Coves on energy, climate need to be smart
Joe Biden just put me out of business by suspending new oil and gas leases and new drilling permits. I am a petroleum geologist and generate drilling prospects in the Rocky Mountains on federal lands. I worked six years to get a prospect ready to drill and Biden just broke the terms of the lease, killing the deal.
This action was done under the guise of helping climate change but will not stop one CO2 molecule from being released as there is nothing in the executive order to reduce consumption. No one is going to drive less, fly less or stop heating their homes or businesses. The oil demand will remain the same and we will need to purchase oil from overseas. This decision is not based on science, logic or even common sense. Why do you want to put Americans out of work when you are not solving the problem?
Oil and gas is a major business in Colorado and the Western States, which are about 50% federal lands. The industry provides major tax income from production and pay back royalties from federal lands to our schools. This action will result in the loss of millions of oil industry jobs and tax base for all the West. With 50% of the potential lands off-limits to explore, it will very quickly kill the industry and accomplish nothing. Biden’s slogan should be — Make America Poor Again.
Tim Schowalter, Granby Recent letters to the editor about “free” solar and wind leave out a lot of facts about the cost to our environment.
A 100MW wind farm that would power 75,000 homes requires
30,000 tons of iron ore, 50,000 tons of concrete, and 900 tons of plastic (resins from oil), according to Mark Mills of the Manhattan Institute and Northwestern University.
For a solar farm to produce that same amount of electricity takes 150% of these material inputs. In addition, there will be a need for a huge increase in the supply of rare earth elements such as lithium and cobalt.
Mining, processing, manufacture, and installation of wind and solar farms will require massive amounts of energy from oil and gas sources. Wind turbines require expensive maintenance and have a relatively short life span.
The waste disposal of blades could dwarf our current plastic disposal problems. Somewhere on this earth, there will be large areas dug up for the purpose of wind and solar farms, most likely in areas of high biodiversity that are not currently disturbed.
So when we discuss damage to the environment, let’s also include what our damage is from wind and solar farms — it is not “free.”
Ron Robl, Longmont