I remember one particularly dark night while growing up. A nasty thunderstorm late in the afternoon had knocked out the power, and we couldn’t milk the cows. It was too cloudy and rainy for moonlight or even a few stars. And without power, it was dark!

My father and grandfather figured out a way to connect the tractor to the vacuum pump with a drive shaft from a self-unloading wagon. Then the elder turned his car headlights on and shone them through the doorway so we could see to milk.

Memory took me back to that place as we sat on the front porch recently hoping for a thunderstorm that left us a bit disappointed. But evening gave way to night, windows began to glow and yard lights dotted the countryside. I could see the red flash at the top of the cell tower off to the east, and the big TV towers to the west. My thoughts returned to the present, to energy and the population.

Last October, the U.S. population reached 300 million. Only 39 years ago, during my lifetime, that number was 200 million. In 1915, when my grandfather was about the same age I was on that dark night with no power, we were at 100 million. Almost 100 years later and three times larger, we Americans consume a lot of “stuff.”

Take oil: 20 million barrels per day, at 42 gallons per barrel. That’s 840 million gallons a day — 19 minutes of the total flow over Niagara Falls, in oil instead of water. Total daily world oil usage would take 75 minutes.

Or coal: About half our nation’s electricity comes from it. A National Geographic magazine article stated one power plant in Indiana generated enough power for 3 million homes, burning 300 train-carloads of coal each day.

Ten years ago, I would have been in awe of those numbers but forgotten them in a week. That was before I was nominated to run for a Sheldon Township councilman position in 1998. I was elected and, after several years in office, found out that our town was being considered as a possible site for wind turbines.

People often ask: “Are you for or against the windmills?” My answer is: “It’s not that simple.”

In 2006, wind-generated energy increased by 2,454 megawatts in the United States. Plans for 2007 are for an additional 3,000 megawatts, enough for 3 million homes. But our population is growing by just under 3 million a year. Can those additional 1,500 turbines even cover the growth in homes, let alone places of work, cities with streetlights, schools, restaurants and malls?

And where are we supposed to put 1,500 additional turbines every year? No matter what we do, with the rate of population growth, wind power will account for only about 1 percent of our total electricity needs, ever.

I know the controversy. Big politics and money are involved, not just energy. There are birds and bats, water tables and transmission lines, noise, shadow-flicker, ice-throw, stray voltage, lawsuits, possible fire and just plain “I don’t want to look at them.”

There’s also “it’s my land,” it’s good for the town, they’re good for the farmers, “cats kill more birds than those things” and just plain “I think they look cool!”

So I sit on my front porch wondering what this countryside will look like in the years to come. Will red lights that top off towers be across the horizon? Will there be a distinction at all between country and city? Will the stars forever disappear? Or will we all end up in darkness?