LETTERS: NV Energy misallocating solar power purchases

NV Energy and solar

Your Nov. 1 article on the Crescent Dunes Solar Energy Plant in Tonopah noted that the new facility will be selling power to NV Energy for 13.5 cents per kilowatt hour. Then the power must be transported hundreds of miles to its point of use.

So why do I read, in opinion pieces as well as in other places, that NV Energy is purchasing power for half that rate, but still has decided to pay 13 cents for solar power from the Tonopah plant? NV Energy could still get all the solar power it wants in Las Vegas, no transport needed, for essentially nothing by encouraging homeowners to purchase more rooftop solar systems.

NV Energy talks like it's being forced to buy rooftop solar power for about 12 cents per kWh. In fact, in the last 18 months, my system has produced an extra 600 kWh and I have yet to receive my first check, even though NV Energy sold that 600 kWh to my neighbors for that 12-cent rate. I think NV Energy has some explaining to do.

Ed Dornlas

Las Vegas

Give ESAs a chance

Regarding the debate on Education Savings Accounts, why can't we just focus on each student? What does that student need? Is that student doing well and thriving in the current school environment, or does that child need more?

If the child wishes to change school environments, why can't we make that happen without regard to whom their parents are? If the opportunity for that individual to prosper is lost, there is no getting it back. Other influences will fill the gap, and that child might not recover. While people with no connection to the child dither about who gets what and whether it is fair, the child gets lost in the paperwork, loses interest in education and turns to less desirable things.

Rich people send their children wherever they want. For many poorer, non-English-speaking students, basic public education is the best option as they struggle to learn the language and customs. It is middle-class families that struggle to do the best for each child, caught between rich and poor, success and failure, being able to choose for their child or having the state dictate what is best.

The latest test scores for Nevada are terrible. What we are doing now is not working. Let's give ESAs a real chance at success for the families that choose to use them.

Linda Lovelle

Boulder City

Death sentence

Regarding the article on the Ammar Harris verdict ("Harris sentence: Death," Thursday Review-Journal): What a joke. I'm 68 years old and willing to bet I'll die before Harris does, and I didn't murder anyone. Unless one of Harris' fellow inmates takes care of it, he will live to a ripe old age.

Bill L. Wilson

Henderson

Water restrictions

I was pleased to read an article reporting the punishment of Beverly Hills and several other communities in Southern California for their failures to follow water allocation mandates ("Beverly Hills fined for not conserving enough water," Oct. 31 Review-Journal). Similar punishments should occur for wasting the most precious commodity in the Las Vegas Valley.

In Cottonwood Terrace, a gated community in Summerlin where I live, our lawn sprinkling systems have been in operation several times daily over the past week. Not only is this a shameful waste of a dwindling commodity here in the desert, but an infraction of the Southern Nevada Water Authority-mandated watering schedules for both fall and winter. I have made our management company and SNWA aware of this issue, but the water continues to flow.

Gerald Hurley

Las Vegas