To the Editor:

In their recent debate in Great Falls, House of Delegates Candidates Comstock and Vanderhye differed greatly on energy issues. Comstock supports all forms of energy generation, including environmentally safe oil and gas drilling 50 miles off coast and nuclear power. Vanderhye opposes any off-shore drilling and declines to even discuss nuclear power. Vanderhye dismisses offshore drilling as something that takes ten years and instead advocates wind power and other renewable energy sources.

Endorsing renewable energy is great in theory, but ignores reality. As James Schlesinger, former Secretary of Energy, notes in “Getting Real on Wind and Solar,” the Washington Post, April 24, 2009, solar and wind power are intermittent sources of energy since the sun does not always shine or the wind blow. Consumers, he warns, will pay a large premium for solar and wind systems and backup fossil fuel systems when there is no sun or wind. Economic journalist Robert Samuelson in “The Obama Administration’s Bias Against Oil and Natural Gas,” the Washington Post, April 24, 2009, also points out that wind and solar power cannot substitute for U.S. oil because 98 percent of our oil is for transportation, not electricity generation. Wind and solar energy now account for less than one percent of US electricity and thus even a tenfold expansion will make only a small contribution. Coal, oil, and natural gas will account for about 85 percent of US energy for the foreseeable future no matter what. Yet, since 1990, U.S. oil production has decreased 23 percent and foreign oil imports have increased from 42 to 58 percent.

Comstock agrees that wind and solar power have their place, but argues that sound policy requires an array of energy options to decrease U.S. dependence on foreign oil. Off-shore oil and natural gas extraction are common sense solutions that would bring thousands of jobs and hundreds of millions in tax revenue to Virginia, which has an estimated 130 million barrels of oil and 1.14 trillion cubic feet of natural gas 50 miles out. Vanderhye opposes offshore drilling even though the Virginia General Assembly in 2006 voted to allow offshore natural gas exploration. The 27-year federal moratorium on offshore drilling expired last year setting the stage for Virginia to move ahead. Obama’s Interior Department, however, is delaying the process. Virginia’s legislators must press the Administration to move forward and also must broaden Virginia’s mandate to include environmentally safe oil and gas drilling in addition to exploration.

Vanderhye’s rejection of energy options that take ten years is shortsighted and lacks appreciation of the energy catastrophe looming on the long term horizon. Daniel Nocera, MIT’s Dreyfus Professor of Energy and a Time Magazine 100 Hundred Most Influential Person, estimates that today the world uses about 15 terawatts of energy a year (one terawatt equals a million megawatts) and that by 2050 the world will need 28-35 terawatts. Building 8000 nuclear power plants, one every 2 days until 2050, would yield 8 terawatts and putting windmills on every inch of windy land on earth about 2 terawatts. Long term energy needs will require major technological and scientific breakthroughs such as Nocera’s discovery of a water electrolysis process that could lead to cost-effective storage of daytime solar energy. To that end, MIT has launched its own Energy Manhattan Project to study everything from silicon superstrings to carbon nanotubes.

If science and technology are to save us in the long term, we must increase production from all sources in the mean time. Comstock has shown leadership and vision on the energy issue and also in her plan for a “Virginia Scholars Program” to fund undergraduate and graduate studies for Virginia’s top 100 students in math and science, fields critical to our energy future. Vanderhye’s proposals--mandates for conservation, recycling, and electrical rate reform--focus primarily on reducing demand, not increasing supply. Vanderhye’s support for renewable energies--wind, biomass, wave, and tidal --to the exclusion of fossil fuels and nuclear power will ensure that the U.S. energy catastrophe arrives sooner rather than later.



Anne Campbell Gruner, Esquire McLean