In his Nov. 18 column, Rick Martinez criticized environmentalists for wanting to heat homes with inefficient solar electric panels - when none would. Electricity is for electronics; the sun can directly heat homes and water.
It's dishonest for a conservative to define environmentalists as wanting costly, wasteful technology when their solution is conservation. A well-insulated, efficient house can use less than one-fifth the energy of a standard home (look up passivhaus or passive house, in Germany since 1990, 1.5kw heating). And there are transportation alternatives that use a fraction of the energy of our auto fleet, with no foreign oil (or our corn ethanol).
Patrick Mortell
