Letter: We’ll keep the lights on for you
Thank you, Butch Mazzuca, for describing the possibility of our Happy Valley without electricity in your March 2 Vail Daily column — in one word, CHAOS! Guests hauling buckets of water from the Gore Creek — imagine the social media backlash … if we survive!
What you failed to mention is that investment in modern renewable energy like solar panels, coupled with battery storage systems, could avoid the chaos in the event of a natural or man-made disruption of the electric grid. Economics of solar plus storage continues to drop, vehicle-to-grid emergency backup is commercially available, while “stranded assets” from the fossil fuel generation continue to stack up. When a grid failure’s consequent short-term economics and long-term marketing are calculated into the cost/benefit equation, then the scales are wildly tipped towards distributed solar power. No matter what your views are on “climate change,” there is no argument that with population growth, global pandemics, mass species extinction, and rising authoritarianism, the world is in a period of “Global Earth Crisis.”
Why should we not take concrete steps, both public and private, to not only protect our valley with decentralized, non-polluting, apocalypse-avoiding solar plus storage but also be a pioneer in showcasing these advantages to the rest of the world? Mr. Mazzuca, you are sincerely invited to come stay warm and cozy while watching “Walking Dead” reruns at our home if the grid goes down. It will be the house with the lights still on!
Patrick Tvarkunas
Eagle
