‘Rural pinwheel’ a fad

As a past political opponent of Sen. Joe Perry, I give him great praise for his courageous vote against political correctness and environmental hysteria. Perry stood alone in an 11-to-1 vote against the $4,500 windmill tax credit. Perry correctly states, “there is too little return on the investment from small wind-generators from the little they add to the power grid to justify a $4,500 break.”

In the article ‘Power in the wind’ (BDN, Dec. 28), Mr. Dingle of South Paris waxed eloquent about his home wind turbine’s reliability during last year’s Patriot’s Day storm, yet he failed to explore the true energy and economic impact of the 100 kilowatt-hours of energy produced by his rural pinwheel. Sen. Perry did just such an analysis and exposed the fallacy of taxpayer-subsidized home wind power.

Here are the facts: the windmill spinning at max capacity for four days produced the energy equivalent of 2.4 gallons of oil; that’s 0.6 gallons of oil per day savings. Calculating the expected annual output of Mr. Dingle’s power plant, we learn that Mr. Dingle could contribute the same energy savings to the general welfare of the people of Maine if he simply drove his automobile 2.5 miles less per day. If every driver in America drove 2.5 miles less per day, we would achieve the energy savings of 125 million Dingle windmills.

Sen. Perry has done his homework on this issue and the scientific and economic realities of energy production are on his side. He voted no to taxpayer subsidies for affluent rustics wishing to erect the latest rage in eco-status symbols. Well done, Sen. Perry.

James C. LaBrecque

Bangor