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Letter to the Editor: Wind, Solar Supplement Fossil Fuels

Letter to the Editor
Columbus Dispatch
April 4, 2014

In his Saturday letter “Energy mandates should be reviewed,” Sam Randazzo of Industrial Energy Users-Ohio made a lot of
claims about how bad the energy-efficiency targets are that the Ohio legislature enacted in 2008. Most of his claims were
untrue.

We must do something to decrease our oil and gas usage. Yes, there is a boom now, but how long will that last and what is the
cost?

Earthquakes are occurring, and huge amounts of water are being used. Pipelines are leaking and exploding, and oil tankers and
rail cars are crashing, spilling oil over the land. Large sections of West Virginia have been devastated by mountaintop removal,
where they blow off the top of the mountain and shove the rock and soil down into the valleys, removing the coal as they do.
Wind power and solar-energy generation would be just as cheap as oil and gas, if they were subsidized to the same extent, and
they don’t destroy the land or pollute the water and air.

Oil, coal and gas are not limitless. They were produced over millions of years. We need them, but we should use them wisely.
We should be building as much wind and solar generation as possible. Of course, coal and gas will have to supplement wind
and solar, but we will use less of it, making it last longer.

Randazzo decried the loss of jobs for energy-intensive manufacturers, but the wind and solar industries have more than 25,000
employees in Ohio, and they are growing. We should get behind the energy-efficiency targets and strive to meet them. Why
can’t Ohio be at the forefront of clean-energy production?

The only thing holding us back is people such as Randazzo, who seem to believe that we should ignore clean energy and
continue using the same old dirty fuels that pollute the air, warm the planet and will run out. I am betting on a better future for
Ohio.

JOHN LYTLE

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