October 28, 2019
Ohio

Wind and solar energy don’t qualify as ‘green’

The Columbus Dispatch | Oct 28, 2019 | www.dispatch.com

The Thursday Dispatch editorial “Utilities’ powerful allies keep Ohio moving backward on energy” confirms again the editorial board’s lack of understanding. The Dispatch lumps renewable, clean, sustainable and green energy into one big misleading screed.

Wind and solar may be renewable but the equipment that captures the resource will be replaced at least four times while the nuclear plant continues generating clean energy. In that regard, nuclear seems far more sustainable than wind and solar and, being emissions-free, is clean energy.

What is green? Green means leaving the smallest environmental footprint possible. Academic studies document that wind and solar require 700 times more land to create the energy equivalent of one fracking site. That’s a lot of habitat fragmented or destroyed.

So hurrah for House Bill 6 and Public Utilities Commission of Ohio Chairman Sam Randazzo for advancing clean and green energy in Ohio.

The breadth of wind and solar facilities demands that the decision to host these facilities in rural residential areas be made at the local level by affected township voters.

Julia F. Johnson, Urbana

URL to article:  https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2019/10/28/wind-and-solar-energy-dont-qualify-as-green/