Letters May 24, 2013

Robbing Peter to pay Paul

To the editor

For the record, I opt in for the city of Fort Collins’ wind-energy program, raising the electric portion of both our business and home utility bills 10 percent to 15 percent each month. That is a personal decision that does not affect my neighbors’ pocket books.

The editorial published May 10-23, Hick: Sign bill on rural renewables, contains certain logical missteps. By requiring energy providers to increase electricity from renewable sources, argues the editorial, we will be creating jobs in the renewable energy fields. Well, OK, but we will also be decreasing jobs in existing energy fields. Robbing Peter to pay Paul does not foster economic development. It merely moves money from Peter’s pocket into Paul’s.

In this case, we may also contribute to blight as plants go offline because the energy they produce shifts to other types of plants. We can’t have it both ways.

Furthermore, reducing that 20 percent standard if the retail cost increase reaches a certain level insures that we will hinder the cost-effectiveness of every source of energy. Today’s renewable energy is so much more costly than a mere 2 percent that we will be forced to reduce the standard, at which point we will be caught in a no man’s land between efficiently using existing sources and trying to maximize the benefit of the new renewable infrastructure.

Neil McCaffrey III
Fort Collins

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