'An Unfounded Bias' 

Editor:

Richard Engel's criticisms of Greg King's call for a Manhattan project for Solar rooftop (Mailbox, May 16) reflects an unfounded bias for centralized electricity generation, shared by his Schatz colleagues and Redwood Coast Energy Authority (RCEA), that explains why RCEA has no widespread distributed solar program (WDS).

Engel offers other renewables but they all destroy habitat, and "cannot feasibly be captured with individual household systems," whereas WDS on the built environment, where the power is used, has minimal impact; and WDS is ideally suited to household and public buildings and spaces, perhaps a benefit not appreciated by those wishing to control our electricity. Bonus feature: Solar panels are eminently recyclable.

Engel argues for a diversified energy portfolio, yet RCEA has no WDS program, only centralized, resulting in both costlier solar and "skyrocketing electric rates," along with the loss of the local employment associated with scaled-up solar deployment. Worse, we are also deprived of the security and resilience that come with the energy independence of WDS.

The reality is that all of our electricity comes from large centralized facilities: PG&E burns fracked natural gas, biomass pollutes worse than coal and accelerates mechanized deforestation. RCEA's greenest program buys electricity from distant habitat-fragmenting solar and wind arrays (the desert tortoise is now endangered under the California ESA), and hydro from watershed-killing dams, transmitted over long, incendiary distances, vulnerable in disasters.

WDS, associated with micro and nano grids, can supplement SoHum's (and Humboldt's) future power needs, help balance the grid and facilitate our transition away from fossil fuels for transportation, heating, cooking and tool use.

We need a Division of Energy Resilience at RCEA dedicated to covering our built environment with solar photovoltaics, exploiting available technologies and all private and government incentives in order to support public and private solar opportunities across all income levels.

Ken Miller, McKinleyville