Environmental symbolism too noisy.

The owner of a £20,000 bird mincing white elephant wind turbine has been told to take it down because his neighbours are complaining. Actually I do have a certain amount of sympathy with the guy because the noise levels are apparently within the limits specified when he got planning permission for the thing in the first place, but only a certain amount. After all it does seem that he's been rather unneighbourly, even if unintentionally. But what really got me is the cost of the fucking thing. £20,000! Twenty grand. Fuck, for that much money I'd expect to be powering half the fucking neighbourhood and kicking back while the whole block shoveled $100 notes through the front door, or at least to be able to sell a shitload of power to the electricity company. But (my bold):

It generates five kilowatts of electricity a day - the equivalent of boiling 300 kettles - and provides two thirds of his energy needs.

So if I read that right and making the highly unrealistic assumption that it'll never need any kind of maintenance and that the owner's electricity bill is £3,000 a year it'll take a decade to pay for itself. Frankly that's being pretty optimistic. Looking at my electricity bill and calling the price of the monstrosity* $40,000 for the sake of simplicity I'd call the pay off a back-of-an-envelope calculated 30-40 years. Still assuming that I'd not need to spend a cent on keeping the fucker going during that time of course. Now when your "energy saving" product might not pay for itself before you die, let alone before you finish paying your fucking mortgage off, doesn't that kind of limit the market? You'd think, but it's green and when it comes to greenism (for which the wind turbine is as symbolically important as the crucifix is for the Catholic church if you ask me) making much economic sense seems optional.