Former military bases cry out to be reused. Sometimes it works pretty well – Pease Tradeport in New Hampshire is finally taking off – but often they just end up mostly sitting there, a collection of decaying buildings and in-ground pollution that is too expensive to be cleaned up and turned into something useful.
So why not cover them with solar panels? That seems to be the idea behind a proposal to turn former Loring Air Force Base in Limestone, Maine, which is way up there on the Canadian border.
The proposal, still in the very early stages, calls for 100 megawatt of panels, which is nothing to sneeze at; it would be the largest solar farm in New England, if it goes through. Here’s the Bangor Daily News story.