OIL: Stop and think

Before you start squawking about the awful oil trains that haul oil from our one-area code sparsely populated states to coastal counties where more than 80 percent of Americans live just remember we didn’t want oil extracted on our coasts. We forget that pipelines leaked oil into the Yellowstone River or exploded beneath a San Bruno, Calif., neighborhood. Yet we built homes right next to pipelines in Post Falls.

Americans want alternative energy generated by made-in-China photo-voltaic solar panels that will be filling our landfills in 20 years so we can keep that A/C, hot tub and pool going, but we don’t want China to burn coal to power the factories that build these panels? We’d rather China burn diesel to generate electricity like Hawaii does? Good thinking!

How about just lose weight to stay cooler, keep our hydro-power, conserve energy with LED bulbs, wood heat and a ceiling fan while we forsake the online shopping mall on the iPhone for the splitting maul. (No gas needed in a handheld splitter.) Just a thought.

MIKE RENO

Post Falls