Renewable Energy Power Lines

A proposed project will challenge environmentalists to pick where their loyalty lies. A proposed power line would stretch 460 miles from New Mexico to Arizona. However, this wouldn't be a normal power line. It would transport solar energy from the desert and wind energy from the plans. This sounds like a great news! You would think It would be an environmentalists dream, but don't make your decision until you hear all the facts. The power line would cross grasslands, skirt two national wildlife refuges and traverse the Rio Grande, all of which are habitats rich in wildlife. "The graceful sandhill crane, for example, makes its winter home in the wetlands of New Mexico's Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge, right next to the path of the proposed power line. And much of teh area falls under the protection of the Interior Department's Bureau of Land Management (BLM)." The state of New Mexico loves the sandhill crane and would hate to see any harm come to it.
Many environmentalists find themselves questioning which side of the plan they belong on. Should they use green energy and risk the wildlife or should they save the wildlife and continue to pollute the earth by burning coal. One concern is that Renewable-energy projects often take up more land than conventional sources of energy. For example, "it can take 300 times as much land to produce a given amount of energy from soydiodiesel as from nuclear power plant. Regardless of the climate policy the nation adopts, the paper predicts that by 2030, energy production will occupy an additional 79,537 square miles of land." Some govenrment officials are beginning to wonder if this projects and its use of renewable energy is in fact green.

Just like the environmentalists I'm torn about this issue. I feel like it is the beginning of change, but I think they should mavbe map out a new path for the power lines and/or invest in trying to find new technology that would take up more space. Renewable energy is great, but it shouldn't distroy the land and the environment becasue if it does it's just as bad as our current sources of energy.