Perry wants to safeguard energy

The Sunday letter “Trump energy policy leaves US in dark ages” from Elizabeth A. Johnston condemned Energy Secretary Rick Perry’s support to have rate payers subsidize certain nuclear and coal-fired power plants.

Perry’s reason is to ensure the reliability of the overall electric grid in the country, not to justify President Donald Trump’s promise to coal miners. There have been hundreds of coal-fired power plants permanently shut down in the United States already. However, the country still depends on nuclear and coal-burning power plants for approximately 50 percent of its electricity.

Solar and windmills, which are subsidized by taxpayers, still represent less than 10 percent of the country’s electrical requirements and are unreliably available only when the sun shines and the wind blows. Natural gas used to be too expensive as a power-plant fuel but fracking technology has made it competitive and it is now the primary fuel for new power plants.

Should we sit back and assume that this will always be the case, or should we take a more conservative approach and keep some nuclear plants with no carbon dioxide emissions and coal plants around just in case of something unforeseen that would cause shortages of electricity? This approach could be reviewed annually.

John Corbett Columbus