Editor:
Opposing the Terra-Gen wind project is not NIMBYism, unless you regard the entire planet as Humboldt’s backyard (NCJ Daily, May 30).
The wind generators do not reduce CO2 emissions, they merely produce electricity. In their construction, they not only generate greenhouse gas but also damage our terrestrial carbon sinks, the forests and the soils.
India’s temperature hit 123.4 degrees on June 1. We need to stop this madness. People are quite capable of initiating mandatory conservation: We have done it many times before in our history. And we need to restrain our runaway military, the world’s largest single emitter of greenhouse gases.
It just takes political action!
Ellen Taylor, Petrolia
Related Stories
The Cost of Wind
A proposed wind energy project comes with environmental impacts
This article appears in ‘A Comedy of Errors’.
Any addition of renewable energy such as wind and solar energy will reduce carbon emissions in the Humboldt area by displacing traditional fossil-fueled electricity generation with emission-free renewable energy. Humboldt’s electricity largely comes from PG&E, and because of the well documented transmission constraints of the Humboldt area grid, this power comes largely from PG&E’s gas-fired Humboldt Generating Station in Eureka. The grid operations rule for which power sources get used to supply consumers’ electric demand is that renewable energy sources like wind and solar are used first and any shortfall is supplied by fossil-fueled generators, i.e. green house gas emitting power plants are last in line to be turned on and are first in line to be turned off as consumer demand changes.
Bottom line is that because of this displacement, every kilowatt-hour of wind or solar generated electricity reduces generation from PG&E’s gas-fired, green house gas emitting Humboldt Generating Station on a one-for-one basis. Humboldt area wind farms, both onshore and offshore, will directly reduce carbon emissions in a substantial way in the Humboldt area.