Re: April 6 editorial.
Your editorial says it would be a mistake for Congress to cut funding for the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). Aside from the impacts outlined in your editorial, the longer-range impacts to the nation’s prosperity and security could be far greater. Cutting off research in renewable energy now would be similar to abandoning cellphone development in the 1990s believing that rotary phones would last forever — only worse.
China is already the world leader in electricity production from renewables, with more than double the capacity of the United States, and it produces over 63 percent of the world’s solar panels. However, without further technology development, even this massive capacity isn’t adequate to cover the world’s needs, and today NREL is square in the middle of that technology race.
If we step away now, the Trump administration and the Republican Congress will be responsible for forfeiting a leading U.S. role in tomorrow’s multitrillion-dollar advanced energy industry.
Donald Sorenson, Lakewood
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