There is a lot going on in my life; I went to Washington D.C., and met with the staff of the Congressman in my district, Steve Womack. Steve was home on recess so we spoke with his staff member, a young lady who knows the electric coop business. As complicated as the government is no one person could do or know all the things needed for his district.
Electric coops are sometimes shuffled aside for the big IOU’s who spend lots of money to lobby bills. But the voice of rural coops is strong because they go back to grassroots and the voters are always of interest to people needing to be re-elected. Joined together the National Rural Electric Cooperative has offices and lots of folks in D.C., but it never hurts for folks back home to touch base and show their support in the nation’s capitol.
Departments like the ones that write the rules for the air and water would like to crowd the coal plants out. That is not only unfeasible but also unrealistic. We built large coal fired plants because natural gas was getting so short in supply that they said we couldn’t use it to make electricity. Now that new drilling processes has found a way to produce it, it is a cheap energy source.
New plants will cost billions; your investment in those plants that will last another 50 years would be lost. And the first thing folks say is get more windmills. Last year the U.S. government spent $28 for every person in the new census on support and development of wind and solar energy. Yet the best those facilities could do was produce 1 1/2 percent of your electric power needs in the United States. Wind power is still in the development stage. These generators take lots of attention, by my cowboy way of counting mills that are down, I say only 80 percent run on a given day. That is not a strong record of performance, if 20 percent of our coal plants don’t run, there would be rolling blackouts across the United States. Then the wind stops.
We have ample coal. We have not built a nuclear plant in years. Japan’s wrecks made folks nervous but that plant at Russellville, Ark., which has been safely cranking out power for several decades and it is cheaper than wind.
Major IOU’s owe their allegiance to stockholders. They don’t have to do anything but show the state commissions it costs more money to run a plant and they are entitled to charge more. Local electric coops have to answer to their members. I personally want the folks in Washington to know that, “this plan to raise electric rates so people use less electricity” is not the answer.
Those high costing things they want to put on smoke stacks will only reduce the trace elements by miniscule amounts. Testing has not shown that small amount is endangering you or my grandchildren. But unless we do this on the basis of reality and not scare tactics, we threaten the costs of electricity to go much higher and I personally see that as disastrous to older and less fortunate folks on rural lines. That is why I was in D.C., so they understand what we faced – I think they heard us.
God Bless America and all of you.
Western novelist Dusty Richards and his wife Pat live on Beaver Lake in northwest Arkansas. For more information about his books you can email Dusty by visiting ozarksfn.com and clicking on ‘Contact Us’ or call 1-866-532-1960.
