Solar and wind power affect enormous expanses of land

The Nature Conservancy released a report last month, "Energy Sprawl or Energy Efficiency: Climate Policy Impacts on Natural Habitat for the United States of America."

The conservancy pointed out that wind, solar and renewable energy sources require far more land than nuclear energy and coal.

To produce 1 million megawatt-hours of electricity per year - enough to power 90,000 homes - one would need 30 square miles of wind turbines. Biofuels such as ethanol and biodiesel would affect 500 square miles to power those homes.

Generating that amount of power with coal would require four square miles. Natural gas would take eight. Nuclear power would require one square mile.

Other forms of energy, from geothermal to petroleum, would require from three square miles to 18 square miles to produce that amount of electricity.

The term "energy sprawl" accurately describes the multiple trade-offs that face the nation. The American people need to think through what they are being urged to do.

The climate-change energy bill passed by the House of Representatives requires power companies to get 20 percent of their power from wind and solar by 2020. This would have huge impacts on vast swaths of land.

"Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar recently announced plans to cover 1,000 square miles of land in Nevada, Arizona, California, Colorado, New

Mexico and Utah with solar collectors to generate electricity," wrote Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., in the Wall Street Journal.

"He's also talking about generating 20 percent of our electricity from wind.

"This would require building about 186,000 50-story wind turbines that would cover an area the size of West Virginia, not to mention 19,000 new miles of high-voltage transmission lines."

That is an awful lot of environment to affect in the name of saving the environment. And as the nation's energy needs rise, the amount of land affected would have to increase.

"The 1,000 square-mile solar project proposed by Mr. Salazar would generate, on a continuous basis, 35,000 megawatts of electricity," Alexander wrote. "You could get the same output from 30 new nuclear reactors that would fit comfortably onto existing nuclear sites."

Before committing the nation to expensive crusades, Congress and the president need to explain what the consequences of these decisions would be.