I REMEMBER climbing Maine's Cadillac Mountain, where day first breaks on the U.S. coast, to cover "Sun Day," celebration of a new era of renewable energy.
Maybe it was prophetic; the assembled politicians and environmentalists never saw the sun that overcast morning. There was some chanting, brief speeches, a dance to the sun, whiffs of marijuana on the breeze; and we all climbed down.
Soon after, President Jimmy Carter was gone, and Ronald Reagan put the solar panels on the Carter White House into permanent storage.
A quarter-century later, Maryland and other states are just getting serious about renewable energy. On Tuesday, the legislature will hear House Bill 1308, which would make utilities supply 7.5 percent of their electricity from renewable sources by 2014 (up from about zilch now).
You might assume environmentalists would be unanimously supportive. And indeed, from the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, concerned about air pollution's huge impact on the bay, to the Chesapeake Climate Action Network, working to reduce global warming, there's backing for HB 1308.
But many in Maryland's environmental community are genuinely torn about this issue.
On the one hand, this is what they've been hollering for for decades - a beginning to the end of reliance on foreign oil, as well as an antidote to dirty air, to destructive mining and drilling, to concerns about radioactive waste.
And yet, "clean" energy may be exacting more of an environmental price than necessary.
I spoke with Dan Boone, one of Maryland's finest naturalists, and a Sierra Club member who compellingly articulates the concerns (The club takes no official position on HB 1308).
The immediate issue is wind turbines, the overwhelming source of renewable power in the near future (an estimated 77 percent of renewable potential energy in the Mid-Atlantic).
It will take more than 2,000 turbines, each up to 450 feet tall, giant blades visible for miles, to make 7.5 percent of Maryland's electricity by 2030. For the entire Mid-Atlantic, it will take more than 12,000.
Generally located in clusters of dozens, or even hundreds, these so-called "wind farms," Boone says, "are actually major industrial facilities."
And they are largely exempt from any regulations that would minimize their environmental impacts, he notes. Two wind facilities visible from Maryland in Pennsylvania and West Virginia "have bulldozed the forests from huge tracts of mountain ridges," Boone says.
