MyCentralJersey

With regard to your July 21 editorial, “Wind preferable to nuclear, coal” the idea that wind is preferable to nuclear and coal energy sources is absurd. I suppose it would be preferable if you desire highly inefficient, expensive and unreliable sources of energy. In that case wind (and solar power) is right up your alley.

The idea of wind power as a main staple of energy will result in high energy costs, high unemployment and a stagnant economy. I invite anyone who thinks wind power is the answer to our energy needs to travel to the desert southwest of the U.S. and observe miles upon miles of formerly pristine desert land blighted with the site of monstrous windmill contraptions as far as the eye can see — standing near motionless in the non-existent wind. Collectively, I don’t think all those hundreds of windmills I saw that day could have powered my wristwatch.

The plain fact of the matter is that the most efficient, effective and dependable means of generating energy needed for a growing economy is harvesting the incredible amount of energy contained within chemical bonds. Check any chemistry textbook for details. That means leaning on fossil fuels (coal, oil, natural gas) and, if need be, nuclear energy as the main staples of our energy diet. Luckily, God has blessed America with hundreds of years worth of fossil fuel reserves and now we have the technology to extract these fuels to a far greater extent, and with greater deference to the environment than we have ever been able to.

It is a disservice to the public to promote a false narrative about the promises of renewable energy being a feasible energy alternative. Trying to satisfy our energy needs on renewable energy sources would be like trying to survive on a diet of multivitamin tablets. It would leave us weak and frail. If we want a growing economy, and all the opportunity that provides, we need a robust “meat and potatoes” energy diet of fossil fuel sources to grow our industries and economy in strength and mass.

The far left has promoted renewable energy for many years as it fits into their ideology of addressing income inequality through limiting economic opportunity for as many as possible. If the promise of renewable energy was real it would have already supplanted fossil fuels.

But it hasn’t. Therefore, I find the movement towards renewable energy entirely disingenuous. Those who champion it choose to consign all of us to less economic opportunity and a lower quality of life.

William Maxwell

MARTINSVILLE