How is electricity generated?

To the Editor:

The recent article in the paper about the charging stations for electric vehicles made me wonder, where will the electricity come from?

Out here in the Midwest we have several sources: coal, nuclear, natural gas, solar and wind. Some people would have us quickly eliminate coal and nuclear and eventually natural gas. Each of those have pros and cons while solar and wind are considered renewable with no pollution. As coal fired power plants are taken offline or converted to burn natural gas or are replaced by natural gas turbine power plants, the supplies of natural gas are being impacted and the cost of natural gas for heating homes has increased. Electric rates have also increased in the state. Wind and solar are wonderful when there is wind and sunshine, but they must be backed up buy quick responding natural gas turbine power plants.

I think we must be sure to have plenty of natural gas now and in the future. To make solar and wind viable power sources, there needs to be massive battery banks to store electricity. Those batteries and the ones in electric vehicles require large amounts of lithium, nickel, and cobalt. Most of the lithium comes from China. Northern Minnesota does have large reserves of nickel, cobalt, and copper, but it needs to be mined. The wind turbine alternators and electric vehicle motors require lots of copper, too. The life span of the wind turbines is about 20 years. Everything but the blades can be easily recycled. It is uncertain what will become of the blades as far as recycling is concerned.

Hopefully the concrete foundations are used again, if not, then what?

The life span of the solar panels is 25 to 30 years. Most of the materials are recyclable if it is cost effective to do so. The electric vehicle batteries have an 8-year warrantee, and they are recyclable. Let’s step carefully into the clean energy future so we don’t have an economic and/or energy disaster. Remember what happened in Texas during the February 2021 cold snap?

Michael Lundgreen

Fairmont