This commentary is by Jeff Trainor of Essex, a retired professional sales engineer and past president of the Downeast Section of the Instrument Society of America.
A recent commentary in VTDigger mentioned missing the point and, even though I agree with the author’s point, the legislators are truly missing the point.
Point one: Global warming was first measurable in the 1960s. That was about the time the rainforests were being decimated. Since then, over 40% of the planet’s rainforests have been depleted.
There is a reason they are called “the lungs of the planet.” They take carbon dioxide from the air and produce oxygen. It’s called photosynthesis. At the current rate, the Amazon rainforest will not be self-sustaining in the next 20 to 40 years, at which time it will become like an African savanna.
Worse yet is the businessman who wants to cut down the Sumatran rainforest to mine for minerals to make electric batteries.
Point two: Natural gas is the most economical and efficient means of home heating. As a matter of fact, the new gas furnaces are so efficient that they can be exhausted through a dryer vent hose or PVC pipe.
Heat pumps can be more efficient than gas furnaces in some climates where the temperature is not below 40 degrees Fahrenheit. That is not Vermont, where the temperature can frequently fall below zero degrees Fahrenheit.
Point three: Electricity is finite. If you plug two electric heaters into the same outlet, they will trip the circuit breaker. There is not enough infrastructure to handle the need if half of the population of Vermont became fully electrified.
Once the demand overloads the system, Vermont will be like California, with brownouts or even blackouts. The power utility will need to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to rebuild its infrastructure to handle future needs. Where will the money come from? Rates will go up and an already overburdened populace will pay the price.
Point four: Where will the electricity come from? If we wallpaper the country with solar panels, it wouldn’t produce half the power required to presently serve the country.
Once again, natural gas is the alternative. It is efficient and economical, there is an abundant supply and the reason power utilities are converting oil and coal powered plants to gas. Other than that, the alternative would be nuclear and we’ve already shut most of these down.
The well-intentioned Legislature is extremely shortsighted. Making Vermont too expensive to live will cause our population to decrease, not increase as we need. Those who can will leave, while those who can’t will become welfare recipients. Vermont will become a welfare state.
