I take challenge with a Feb. 2 column selling Home Invoice 450 (”Group photo voltaic invoice provides vitality justice to Appalachian Ohio”). The piece included inaccuracies about the place Ohio will get its electrical energy and mischaracterized present Appalachian realities.
Information from the U.S. Power Data Administration point out coal solely makes up 37% of our state’s electrical technology, not 69% as claimed within the article. As of 2020, pure fuel was Ohio’s single largest supply of web electrical energy technology, representing 43% of technology. To prime it off, Ohio noticed a 37.7% discount in CO2 emissions in its electrical technology sector between 2005 and 2015.
That was due to pure fuel manufacturing, a lot of which comes from Appalachia. Monroe and Harrison counties had Ohio’s two fastest-growing economies in 2020, rising by 20.5% every when most county economies shrank as a result of COVID-19. That progress was pushed by $93 billion of funding in Ohio by the pure fuel and oil trade since 2011.
I’m not writing to help or oppose HB 450, I merely need to share the reality about Appalachia. We’re grateful for the investments which have been made right here by Ohio’s pure fuel and oil trade, and we welcome extra investments by any trade.
Daniel Dougherty,
Hilliard