To the Editor:
Re “Energy Appetite in U.S. Endangers Goals on Climate” (front page, March 18):
The projected new growth in power demand does present new challenges, but we have the policy tools to address them and still achieve U.S. climate goals. New power sector standards from the Environmental Protection Agency and a long-needed new transmission rule from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission will help the grid become more resilient and reliable.
But, given the challenges, we need much more action. Utilities, regional grid operators and federal energy agencies need to plan ahead and better assess future power needs. From there, they must nimbly deploy policies, technologies and market-based strategies to make the most of the grid we now have, provide new clean supply, invest in energy efficiency and get smarter about managing demand.
And it’s not just power demand challenging the power sector: Climate change is posing unprecedented challenges to the reliability and resilience of the grid. What this all means is that we cannot continue to rely on the dirty fossil fuels of the past to keep the lights on.
Climate will remain at the center of the challenges facing the grid in the 21st century, and it must remain at the center of our solutions, too.
Kit Kennedy
Brooklyn
The writer is the power sector lead at the Natural Resources Defense Council.
To the Editor:
For years, electric cooperatives have sounded the alarm about threats to electric reliability. Not all countries have dependable, round-the-clock access to electricity. If we take our electric grid for granted, we will soon realize its true value the hard way.
Demand is growing and supply is struggling to keep up. Bad public policy is encouraging the premature closure of always available power plants, the E.P.A. has proposed new regulations that will force the shutdown of more plants, and the nation’s environmental laws make it extremely difficult to obtain permits to build any new electric generation, transmission or distribution infrastructure.
The trends are not getting better. Over the next five years, NERC, the nation’s grid watchdog, predicts that 19 states from Montana to Louisiana are at high risk of rolling blackouts during normal peak conditions. Most of the country faces similar risk during exceedingly hot or cold temperatures.
American families and businesses expect the lights to stay on at an affordable cost, and lawmakers must embrace that. The stakes are too high to get this wrong.
Jim Matheson
Arlington, Va.
The writer is the C.E.O. of the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association.
To the Editor:
The challenge of cleaning up the electricity supply is to simultaneously replace the fossil-fuel-fired power plants that meet current needs, and supply new demand with non-emitting technologies.
Electricity consumption will grow for decades because of data centers, crypto miners and technologies that replace fossil fuels with electricity, like electric vehicles and heat pumps. Those substitutes will pay bigger dividends if that electricity doesn’t come from fossil fuels in the first place.
It’s clear that even if we can manufacture or import solar panels and wind turbines, we can’t deploy them fast enough. It’s time to start building small modular reactors (S.M.R.s), which create power using nuclear fission, as Ontario Power Generation is doing and the Tennessee Valley Authority is preparing to do. We need to get construction experience now, in the 2020s, so that by the mid-2030s, we can deploy them in big numbers.
It may take a bold utility to pioneer the way, but there is an essential new component to the climate solution. It’s spelled S.M.R.
Kenneth Petersen
Stoughton, Wis.
The writer is the president of the American Nuclear Society.
A ‘Workers Bridge’ for Baltimore
To the Editor:
The disaster in Baltimore Harbor cost the lives of road workers on the Francis Scott Key Bridge and will cause a major rerouting of cargo on the East Coast in addition to the expense of replacing the bridge.
Key, who wrote the words to our national anthem and sang of “the land of the free and the home of the brave,” was a slave owner. The replacement bridge should not be named for him, but it will need a name.
I suggest the Workers Bridge, in honor of the men who perished in the disastrous collapse and all those men and women who just go to work every day.
Ira Jacobson
New York
Trump and the $60 Bible
To the Editor:
Re “Trump’s Newest Venture? A $60 Bible” (news article, nytimes.com, March 26):
So now former President Donald Trump is hawking copies of the Bible because he is fearful for the future of Christianity in our nation.
This is the book that commands that you shall not commit adultery; that you must stay far away from falsehood; that truth shall spring forth from the earth; that you shall love your neighbor as yourself; that all humans were created in God’s image.
Really?
(Rabbi) Gilbert S. Rosenthal
West Palm Beach, Fla.
Can Just Anyone Run?
To the Editor:
It can be guessed from all the news about the presidential election that perhaps there are no longer any standards or qualifications for the presidency. It appears that anyone who presents themselves as a candidate and has enough money to fund a campaign can promise anything and run for office.
If we expect or hope for better times, there has to be some standard above mediocrity to justify voting for a candidate. Otherwise there is no hope for a better future for us or our children. We have to demand better and make that demand heard daily.
Melvin Dorin
Cambria, Calif.
Flaco’s Cruel Fate Is Not Meant for Birds
To the Editor:
Re “Flaco, the Beloved Eagle-Owl, Died With High Levels of Rat Poison in His System” (news article, March 26):
After the death of New York City’s most celebrated owl, thousands of people have signed petitions calling for a Flaco statue. But the presence of rat poison in Flaco’s system highlights some steps we can take to better protect all our wildlife.
Lawmakers across the country are considering legislation that would help protect birds like Flaco by restricting the use of deadly rat poisons. In California, existing laws restrict the use of the deadliest anticoagulant rat poisons, which also cause nontargeted wildlife to bleed to death on the inside — a cruel and painful death.
This year California lawmakers are considering the Poison-Free Wildlife Act, which would place restrictions on all anticoagulant rodenticides. Rhode Island lawmakers are considering restrictions on the most toxic anticoagulant rat poisons.
With safer, equally effective alternatives such as sealing buildings and trash, and even fertility control, rat poison restrictions should be enacted everywhere. If a poison intended for rats can poison a celebrity owl, think of all the other unnamed wild animals that are unintentionally harmed or killed.
J.P. Rose
Los Angeles
The writer is the Urban Wildlands policy director and a senior attorney for the Center for Biological Diversity in Tucson, Ariz., which is a co-sponsor of the Poison-Free Wildlife Act.