"People used to be more worried about nuclear power because it was new," said Levy, an associate professor of environmental health and risk assessment. "Now, it's wind power that seems to be the new technology while nuclear power has become less new, so some of the concerns over that have dissipated over time."
Oddly enough, wind power, which seems the stuff of gentle Dutch landscapes, now looms as a threat - an aesthetic one to some, and to migrating birds to others. Proposals to build wind farms off the coast of Massachusetts and in the mountains of Western Maryland have drawn fire recently.
"It's almost a classic risk perception issue," Levy said. "The negative impact of wind power is very easy to see - you can see directly what it is doing to your view - while its benefits are more amorphous."
It's not a clear wind-vs.-nukes fight, of course, and each option has its share of both proponents and opponents. But those who favor the third nuclear reactor at Calvert Cliffs can point to the first two that they've lived with all these years, while those who favor wind farms don't have a comparable existing example in their midst. Still, it's years from a resolution, with Constellation Energy's proposal for a new reactor having to get through the state's Public Service Commission and the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission before it could be built.
Meanwhile, while the proposal for a wind farm on state land in Western Maryland died, one that would place turbines off the coast of Delaware drew support from Gov. Martin O'Malley - and the hopes that the plan could be extended south to Maryland, as well.
Concerns remain over how the turbines would affect the vistas from Ocean City and other beaches - strange concerns, I think, given the neon-lit and Big Peckers-type of bars and amusements that already mar our coastline - but surely they would be a small price to pay for the state not going dark in the coming years from a predicted shortage of electricity. It would be pretty hard, or at least expensive, to play minigolf or blend all those icy drinks without some new sources of electricity.
jean.marbella@baltsun.com
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