By Letter to the Editor on September 25, 2013.
Re: Dave Mabell article of Sept 14.
It is surprising to me that the Lethbridge Herald will publish such a large article based on unresearched and unbalanced marketing misinformation. In fact, the whole article was a regurgitation of last May’s press release of CanWEA. This is not news. I think that The Herald more likely published this text believing that it would serve the interest of the public. I also suspect that the CanWEA marketing machine has used The Herald to spread their marketing misinformation and to put pressure on our politicians to accommodate them via the granting of more subsidies.
The issue of producing reliable electrical power economically and environmentally acceptable is not a political one. It is a multi-layered topic that involves the combined expertise of engineers, techno-economists and environmental scientists. The question is why does CanWEA keep putting pressure on our politicians that have none of these qualifications or knowledge to evaluate their claims? Why do they try to influence the voters to endorse claims which are not factual? Yes, we have a long-term energy supply problem and the working of the Alberta market needs fixing, but wind technology, as it stands today and contrary to popular beliefs, does not present a solution that would be economical, sustainable or environmentally acceptable.
The Lethbridge Herald can maintain its good reputation by facilitating the true issues to surface in an impartial way. That can be achieved by sponsoring a public forum where CanWEA specialists will attempt to convince a panel of experts made up of engineers, economists and environmental scientists on the merit of their ideas and to validate their claims. I pledge to have such a panel available on time if needed, in order to have their credentials evaluated.
The problem is that CanWEA will never accept to subject its claims to scrutiny by experts because they don’t want the public to focus on their dirty little secrets. If The Herald at least attempts to sponsor such a forum, it will get an indication which can be used as a guideline for the future publications.
Cosmos Voutsinos, P.Eng.
Lethbridge
