Letter: Too optimistic about solar power

The opinion piece written by Marcia Bystryn ["New York still in the shade on solar," March 28] presents a very rosy picture for renewable energy, but she conveniently omits the details.

Any renewable energy program will have to be subsidized heavily with taxpayer money. The program she refers to, the Renewable Portfolio Standard program, would require many millions of dollars to support such an undertaking. This is money New York cannot spare for niche experiments.

As an example, a California solar-panel manufacturing company, Solyndra Llc, filed for bankruptcy in September because of low sales. President Barack Obama had given $535 million in loan guarantees to Solyndra, only to have the company fail a short time later. Solyndra's 1,500 employees had to be let go.

There just isn't a market for renewable energy; power plant (fossil fuel or nuclear) generation is much less expensive and infinitely more reliable. And China can manufacture the same solar panels for much less.

This type of energy cannot employ vast numbers of workers. Costs (again, taxpayer money) to provide jobs for a comparatively small number of workers are astronomical. It's a bad investment.

Environmentalists like Bystryn are dreamers. They read of such idealistic things and conclude you can get something for nothing. Yes, but only if you don't count the huge government financial subsidies that are necessary. In these days of government deficits, we need to be extra careful where our tax money is going.

Benjamin Beekman, Woodbury