Readers write

Trump’s real goal in Venezuela is its oil

There is an obvious government ready to take over in Venezuela, and it’s not the U.S.

President Nicolas Maduro would not have won his latest election in 2024 if the ballot count had ever been made public. The opposition had gathered around now Nobel Peace Price laureate Maria Corina Machado. Maduro ruled that she was not eligible to run, so the opposition chose Edmundo Gonzalez as her stand-in. They have been sitting on the sidelines ever since. They could take over tomorrow.

The people proposed by President Donald Trump have proved themselves to be incompetent to run our own government.

It seems obvious that Trump’s real goal is to claim Venezuela’s oil. Maybe Trump is copying Russian President Vladimir Putin in Ukraine and Chinese President Xi Jinping in Taiwan.

RICHARD PATTERSON, DECATUR

Let Paris be a model for Atlanta transportation

Regarding the front-page headline “Will suburban voters ever support transit expansion?” (Jan. 2), I have a suggestion for all of metro Atlanta, especially the planners and politicians: Check out the Paris, France, RATP website map — www.ratp.fr/en/plan-metro.

As a student in Paris, I could get to every corner of that great metropolitan area by metro. No car needed!

In addition, Paris recently made the heart of the city much more pedestrian and bicycle-friendly.

Especially in anticipation of hosting the World Cup, metro Atlanta cannot claim to be a “great international destination” unless it greatly improves transit expansion.

SALPI ADROUNY, JOHNS CREEK

Georgia energy plans need more emphasis on solar

A recent opinion piece (”Data centers in Georgia should lead the way on clean energy sources,” AJC, Jan. 1) has a disconnect between its title and content. It doesn’t mention the cleanest, most affordable and ready-to-deploy energy resource: the sun.

The author discusses only nuclear as a low-carbon option. Plant Vogtle is a great resource for our state, but Units 3 and 4 required about 15 years and $36 billion to build, an $18 billion cost overrun. Small modular reactors may be helpful one day but are still in development.

Solar, however, can be built quickly, is increasingly affordable, and can be paired with battery storage to provide power when the sun isn’t shining. Solar could meet much of sunny Georgia’s power needs, but supplies only 7% today.

Georgia Power and the PSC should pursue an “all of the above” approach but with far more emphasis on the freely available source of energy we can harness fastest and most affordably right now: solar and storage.