Would Orville Wright Drill Offshore?
Posted by anne on 23 Jul 2008 | Tagged as: Maryland, Mike Tidwell, Solutions, renewable energy
See below for an Op-Ed published today in the Baltimore Sun by CCAN Director Mike Tidwell. Enjoy.
Let’s make history again
By Mike Tidwell
July 23, 2008
Baltimore Sun
I recently stood on the windy coast of North Carolina where Orville and Wilbur Wright made their maiden flight in 1903. That motorized glider, constructed with bicycle parts, lifted off and flew nearly 900 feet in 59 seconds. Americans, astonishingly, were walking on the moon 66 years later.
The miracle of U.S. air and space travel, achieved in an eye blink, is something we should keep in mind as we once again turn to our coastlines for answers. The same windy Atlantic shore that gave rise to human flight now offers a new fork in the road with two profoundly different technological and moral visions awaiting our national decision.
One vision involves turning thousands of miles of our shoreline - on both coasts - into new havens for oil drilling. Never mind rapid global warming. Never mind our reckless addiction to oil. Never mind federal government data showing it would do little for gas prices. The new drumbeat, even among many Democrats, is, “We gotta get more - offshore, onshore, wherever.”
That’s certainly one vision for our coastlines for the 21st century.
Thankfully, there’s another, entirely different, vision out there. It embraces the pioneering spirit of the Wright brothers. It promises positive, transformative, sky’s-the-limit change. It’s a vision that says: Let’s build along our coastlines, but instead of oil platforms, let’s put up wind farms. And let’s tap the power of ocean waves and ocean tides for energy, rather than climate-wrecking crude oil. In the process, let’s make history so that schoolchildren remember 2008 they way they now remember 1903. Continue Reading »







nergy wants to build the first new nuclear reactor in recent memory right here in Maryland. This makes me uncomfortable due to concerns with waste management and costs – but mostly because I would much rather see those billions of dollars invested in true climate solutions. The Maryland General Assembly even passed legislation this past year calling for increased investment in energy efficiency and renewable energy sources, and I would love to see these initiatives fast-tracked, instead of the fast-tracking of a new reactor at Calvert Cliffs.
Image by
Therefore, it should come as no surprise that the states and utilities that rely most heavily on coal are being the hardest hit by this growing energy boondoggle. States like West Virginia that get more than 90% of their energy from coal saw their electricity rates rise twice as fast as the national average in 2007
understand basic economics, the price increases that we are currently seeing with coal, gas and oil are not entirely surprising. All fossil fuels are fininte resources that are used and not replaced. As the world uses more and more of these resources, the scarcer and more valuable they become, and therefore the price goes up accordingly.
An excerpt from the G-8 statement released on Tuesday:


