Roger Koopman’s recent piece (Jan. 20 Beacon: “Federally Imposed Renewables Come at a Cost”) states the Clean Power Plan will cause electricity bills to increase “dramatically.” He demonizes subsidies for renewables and finishes by exhorting us to defend Montana from “Washington” (pretty sure he means D.C.).
His fear mongering over future electricity rate hikes backfired for me. Looking forward, older coal plants will be replaced with modern natural gas and renewables, with or without the Clean Power Plan.
Mr. Koopman has a penchant for overstatement. Not satisfied with belittling the former chair of the Public Service Commission, with whom he disagrees on future costs of Montana energy, his hostility spills over to renewable energy subsidies. He writes that subsidies are too effective in growing the renewable energy portfolio, making wind and solar generation too successful in competing with coal. The politicians have “rigged” the game by offering subsidies to citizens and businesses, when the “playing field“ should be even.
That point fails far right of the goal post. On an even playing field, coal’s true unsubsidized cost (environment/health and subsidized federal leases) is higher.
As to government involvement in renewable energy, I invite Mr. Koopman to consider the past. None of the major technological advances of the 20th century were produced by the private sector working alone — not electricity, telephone service, interstate transportation, nuclear power, and not the internet. It’s public-private partnerships that transform economies.
Turning to the topic of climate change, Mr. Koopman considers it an “unsettled question” on which people have “views.” He asks whether the warming effect of CO2 emissions might not simply amount to an earth-greening benefit. Does Mr. Koopman doubt our ability to read and think? As John Oliver famously said of public climate skeptics — they are certainly entitled to their own opinions, but not to their own facts.
Kate Igoe
Whitefish