Wind, solar power are not the answer

Kudos for the editorial on renewable energy sources and the future (“Hot air fuels energy plan,” July 18). I felt that I had written it myself.
There’s nothing like a little arithmetic to dispel the argument that there’s a future in wind, solar and biomass filling our energy requirements. I’ve done it for solar and found that to equal the North Anna Station, just over the hill, would take 50 square miles of collectors.
The environmental movement has been taken over by the 1960s flower children, who have in turn become the “useful idiots” of those opposed to our capitalist system and form of government. Al Gore is spearheading this movement. He testified before a Senate subcommittee that nuclear power had no future in spite of the fact we are now 20 percent nuclear nationally and 50 percent in Virginia.
Nuclear is the cleanest, cheapest and safest form of energy generation we have, other than hydro, which is now 8 percent. Ethanol is on the table but in a congressional hearing, former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan told the lawmakers that if every kernel of corn was converted to ethanol we would reach 10 percent of our requirements. His advice wasn’t heeded and now we have the ethanol debacle.
Keep up the pressure.
Corbin Dixon
Staunton