The Jan. 13 editorial, “Power failure,” unfairly criticized the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio for rejecting AEP Ohio’s request to build a new, solar-power facility in Noble County at the expense of its customers. Instead, the commission correctly encouraged AEP to build the project with private, risk-based capital instead of no-risk, ratepayer capital.
Basically, the commission favored shifting the risk of the investment from ratepayers to private investors.
The editorial urged readers to “look around” for anything else that could fill the void like the Turning Point project. This suggests there are no alternatives to help Ohio meet its renewable power mandates.
The commission didn’t need to look any further than at its own Certified Solar Projects report. The truth is that enough new solar generation is being certified every year in Ohio to put our state’s utilities right on track to comply with an aggressive 2025 mandate.
Ohio more than doubled the amount required last year. Most important, the commission recognized that these projects are all being voluntarily built and paid for by hundreds of private developers — without the need for ratepayer subsidies.
So why on earth should customers have to pay more every month to fund a new solar facility when the market is already producing these resources with private dollars?
I share the Beacon Journal’s enthusiasm for expanding Ohio’s advanced energy industry and bringing economic prosperity back to the Ohio Valley. But forcing customers to foot the bill for Turning Point would be like requiring local residents to pay a tax to build a new parking lot when a local investor is willing to do it.
I commend the commission for demanding that utility customers be served as economically as possible.
Robert Gessner
President
Massillon Cable TV, Inc./Clear Picture, Inc.
Massillon
NRA grip on the GOP
Although I have been a registered Republican for the past 60 years, I have frequently voted as an independent. Having opposed President Obama’s health-care law, I voted Republican in the past election.
Today, realizing the powerful grip the National Rifle Association has on the Republican Party, stopping any reasonable gun control, I am again switching parties.
The American people have overwhelmingly voiced their opinion on gun control.
The Congress is so cowardly (due to the NRA lobby) it refuses to do as its constituents demand.
The Republican Party is doomed if it cannot break away from the NRA and change some of its antiquated policies.
J. Roderick Lloyd
Cuyahoga Falls
Power surge for the Browns?
So, by spending $102 million for naming rights, is Chuck Jones, president of FirstEnergy, guaranteeing us, the stockholders and employees, a winning season for the Browns for the next 17 years?
Is he going to recall the more than 550 employees laid off in 2009 and 2012 to install and maintain his new exterior and internal signs at the football stadium?
Will he guarantee no decreasing dividends, no further reductions of employee benefits and no layoffs?
Nothing at all against the Browns organization, but starting over again with new personnel and coaches?
David Yeager
Cuyahoga Falls
All about the guns
I am sick of hearing that “guns don’t kill people, people kill people.”
If those guns were not so easily accessible, people would not be killing people.
Why are gun owners and National Rifle Association supporters so paranoid about their guns?
The Second Amendment, which they constantly cite as giving them the right to own guns, does not give them the right to own anything other than a musket.
I worry about the guy who thinks he needs a gun strapped to his hip to walk into a bar.
Y. Grace Porter
Akron
