Letter: The solar panel debate wages on
By Letter to the Editor on July 6, 2021.
Dear editor, In response to Lynn Thacker’s July 2 letter to the editor It’s obvious that Lynn Thacker hasn’t been to Europe, especially Germany, and talked to the people like I have. After spending 14 years living in Devon, Alta., where a friend installed solar panels on his roof in 1975 and said it was the smartest thing he ever did, now the town is running their rec centre and street lights on solar power and saving taxpayers money. My late father was a power plant engineer and was promoting solar panels for southern Alberta about 50 years ago. So what is Thacker afraid of? Saving money? We are seeing more and more farms in the Edmonton area going solar and we don’t hear any complaints from them. Alan K. Spiller Edmonton 8-7
Just eliminating the insane monthly fees Ralph Klein allowed the industry to add to our power bills, by using solar power is worth it according to those that have done it. It doesn’t make these guys bad mouthing the system look very smart. Saving money is the goal and in the long run it’s worth it.
Blind green ideology can’t deal with reality and known facts! I’m not sure why I am wasting my time in responding to you two gentlemen? Solar panels only save money for their users for two reasons. First, solar’s unreliable, intermittent power is equated with the dispatchable(electricity delivered when needed) power provided by baseload generation which in BC and Alberta is coal, gas and hydro-based. It’s like comparing an unreliable old “junker” to a new dependable vehicle and saying that because they are both cars the owners should receive the same price.
Secondly, the true cost of ownership of solar is borne by taxpayers and ratepayers without their permission! If solar output was required to be as dependable as baseload power, it’s cost would be several orders of magnitude more expensive than existing grid power. In fact, the required storage infrastructure would make it totally unfeasible.
But these are irrefutable facts and your religion can’t abide knowledge and empirical data so carry-on with your pixie dust and fantasies.
Where are your irrefutable facts? I would start providing them before someone invites you to do so in court, don’t you think?
I’m not dumb enough to believe your lies and I am certain there are lawyers out there working for the solar industry who aren’t either. It’s being proven throughout the world that you are wrong.
Why don’t you google this ” Conservative Climate group says Germany could reach 100% renewables by 2030 at low costs”. It doesn’t make you look very smart, does it?
The German people I spoke to in Germany were certainly happy with how it was working out, while Albertans were being forced into deregulation by Klein and had these idiotic monthly fees added to our bills.
Of course our Reform Party Clown Jason Kenney took the cap off our bills, that Notley had put on, so his rich friends can now gouge us once again.