News, Dec. 10: “Experimental Management”
Mindset Mastered
Tom Ribe of Caldera Action says, "Nature has a right to exist for itself and doesn't necessarily need to be valued in human terms all the time." Bravo, Ribe, bravo!
Cindy Roper
SFReporter.com
Correction
The story about the Valles Caldera gave the wrong first name for Tom Ribe.
Cover, Dec. 10: “Naughty or Nice”
Renewable Reality
It's shameful that the Public Service Company of New Mexico continues to discourage distributed photovoltaic [usable solar] generation by limiting market penetration with red tape and artificially low renewable energy certificate payment rates. We should push for our REC rate to be the wholesale cost of regular power plus 20 percent (to account for no loss in transmission and no cleanup costs in the future). Perhaps if there was a national REC marketplace we could sell the REC to the highest bidder!
Second big thing is I'd love to see Santa Fe concentrate on feeding in a large amount of renewable power, whether they become a municipal power or not. Just imagine what a difference we could make if we had a 100-megawatt biofuel plant at the landfill. Free fuel, reduced landfill and "renewable" power running 24/7.
The PNM plan is filled with land mines, especially the cost of coal ash remediation that would shift from PNM shareholders to ratepayers if we accept their plan.
Dan Baker
SFReporter.com
Misplaced Idealism
Your renewable energy story and its opposing viewpoint section were very informative.
The well-meaning aspirations of solar and wind adherents wanting to create a sustainable future for New Mexico (as well as a Santa Fe municipal electric utility) are fraught with more shortcomings than most of its idealists imagine. Right off, both solar and wind are very material-intensive and much too costly for the meager energy output realized. Furthermore, they don't stand well on their own without subsidy and have exorbitantly long payback periods.
Current breakthroughs in fusion energy technology (low energy nuclear reaction or LENR) are outputting tremendously more energy on a tabletop than does a massive wind tower or large solar electric panel 24/7 at a fraction of the cost. Additionally, applied tests have consistently proven that fusion outperforms coal or nuclear fission by multiples and has no radiation or toxic byproducts.
Being ahead of the curve isn't always an easy path to pave, but a fresh crop of energy technology specialists are now engaged in bringing market-ready LENR electric-generation products to commercialization with the backing of millions in venture capital. An ultra-advanced energy landscape is taking shape that Santa Fe and New Mexico needs to stop and take a look at.
Richard Dean Jacob
Santa Fe
Footing the Bill
Really great story, Peter St. Cyr. I think the point/counterpoint approach works well here. This is the part that should scare the bejeezus out of every consumer of PNM electricity: "PNM ratepayers could face millions of dollars in evironmental liablities if PNM and its San Juan generating plant partners purchase the mine at the end of of 2017."
PNM is poised to do what so many other private entities do when they take on public roles in providing the basics in community services: reap the rewards of a captive market and pass along the damages and responsibility to pay for poor planning (while they make their profits as easily and as quickly as possible) to a vulnerable consumer base.
If PNM purchases the coal plant, it seems their ratepayers will be permanently "duct-taped" to the clean-up costs of the damages created by the coal mining operation since it was opened.
Bruce Wetherbee
Santa Fe
Blog, Dec. 10: “Whistleblower”
Bad for Your Health
Let us look at the New Mexico Department of Health this way. Currently, there is no oversight for tax-subsidized community health dental clinics in the state. Further, if there are any reports of policy violations, fraud or gross mismanagement, there is not a state agency that can go in and investigate. The DOH knows this and has done nothing to remedy the situation, and rather just throws its hands in the air.
Meanwhile, there is dialogue in the Legislature that would allow people with two-year training and no college degrees to perform dental surgery and fillings on patients, using the argument that New Mexico is short on dentists. Outside special interest money is coming into the state to try and make the legislation happen.
How about the agencies do their jobs and regulate those already being paid by us to treat patients in shortage areas? I guess that would require work and ethics on the government's part.
Sylvia Sandoval
via Facebook
Movies, Dec. 10: “Eternal Vanity”
Maybe
It looks like an interesting film, but as far as Aubrey de Grey's eccentricities, it is this that enables him to think outside the box, so it is probably a strength, and I am sure he must be relieved scientists and doctors are realizing has was on the right track all along.
Personally, I think it is hard for most to grasp how the battle against age-related ill health, and as a side benefit of attacking aging itself, will ultimately be won, but it will be through incremental steps, and in my opinion, de Grey's theory of SENS, which deals with the repair of the damage that accumulates through aging without interfering with the rate at which it is laid down, offers us a route to life extension without the need to cure the aging process itself.
Dr. Johnty
SFReporter.com
News, Dec. 3: “Infant Lowly”
Denied by Ommission
Incredible! Your article on the winter weather forecast failed to mention climate change. Temperatures have been 10 degrees above normal lately here, and the planet is on track for the hottest year ever recorded. The sin of climate change denial takes many forms, one of which is omission. SFR would do well to have a weekly column on the crisis now facing humanity and all species, instead of the usual diversions such as Drink or Savage Love. The you-know-what is hitting the fan...
Bird Thompson
Santa Fe
Cover, Dec. 3: “Winter Guide”
How Dare...
Is Robert Basler young, stupid or just trying to be "funny" in his assessment of Albuquerque 's rich tradition of calling them luminarias? Very tasteless during a season of kindness and giving.
Peg Cronin
Santa Fe
Commercial Christmas
How positively timely! My friends in San Antonio, Texas, just told me that tomorrow is the Fiesta de las Luminarias, staged all along the beautiful River Walk. However, like all great holiday traditions, this one has been ruined by commercialism—this year it's the Ford Fiesta de las Luminarias. Ugh! Who's the farolito sponsor in Santa Fe?
Ellen Price
Sfreporter.com
Movies, Nov. 19: “You’re Better Off”
Dissonance
I don't think the author watched the same movie I did [The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1]. The acting was incredible, and the setting was phenomenal.
Pat Ferryman
SFReporter.com
News, Nov. 19: “King Hemp”
Further Uses
Readers might be interested in learning about hemp bast fiber providing "among the best power-energy characteristics...ever reported for an electrochemical capacitor" [according to an American Chemical Society journal]. Last February, Congress passed a law that allows for 10 to 12 acres of hemp research, provided that the state legalizes industrial growth and the project is allied with a college.
Now we need to educate our legislators about this new research and income potential and get them to legalize growing industrial hemp in New Mexico.
Marjorie Johnson
Española
Blog, Nov. 19: “Ride Sharing Arrives in SF”
Capitalism at Work
Capitalism strikes again. A corporation makes billions urging Americans to break the law. Uber drivers text and drive! It is illegal to text and drive.
And, consumers seem to have no problem encouraging the illegality. I guess they believe their convenience outweighs the safety of everyone else on the streets. When someone is killed or injured by an Uber driver, shouldn't the passenger be held liable? They are morally.
Steve Gigliotti
SFReporter.com
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