Solar energy is the future

To the Editor;

In 1879, Portland had the first telephones in Maine. By the mid-1880s, Dirigo Telephone Co. in Farmington was busy extending telephone lines to rural parts of the state. Cooperation of government was required because lines crossed private property. Portland in 1882 passed an ordinance to allow “the erection of poles and wires for telegraphic and telephonic purposes in the streets and public grounds of the City.”

I can’t imagine municipalities, the Legislature or the governor at that time not having done everything possible to facilitate this new technology. Fast forward to 2016, and we find another new technology: solar technology. Germany now gets 7 percent of its power from solar panels. China plans to triple its solar capacity over the next five years. Have we become a country with second-rate vision?

We have a governor opposed to fast-tracking solar and a Legislature that apparently can’t see the future. The Legislature was unable to override Gov. Paul LePage’s veto of the solar bill. But congratulations to Rep. Norm Higgins, R-Dover-Foxcroft, who clearly sees the future in solar and the Internet and was an energetic supporter of the bill, as was Sen. Paul Davis, R-Sangerville.

David P. Frasz
Dover-Foxcroft