Letters to the editor for Saturday, Sept. 15, 2018

‘Vote Yes on 6’ flyer is dishonest

In the mail recently was a flyer to “Vote Yes on 6,” 50 percent renewable energy by 2030. The picture of the billowing stacks on the cover is so far out of touch with reality.

In the last 40 years (or more) there hasn’t been a power plant in Nevada that looked remotely like the stacks pictured, not even the 1500 megawatt Mohave Generating Station in Southern Nevada (long since shut down).

The only coal-fired power plant in Nevada is the Valmy Generating Station between Winnemucca and Battle Mountain. Since Valmy started operating in the early 1980s, it has been a clean plant, operating in compliance with Nevada’s, and EPA’s, strict air quality regulations. All other power plants in Nevada (except, of course, the numerous geothermal power plants that have been operating for many years) are natural gas-fired and do not “belch” black, or even gray, smoke from their stacks.

Natural gas is a clean energy source. The only areas of the state with air quality problems, which are considered “non-attainment” by EPA, are the Las Vegas Metropolitan Area and the Reno-Sparks Metropolitan Area, and the main cause is vehicles! I don’t have anything against renewable energy, but the Nevadans for a Clean Energy Future should not try to scare the heck out of the citizens of Nevada with such a ludicrous, and frankly dishonest, picture on the cover of its recently mailed flyer. Not even out-of-state energy sources from which NV Energy gets power look like the one pictured on the front of the flyer.

Vote yes on 6 if you think solar and wind power is the way to go, NOT because you are scared by the dishonest picture on the Nevadans for a Clean Energy Future’s flyer.

I don’t think there is a power plant anywhere in the western United States that looks like the one pictured!

Gay McCleary

Carson City

Keeping the McCain tributes classy

In his latest encyclical, Lynn Muzzy sings Jim Hartman’s praises for his “classy farewell editorial to the great war hero and Sen. John McCain.” Two points. First of all, John McCain agreed with Donald Trump that he was no war hero. Most Americans disagree, of course, and I wouldn’t be surprised if Trump’s minions believe their idol would’ve been a war-fighting legend in Vietnam had it not been for those crippling bone spurs of his.

Secondly, though Jim Hartman is a classy guy who I’m often in agreement with, his op-ed on McCain veered off the high road into off-the-shelf talking points about how the ACA supposedly became law without Republican input, which is totally untrue, and how Speaker Pelosi supposedly said you couldn’t know what was in the ACA until after it was passed. That’s a partial quote taken out of context to create a false impression of what was actually said. That’s just standard political dissembling, I’m afraid, and anything but “classy.”

Rich Dunn

Carson City