July 9, 2015
Indiana, Letters

Letter to the editor: Expense of renewables astronomical

The News-Sentinel | July 9, 2015 | www.news-sentinel.com

Thanks again to John Paul for his letters explaining in simple terms the distressing facts concerning Huntington County’s proposed wind turbines.

We would do well to heed the advice of well-known billionaire Microsoft developer Bill Gates. Interviewed by the Financial Times on June 1, Gates said the expense of using current renewables such as solar panels and windfarms to produce all or most power would be “beyond astronomical.” He remarked that, at present, very little power actually comes from renewables; in the United Kingdom only 5.2 percent.

The majority of this power, says Gates, comes from “dubiously-green” biofuel burning. Meantime, energy costs have surged and will surge further.

His solution? For government to divert the huge amounts of money being funneled to renewables companies (like Apex!) to research and development instead. He even scoffed at suggestions to use mega-batteries to store the energy from solar or wind farms.

“There’s no battery technology that’s even close to allowing us to take all of our energy from renewables,” said Gates. The technology has “to deal not only with the 24-hour cycle (of each day), but also with long periods of time where it’s cloudy and you don’t have sun or you don’t have wind.”

How serious is entrepreneur Gates about continued research in order to bypass the failure of solar and windfarms? About a billion dollars, he says, with probably another billion in another five years.

It is extremely frustrating to think that Huntington County policy is prey to an outside mega-company such as Apex. The gentlemen representing Apex know no loyalties other than to their own profit-motive.

Meantime, according to James Taylor of Forbes Inc.: “Electricity prices are soaring in top wind power states.”

Mary Oberle Hubley

Huntington

URL to article:  https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2015/07/09/letter-to-the-editor-expense-of-renewables-astronomical/