Utah leaders believe we are blessed with low-cost electricity from coal-fired power plants, but we really pay through the nose, through the lungs and, finally, through the heart. Sometimes true cost is hidden, but along the Wasatch Front our air is visible. Dire warnings keep us inside. Our leaders insist cheap coal is here to stay, so they say no to renewable-energy power plants.

Paul Van Dam wants no more coal-fired plants ("Utahns can't afford the health cost of new coal-fired power plants," Opinion, Sept. 7). He fled Salt Lake's pollution for southern Utah. However, soon he may be breathing air from the proposed coal-fired plant across the border in Nevada. There is no escape.

Utah has no solar power plants, but it has plenty of sun. Let's take the challenge from our neighbors in Arizona and California and insist that solar and wind energy produce an increasing share of our electricity. We need to elect leaders who support clean energy production, and we need Congress to mandate power plant emissions reductions now.

John A. Boles

Salt Lake City