In your issue of The Addison Independent dated Thursday, June 10, 2021, a letter to the editor describes an action by Heidi Willis, Salisbury, whereby she had exchanged her fossil fuel driven lawn equipment for electrically powered lawn equipment. I think this is fantastic. She shows that “it can be done.” We can convert from fossil fuel powered appliances to electrically powered appliances. We just need to do it. We have the ability and replacement appliances to do our business and not pollute with fossil fuel exhaust. Also, electrical machinery is much quieter.

Not only does Heidi “go electric” but she also implements numerous conservation techniques in her yard to attract butterflies, bees, frogs, and most likely small birds to nest and feed on the insects. We need more homeowners to follow her example so we all can go green and help the environment. We do not need any government edict to demand that we do so. However, I do have one question.

Where does the energy come from to recharge the electrical appliances? Does she plug into her house utility service (or her neighbor’s)? I could see that if one or two homeowners “went electric” there would not be much of an extra demand on the power grid system. But if a large percentage of a small to medium sized community tapped in, then there would be a large increase in the demand on the local grid system. Many utility power systems throughout USA are still powered using coal, oil, and natural gas. As a result, any increase in grid demand would reflect on some of these fossil fuel powered grid systems, and as a result the extra pollution would only be shifted from the homeowner to the centers of power production and distribution.

I had recently come across a small article in a USA Today newspaper whereby the electricity used by the new all-electric Ford Mach-E Mustang to go on 300 miles was enough to power a single house for several days. That is a lot of electricity, just to go green and not use fossil fuel.

Although there is a long way to go completely “go green” with a complete infrastructure, Heidi Willis has shown that the first step can be taken with the homeowner. A step that we all have the ability and opportunity to take.

John Mitchell

Fort Myers, Fla.