LETTER: Tired rhetoric on green energy
Your Saturday editorial on the renewable energy situation in Germany (“Germany turns to coal power to keep the lights on”) states, “Sometimes the wind doesn’t blow. Every day there are times when the sun doesn’t shine.” It is so disappointing to encounter this tired rhetoric from a publication such as the Review-Journal.
The editorial brings up the old intermittency argument to instill fear about renewables. Around the country, smart engineers have been grappling with the question and finding solutions. There are already promising grid-scale battery solutions (including lithium-based, a sector in which Nevada could be a leader). Advances in grid technology can deliver power over long distances to where it’s most needed. And a diversity of energy sources — including hydrothermal, geothermal, biomass and other nonfossil fuels — will further address the intermittency challenge.
Instead of looking to Germany, where they admittedly abandoned nuclear power prematurely, Nevadans should look west to California, where 100 percent of that huge state’s energy was recently supplied by renewable sources for a stretch of more than nine hours. Let’s drop the defeatist scaremongering and get on board with the energy transition that is sweeping the globe.
