Editor:
In your May 28, 2009 article, “Sun is shining on those interested in solar energy,” it is claimed that Pennsylvania consumers could reduce “purchase and installation costs of solar energy technology” by 45 percent.
How? By taking advantage of federal tax credits and Pennsylvania’s Sunshine and Solar Program rebates.
The case of one couple is cited as an example. They’ve been anxiously waiting for the state’s solar rebate program to take effect to help them pay for the installation of a solar system that the article points out will cost $30,000 and, assuming their case is typical, save them half of their yearly electrical energy costs, or $620 per year — a 48-year payback.
The state rebate, together with the federal tax credit, will reduce the cost by $13,500 (45 percent).
Or, to look at it another way, by $13,500 taken out of the pockets of their neighbors, some of whom perhaps have recently been forced to take a cut in pay, have lost their jobs, or are having their homes or farms foreclosed.
But be that as it may, it still leaves $16,500 for the couple to finance on their own — a 26-year payback.
Solar energy: the wave of the future!
The writer of the article is to be commended for stating the cost of this lobbyist-generated environmental fraud. That’s usually not the case, especially when it comes to wind energy.
There the cost is never stated, only the computer-generated results, which are usually stated something like this: “there will be enough electricity generated to supply 15,000 homes.”
But thanks to the Internet, once in awhile the truth comes out: “Most of the commercial-scale turbines installed today are 2 megawatts in size and cost roughly $3.5 million installed …Wind turbines under 100 kilowatts cost roughly $3,000 to $5,000 per kilowatt of capacity.
That means a 10-kilowatt machine (the size needed to power an average home) might cost $35,000-$50,000.”
That’s according to www.windustry.org/how-much-do-wind-turbines-cost.
Wind energy: the wave of the future!
Poor misguided wind generation enthusiasts: torn between their fanatical zeal to eliminate the source of cheap energy (coal; nuclear) and their desire to stop the ruination of nature’s pristine beauty by developers and others … like us.
They’re already hard at work in several northeast Ohio communities along the shores of Lake Erie where plans are being laid to erect a number of these wind monstrosities out on the lake — all done at the expense of the tax paying public, or, as one writer recently coined, the sheeple.
That’s a good one. The word helps to explain why those who are forced to bear the burden of paying for such mindless fanaticism do so without a whimper.
Clyde Nehrenz
Sullivan, Ohio
