March 05, 2008 ... Body Count.

At the height of the Vietnam war it was deemed essential as part of the scientific management of the war to create a metric which would reflect how well the war was progressing from the American point-of-view. To that end, it was decided to keep a tally of the body count, a practice which still persists today in Iraq and Afghanistan. However, body count did not reflect the reality on the ground. Just because fewer American 19 year olds were being shipped home in a body bag, it did not follow that the war was being effectively waged. It just made the war less disagreeable to a skeptical electorate. And just because advanced body-armour results in fewer coalition deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan, but shifts reality towards the horribly wounded, does not reflect the extent of the lack of victory there, either.

In other words, it would be ideal if reality followed the metrics chosen by those who would prefer that reality conformed to how they would wish it to be.

In a less combative context, but one which is of vital importance to modern life, it is now time to realistically address the energy crisis that affects the developing and developed regions of the world.

On February 04, 2008, Vestas Wind Systems' Ditlev Engel was interviewed by Stephen Sackur for the BBC's HARDtalk. In the interview the merits of wind power generation via the deployment of wind turbines were presented: The high price of oil beyond $55.0 a barrel, the lack of pollution and the lower cost of implementation in comparison to nuclear energy.

On the face of it, these arguments appear pretty convincing. However:

1. The price of oil has not increased for the last decade when it is properly measured against the value of gold, and not the unsound paper money which is inherently valueless, as the barely controllable banking crisis sweeping the world makes all too evident.

2. When in operation, apart from the visual pollution, modern wind turbines--as opposed to Dutch windmills of a bygone era--do not produce pollution, but their manufacture does require the use of all the polluting industries. That is, the pollution is already built in. Perhaps it could be argued that this is really another form of carbon capture, and legitimately eligible for carbon credits as another way to subsidise the price.

3. In comparison to nuclear power, and judging by the German experience from a current deployment of in excess 20,000.0 wind turbines, structural and mechanical failure of the wind turbines will necessitate the replacement of the majority of wind turbines every 5 years including a repair and/or downtime cycle of 18 months due to delays in the delivery of spare parts due to the demand for new wind turbine installations.

It is true--as per Ditlev Engel--that a failure such as Chernobyl is vastly more catastrophic than the collapse and/or failure of one or more wind turbines. But if developments in nuclear technology had not been so hampered over the last 50 years, the problem of reactor safety and waste disposal would be much more advanced than it currently is. A modern wind turbine is a product of modern engineering, but it still suffers from the same issue that applied to the bygone era of the Dutch windmill. That is: no wind, no power.

It is vital for there to be a continuous stream of power on tap. The world's computer systems do not work on intermittent power. Hospitals--as demonstrated in the most recent outcry over the lack of fuel supplies to Gaza--need a continuous stream of power on tap. And so to do schools and homes and the myriad of other services we all now expect to be available at the flick of a switch.

And if it is really intended that the peoples of the developing world are to rise from the deadly mire of their impoverished circumstances, they too must have such a resource, to combat the fact that their body count is not a contrived metric to satisfy the caprice of political expediency, but is a reality.