Geary Foertsch's letter in the Dec. 1 edition said lots of Gazette letters about offshore wind projects were missing some important points. Very few people can juggle in their minds all of the points – both positive and negative – associated with a complex issue. And, not all points can be discussed because of space limitations. Then, instead, many people easily see only what they want to see in these issues. And others (e.g. climate change deniers) do not see what they should be seeing. Therefore, the climate change deniers talk only about offshore wind economic costs and avoid talking about the much larger economic costs we will get from climate change. Foertsch left out the one major point about why going to green energy is even happening.
Point: A 2- to 4-foot rise in sea level by 2050 is a credible worst-case outcome because global temperature increases will melt global ice faster. Add to that a few feet more from storm surges and high-tide peaks, and there will be a lot of really unhappy people in Lewes and Rehoboth. In 2019, the Forbes website carried an article titled, "Shocking new maps show how sea-level rise will destroy coastal cities by 2050." You can find it by internet search on the title. Note that climate change deniers have great difficulty understanding this point, but please consider that flat-earthers have great difficulty understanding a spherical Earth. However, the article titled, "One conspiracy theory at a time: Flat-earthers don't reject climate science," is on the livescience.com website. You read that right. Flat-earthers are not climate change deniers.
Foertsch was not quite correct on the cost picture either. On average, renewable green energy is usually cheaper than fossil. Just do an internet search on two search strings: "cheapest renewable energy" and "cheapest energy."
Here is a new point: Hydrogen cars. The Mirai from Toyota, the Clarity from Honda and the Nexo from Hyundai are for sale now. The iX5 from BMW is a fuel cell concept car. They power their electric motors with electricity generated by hydrogen flowing through a fuel cell. Thousands are already on roads. There are now hydrogen trucks, buses and trains out there. Hydrogen is more expensive right now, but give it a few more years for more R&D, more hydrogen hubs and some local hydrogen-filling stations, and the cost may come down for the Lewes-Rehoboth area. We might even get hydrogen into Lewes and Rehoboth sooner than more green electricity. After all, the roads are already here and tanker trucks with hydrogen tanks could carry hydrogen instead of gasoline. See choosedelaware.com for Delaware's future hydrogen hub.
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