Letters: Questioning Penn State’s priorities; Investments in clean energy needed
Questioning Penn State’s priorities
It’s interesting Penn State found time to strike the terms freshman, sophomore, junior and senior from their academic lexicon. Yet their spineless leadership can’t squeeze the trigger on requiring returning students to vaccinate. So, will we see vaccinated and non-vaccinated sections on campus this fall? Who knows? For now, they’re probably just too busy deciding on whether to remove the nursery rhyme Snow White from their libraries because “the kiss was not consensual.”
Investments in clean energy needed
The largest coal power plants in the USA generate about 3,500 megawatts (MW) of power. The average is about 1,500MW. But what are the consequences of producing this much energy by so-called renewable sources?
The average wind turbine used in this country has an output of 1.5MW when the wind is blowing at 12 mph, or greater. That means that we would need 1,000 wind turbines located in continuous wind to replace one coal-fired power plant. The direct land use for wind turbines is 3/4 acre per MW of rated capacity. Thus, a 1.5MW wind turbine would require 1.125 acres of land. A 1,000 turbine wind farm would need 1,125 acres or 1.76 square miles. When the wind is not blowing the lost capacity of the wind farm would need to be replaced by coal- or gas-fired turbines. The average life of a wind turbine is 20 years. Most of their parts can be recycled, but the blades themselves are a different story; they are presently being buried. A solar panel of 18 square feet produces about 300W of power which means that 5,000 such panels would be needed to produce 1.5MW. The panels would cover a 2-acre plot of land. It is important to invest in clean energy production. For example, use the dollars being spent on building wind farms and solar panels to apply the ongoing research on carbon capture and storage, such as that being undertaken by the Penn State Earth and Mineral Sciences Energy Institute.
Help keep Pa. a leader in environmental education
The Pennsylvania Science Standards are currently under review by the Pennsylvania Department of Education. Unfortunately, the current proposed standards have largely omitted environment, ecology and agriculture from the secondary level. The public comment period opened on Saturday, June 5 and will remain open for only 30 days.
Pennsylvania has been a leader in environmental education at all levels. It needs to continue. Eliminating these areas of study makes no sense.
I understand that only comments that mention specific content that is missing will be counted. If you feel this is important for our youth and future decision makers, please send an email to the State Board of Education imploring them to explicitly include environment, ecology and agriculture in the standards revision.
Take action to protect health, environment
The litter along our roadsides this spring is unsightly. It adversely affects our health. As plastic materials decompose, they break into tiny particles that find their way into our water supplies. Now, scientists conclude that the average person absorbs a credit card’s worth of plastic into his or her body — every year!
Be a good role model for one’s children and grandchildren. Talk to the generation that will inherit this mess and make it clear to them that throwing garbage out of car windows is unacceptable and unhealthy. Go on family walks in your neighborhood collecting litter.
Contact our legislators. Legislation must be passed to end single serving plastic materials. Make it clear that continuing this practice is not only short sighted, but detrimental to our citizens’ health. The cost in both lives and health care make doing nothing about this problem morally and economically unacceptable.
This story was originally published June 11, 2021 at 7:00 AM.