Posted on 01/17/2009 5:28:42 PM PST by Coleus
With great fanfare, the City of Portland, Oregon, inaugurated its first solar-powered "loo" in Old Town, on December 8. "At the unveiling, mayor-elect Sam Adams gave the fancy new toilet its first ceremonial flush and Commissioner Randy Leonard was awarded with an honorary golden plunger," reported Portland's KGW-TV.
Leonard, who helped design the solar-powered outhouse, said the $140,000 price tag was nothing to worry about because "we're patenting the design and we intend to actually market them." The city could actually make a profit down the road, he said. Mother Nature was less than cooperative, however, dumping record-breaking snowfalls on the Portland area in the three weeks following the green loo's send-off.
According to news accounts, "Snow covered the restroom's roof-mounted solar panels, cutting off the flow of power to the storage batteries, which were completely drained and damaged." And without power, "The heat tape around the water lines stopped working, prompting the bureau to lock it up." No reports yet on how much the repair costs will be, or when the loo will be open for business again.
More Green Woes for Portland
Seems the supposedly eco-friendly plans of Oregon's greenies are backfiring all over the place. From solar-powered parking meters to energy-conserving building-code mandates, good intentions have gone awry. Peter Korn of the outlookonline.com reports: "Of all the reasons for hating Portland's supposedly green parking ticket dispensers, consider this one: Each year, they produce more than 9 million pieces of little sticky-backed paper that clutter the floors of cars before they finally are disposed of in the trash."
"You probably never have tried to recycle a Portland parking meter receipt," Korn continues, "which is a good thing, because they're not recyclable. Once upon a time we put our quarters into parking machines and the waste was, well, nothing. Now we have solar-powered ticket dispensers that create an incredible amount of garbage."
The ticket dispensers use about 6,500 rolls of thermal sensitive paper annually. "Being sustainable can be messy," notes Korn. "And don't forget about all the glass cleaner Portland residents use trying to remove from their windows the bits of sticky paper that didn't cleanly come off at first yank." Far more serious, though, is Oregon's state building code that is turning many buildings green with mold. The newer airtight homes and commercial buildings don't breathe, causing a major problem with mold and mildew, reports Korn.
.
Laughs.
Looking forward to being required to own one. :)
IT'S NOT NICE TO FOOL MOTHER NATURE!
Talk about freezing your a$$ off...
These people are WAY to naive to be left in charge of ANYTHING.
like the buses in Minnesota where the biofuel jellified in the cold and they shut down all the schools
“Looking forward to being required to own one.”
Looking forward to forwarding this to 0’s ‘volunteers’ (It’s green, clean it... volunteers needed)
What was Chitton?
“looking forward to being required to own one”
Now I have to add to my list!
STILL bitterly clinging to: my God, my Bible, The Constitution, my guns, my ammo, my incandescent lightbulbs, AND MY HIGH FLUSH awesome 30 YEAR OLD JOHN!
"Green, green,
It's green they say
On the far side of the hill...."
Commissioner Randy...Leonard, who helped design the solar-powered outhouse, said the $140,000 price tag was nothing to worry about because "we're patenting the design and we intend to actually market them." The city could actually make a profit down the road, he said.No conflict of interest evident here!
Seems the supposedly eco-friendly plans of Oregon's greenies are backfiring all over the place. From solar-powered parking meters to energy-conserving building-code mandates, good intentions have gone awry. Peter Korn of the outlookonline.com reports: "Of all the reasons for hating Portland's supposedly green parking ticket dispensers, consider this one: Each year, they produce more than 9 million pieces of little sticky-backed paper ... "they're not recyclable. Once upon a time we put our quarters into parking machines and the waste was, well, nothing. Now we have solar-powered ticket dispensers that create an incredible amount of garbage."But more is to come:
...Far more serious, though, is Oregon's state building code that is turning many buildings green with mold. The newer airtight homes and commercial buildings don't breathe, causing a major problem with mold and mildew...Live and learn. I'm all for more energy-efficient buildings (where the investment is paid off down the line), but in humid climates (like Honolulu, Portland, Seattle) you have to be careful.
Unintended consequences. The libtards never consider the full ramifications of anything they do, always getting lost in a pink fuzz of do gooderness that makes them feel warm all over. When they finally see the wreckage they have wrought they deny and blame everything but themselves for the fiascoes.
Even in its worst days, the Pentagon never managed to order a $150,000 toilet. The best they could manage was a $900 toilet seat.
Okay, that's my field.
It's not the airtightness, it's design that hasn't been thought through.
Airtightness is a good thing, you just have to design in how you are going to control humidity and moisture, rather than letting it be handled automatically by the leaky nature of older buildings. Build tight - ventilate right.
A building is a system. When you change one element, how it affects other elements must be thought through, or you WILL get unexpected consequences like mold growth.
Anyone who belongs to the “Church of Global Warming” should be required to use these types of toilets. It will show their dedication. :)
It’s “Chiffon”, a brand of margarine.
All of which demonstrates that the free market allocates resources more efficiently than centralized bureaucracy. Had these changes been made by individuals they would have suffered consequences which would have been noticed by potential purchasers. Instead these changes are mandated by decree and all are victims.
By the way why is a city investing in product development? The job of city governments is to pay the police and fire departments, and pick up the garbage. Everything else is a waste of taxpayer money.
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