Dear Editor,
Lawrence Emerson, in his reply to my solar letter stated that my conclusion “ignores progress and the fruits of progress and innovation.” My conclusion was that wind and solar will not contribute significantly to renewable energy production for many years.
Wind and solar have made progress over the past 10 years, doubling and tripling in some years. In 2019, solar ended up providing a meager 1 percent of U.S. energy consumption. Billions of highly subsidized solar power and only a one measly percent.
Wind did a little better, with 2.7 percent of US energy in 2019. Thirty years of massively subsidized wind and solar development and we are at four-plus percent of our energy. Now they want us to get to 50 percent in the next nine years. This will not happen, which was the point of my solar letter.
Carbon abatement has dominated the climate sector for the past 30 years and not one of those goals has been met.
Emerson writes of his own solar installation, which he is satisfied with, but it is probably highly subsidized for him and his installers tax advantage. I am highly in favor of research in both wind and solar, but not in the construction of these extremely inefficient solar projects.
Don Feliciano also replied to my letter, and his rambling, nasty reply was way out of bounds. My reference to the International Energy Agency’s report said nothing about how many minerals there were, but how long it would take to provide enough of them to meet the 2030 goal.
Paul Conklin Quigg ~ Luray, Va.
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Paul Quigg, what will replace the power stations that use fossil fuels (natural gas, oil) that the Virginia Clean Economy Act will put out of business by 2045?
We await your answer.