‘A black eye for green energy’

A109 Light Utility Helicopter flight with mayor Gisborne City from the air in November 2023.

The folly of hitching oneself to the prevailing popular narrative wagon is that your position quickly becomes unstuck.

So entrenched and righteous in your stance, you fail to appreciate the consequences of often short-sighted views and actions.

And so it was last week when CBS published a story on the plight of sustainable energy waste.

Not only are sustainable energy systems, eg wind and solar, hypocritically produced using fossil fuel, wind turbines alone require thousands of litres of oil each year to keep turning.

These energy options have a short useful life, perhaps 20-30 years being generous. CBS reported that over 90 percent of solar panels currently end up in landfill. They estimate wind turbines will create 47 million tonnes of waste annually by 2050 — in the US alone.

Wind turbines are being produced taller, and blades longer, resulting in greater and more costly disposal problems.

Some decommissioned solar panels are being shipped to developing countries, but this just shifts the eventual disposal problem to poorer nations.

As CBS reported, the waste challenge is “a black eye for green energy”. I would also add it is a black eye for the sanctimonious.

Iain Boyle