http://bangordailynews.com/2010/07/04/opinion/july-5-letters-to-the-editor/ Bangor daily News letters to the editor  Monday, July 5th, 2010 including;
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The TVA lesson

The June 26-27 BDN told us how Kay Phaneuf, 53, died after National Grid shut off the electric to her oxygen machine. She hadn’t paid her bill. The Boston Globe mentions she was a grandmother, cancer survivor and went to St. Joseph’s parish in Salem, N.H.
The Columbia Missourian reported that 30-year-old Nathan Graham Curry died of hypothermia in his home on Dec. 4, 2009, after his power had been shut off in September.
Michigan Welfare Rights representatives claim 18 people died last winter in Detroit because of DTE Energy shut-offs.

Some people might wonder about our nation. Not I. Jesus tells us we’re offspring of vipers in Matthew 12:34. So what’s that electric guitar distortion pedal shiver when we hear the first illegal fireworks on the Fourth? Could there be fine fruit too?

On MPBN, Libby Mitchell said: “We have entrepreneurs in Maine who are struggling to start photovoltaic and geothermal industries. The high cost of energy is one of the biggest barriers to businesses.”

It appears having lived in the South, Libby learned the lesson of the federally owned Tennessee Valley Authority which bea.gov says added an estimated $3 billion into the federal budget receipts in the first quarter of 2009, producing inexpensive electricity for 9 million people in seven southeastern states.

Tva.gov says its industrial rates in 2008 were 16 percent lower than the U.S. retail average, commercial rates 9 percent lower and residential rates 20 percent lower. Hit the juice.

Keith C. Taft

Van Buren