Who is Lance Wilson?

In a July 31 letter to the editor Lance Wilson takes issue with the July 10 New York Times article “Costs surge for building power plants.”

He references that, “There’s massive inflation in copper and nickel and stainless steel” and “Duke Energy, one of the country’s largest utilities and most experienced builders, states that in May 2005 they wanted to spend $2 billion to build twin 800-megawatt units, but 18 months later, in November 2006, said it would cost $3 billion.” The story goes on to say that, “There’s real sticker shock out there,” Randy H. Zwirn, president of the Siemens Power Generation Group. He estimates that in the last 18 months the price of a coal-fired power plant has risen 25 percent to 30 percent.

Wilson also takes issue with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology report “The Future of Coal” that states that offset tax will be $32 per ton for CO2 emissions for coal-fired generation plants, which calculates out to be $1.5 billion for the 40-year life of the 100-megawatt plant Matanuska Electric Association proposes to build. Wilson also states in his letter that, “I’ve spoken to Mr. Erickson about this before and he agreed with me that there is no such tax now.”

Other than his obvious lack of knowledge or research on the subject, the thing I take issue with is that I’ve no clue as to who the man is. I’ve never heard of, seen, nor spoken to the man before.

Bill Erickson

Wasilla