In the Times

To the Editor:

Re “Wind Power” (editorial, Jan. 9):

When you called for Interior Secretary Ken Salazar to make his own decision on the Cape Wind project soon after the March 1 deadline, I was hoping that you would call for him to kill this irresponsible project.

Most people don’t realize that it would take about a half dozen of these similarly environmentally blighting huge wind projects to match the output of a single nuclear power plant that would take up much less space and be much less visible. And the problem of the irregularity of the wind’s blowing has not yet been solved, while a nuclear plant’s output is steady.

Jay M. Pasachoff
Williamstown, Mass., Jan.
9, 2010

The writer, a solar physicist, is a professor of astronomy at Williams College.