LETTERS Professor Demurs: ‘Well-To-Wheels’ Efficiency Twice As Great In Electric Cars To the Editor: In his Jan. 24-25 column, former DEC Commissioner Mike Zagata makes an argument that is theoretically interesting but falls apart when you look at the actual numbers behind it. Zagata compares electric cars to conventional gas-powered vehicles and points out that, while electric cars are responsible for lower carbon emissions during the driving part of their life cycle, it’s more energy intensive to manufacture them. This…
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Letters To The Editor - Page 100
Around State, ‘Microgrids’ Require Gas From Fracking To the Editor: In his recent response about a microgrid for the railyard, Albert Colone faulted me for not giving him credit for a source of energy that he never mentioned in his original article: biomass. Then he asks who, besides me, would not like that? Well, the hundreds of people who vigorously opposed and ultimately defeated a proposed wood-burning power plant in the railyards a few years ago would probably say, “No…
County Must Explore Fresh Thinking On Energy To the Editor: Dennis Higgins of Otego took a few pot-shots at my opinion piece which appeared in Hometown Oneonta and The Freeman’s Journal. In my piece, I wondered if an Oneonta Municipal Microgrid System might help expand local energy generation and availability in helping alleviate the limitations on our current energy capacity. I threw it out there as a question to try and stimulate some discussion for the good of more…
Ban Straws? If You Want To Recycle More Plastic, Focus On Worst Abuser To the Editor: Let me weigh in on Amazon, Cuomo, the environment, and ignorance. First Amazon. Fourth-richest company in the world. Recent announcement of expansion in New York, thanks to the governor and his desire to continue to revitalize the Long Island City area which – if you have witnessed over the last 30 years – has become an extension of Manhattan. Not a bad thing perhaps, but…
Fighting For ‘Purity’ Always Preferable To The Alternatives To the Editor: Mike Zagata’s (Jan. 10) “Renewable’s Not Ready To Replace Gas” is a prime example of “Reductio ad Absurdum”…treating a vital but complex issue as if it were all or nothing. Until we reach heaven, nothing is 100-percent pure, and informed advocates of wind, tide, or solar power don’t say they are. But compared to fossil fuels, they are overwhelmingly less toxic. Pitting “Climate Change” in quotes, as Trump also does,…
It’s Only Sensible To Lock Our Doors – And Borders To the Editor: Where do we live? On a park bench, covered with newspaper, open to the elements with no place to call home? Some do, but not all. Most, in fact, live in a building called a house – with walls, doors and windows. Our own private place of refuge. Do we leave those doors and windows open or closed? Do those doors and windows have locks? What, or…
Posting Too-Complicated Bills Serving No Purpose To The Editor: My hospital bill from a visit of six months ago just arrived. The bill says clinic visit $32 (for walking in the door?), laboratory $31.85, then it says contractual adjustment: +$55.46. Then says insurance payment Medicare -$93.54, then it says: Sequestration write-off: -$ 1.91. That was just to use the room!! Then the next line is the doctor’s fee … on and on it goes. How am I going to understand…
Letters Renewables, Maybe Not Answer Today, Are Wave Of The Future To the Editor: Mike Zagata’s column of Jan. 10-11 expresses perspectives that are fast becoming archaic. To suggest renewables aren’t ready to replace gas is short-sighted, parochial and myopic. Of course, the 5,000 flights a day that circle the earth can’t by powered by green energy, but that’s exactly the point. Conserving them now will insure availability later. The gas and oil reserves will have to yield some day…
OPEN LETTER TO COMMUNITY Does Society Of Friends Offer Solutions To Angst That Divides Our Nation? For those who know one, or all, of us, “utopian” isn’t the first word that would come to mind. Practical, fact-based, analytical – those would be better adjectives to describe us. Yet we can’t help but recognize, locally and nationally, the decrease of civility, neighborliness and cooperativeness in our national conscience and behavior, and wonder if there’s a way for citizens and our leadership…
New Hotel: When Is Too Much Too Much? To the Editor: In regards to the proposed 101 room hotel in Hartwick, I’d like to thank Bob Holt, career hospitality professional, for his willingness to “tell it like it is” regarding the true state of the hospitality business here in the Cooperstown area. While we at the Landmark Hotel in Cooperstown always welcome new competition, I’d like to introduce the following numbers into the public discussion, hoping it broadens perspective. 1)…