Nuclear power, geothermal wells and solar energy are all technologies we should be pursuing. However, the federal government controls energy development on the Outer Continental Shelf which generally begins three miles offshore.

President Donald Trump has recently declared this region open to oil exploration, overriding a general ban that’s been in effect (“Protect marine national monuments from destruction,” Oct. 27). He has made his irrational disdain for wind energy abundantly clear, which some say is based on the installation of offshore wind turbines visible from his golf course in Scotland.

So, unfortunately, President Trump has put the nation at a crossroads where we are forced to decide between drilling wells and wind turbines off our coasts because this is where both oil and wind resources exist.

Of course, we shouldn’t pursue an energy policy enacted by our largest global competitor. China relies too much on coal-fired power plants. However, they are cleaning our clock when it comes to renewable energy. Solar panels and modern wind turbines were first developed in the United States, but we lost our manufacturing edge to produce extraction devices at scale.

Nobody wants to live downwind of a conventional power plant. Residents near Yucca Mountain, where nuclear waste is buried, aren’t happy. Folks object to farmland being converted to solar fields. And yet economic development requires new sources of energy. Difficult decisions need to be made.

— Eric Greene, Annapolis

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