Letters to the Editor

Renewable energy

Editor:

What do 144 companies, as an example, Coca-Cola, Nike, Anheuser-Busch, General Mills, Walmart, plus Amazon, Google’s Alphabet, Microsoft, Apple, etc., have in common?

They are committed to be run by 100 percent renewable energy by 2030. In fact, three have already hit that target. This means 100 gigawatts of wind and solar energy needs to be built. That’s more energy than the 40 million folks in California currently use.

An example is Salesforce. It’s goal is 100 percent renewable by 2022 and to quote “Salesforce works to locate office and data centers on cleaner (electrical) grids, with strong government policies to further reduce greenhouse emissions.” And as more major companies commit to 100 percent renewable energy, utilities and communities need to provide that renewable power or risk losing out on attracting major new customers.

And then of course there’s our own “major” Facebook. Six data centers, one online, five to go. To quote Mark Zuckerberg, “last year we set a goal for all our data centers and offices to use hundred percent renewable energy by 2020.”

So why did Facebook choose to locate in Los Lunas instead of Utah? Both have great solar energy production capabilities, but we also have great eastern New Mexico renewable wind. And that’s why the proposed Western Spirit Wind transmission line has to be constructed. It would not only benefit Facebook but the much lower cost of wind produced energy, would also benefit “us” ratepayers.

The conundrum that I see, while the village of Los Lunas brags about Facebook locating here, where is the city or for that matter, Valencia County and the cities and schools within, commitment to solar renewable energy? So far, except for UNM-Valencia campus, nada.

As a taxpayer, I would sure appreciate the cost savings that renewable energy generates. That’s probably why Mark is a billionaire. He’s smart about the bottom line.

Ward McCartney

Belen

The $100 billion deal

Editor:

A shattered backpack litters the wasted street

Its cargo of torn textbooks scattered,

Moslem kids, five to 11, riding a school bus.

A grieving witness wails for her child,

“America did this,” she knows

Do you?

Forty schoolboys lie blasted

By a Lockheed Martin bomb

On the ruined street in Yemen,

The Saudis killed these children

America killed these children

The merchants of death:

Boeing, Raytheon, Lockheed Martin,

JP Morgan, Bank of America, Citigroup,

The politicians,

They heap up their bank accounts.

How many numbers can these accounts hold

Before they spill over into chaos

While homeless despair

Haunts our hungry street corners

And filthy overpasses?

Gary Werner

Los Lunas