Great news! Tri-Met will save about $3,680 a year!
That comes to a whopping $92,000 over the projected 25-year lifespan of the solar panels. That means that taxpayers pick up the remaining $278,600.
And no, that doesn't count maintenance. That's extra.
But look at them! So shiny, so "green", so "sustainable"! And you've got to admit - the little train's darned cute, too. Oh, but you can't burn coal to generate power forever. Very true: we only have enough coal in the continental USA to last 350 years. So we'd better quit burning it now. Natural gas and oil may only be around for another 500 years, so we need to quit burning it now.
Not counting hydro (which isn't a renewable resource) and not counting biomass like wood (which also isn't renewable), we only have around 850 to 900 years worth of things to burn in order to produce energy. So, really, it only makes sense to stop now.
Nope, it's time to get clean, green, and sustainable. So we need to buy gallium arsenide from China, with money we borrowed from China, so that we can build solar panels with a 25-year life-span that will take 67 years to break even on costs. It all makes perfect sense, if you happen to work in American government.