Let's be realistic about renewables.

• Author: Erickson, George
• Position: WE HEAR YOU - Letter to the editor

I agree with Lester Brown's goals (Interview, December/January issue), but science disputes his belief that we only need wind and solar, which relegates clean, efficient, safe, C02-free nuclear energy to the dustbin.

Yes, we must drastically reduce our burning of carbon, but those who have run the numbers know that these 30 percent efficient "alternatives" require carbon-burning plants to supply the other 70 percent, which creates more CO2. Now consider the explosion in San Bruno, California, that destroyed thirty-two homes and killed eight people, the millions of U.S. natural gas (methane) leaks, and the horrific California methane geyser--not leak--to realize what the green bias against nuclear power has caused.

How can environmentalists justify praising windmills that kill almost a million birds and a million...