The June 17 Gazette carried a bad letter by Del LeBarron and a good commentary by Peggy Schultz.
Schultz did a pretty good job trying to explain what I will call the technical quagmire that looks like a bureaucratic red tape problem. It includes the PJM interconect problem that is way beyond the scope of this letter. Below, however, are two problems that are easy to correct.
LeBarron's serious mistakes are in these two ideas: 1. Why all the fuss to save the planet from a fraction of a degree in temperature rise over the next century? And 2. The question of where does electricity come from if there is no wind to run the wind turbines?
To respond to No. 1, I used Google's artificial intelligence to get this quote: “The WMO projects a 20-year average warming for 2015-34 to reach around 1.44 degrees celsius above pre-industrial levels." All of the end-of-century temperature projections I have seen are talking about a 10-degree temperature rise. This is far above LeBarron's fraction of a degree.
For No. 2, it is a fact that at offshore locations the wind is almost always blowing. It is also a fact that large wind farms in many parts of the world have been operating for one to two decades with little downtime and substantial satisfaction with performance and economics.
Also, global average temperature does not call attention to extreme heat wave episodes. In only recent years have we had – all over the world – extended areas and periods of record high temperatures in the 115- to 120-degree range and for month-long or more periods. In five to 10 minutes of internet search, you can document this for yourself. Delaware has been lucky – so far – that its local extreme weather has been pretty mild compared to other parts of the USA or the planet. Local people who pay attention to only local news will end up being ignorant about this. Another thing for Sussex County is wildfire risk. Low rainfall and dry ground litter mean a fire waiting to flare up, and when more houses burn down, homeowner insurance costs go up.
But, here's the thing for Sussex County: the electricity demand is going up fastest because of extensive development, and most new houses will be all-electric appliances and heat pumps. Add EV charging and it could crash the grid.
We are vulnerable to normal equipment breakdown, vandalism (which is increasing), possible long-term damage from adversarial foreign state covert actions and by hackers unknown. A replacement substation transformer takes months to build, ship and swap in. If a power outage lasts for weeks or months, you will not be happy when your in-house temperature is the same as outside summer heat and your refrigerator doesn't refrigerate.
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