Meeting Williston’s Energy Needs into the Future

If we as a state and we as a town are going to get to 90% renewables by 2050 to counter global warming, we will have to address two main energy needs: our transportation methods and our building heating methods. Our vehicles will need to be electric and our homes will need to be electric and biomass. These are daunting challenges split into two components: the devices that we will use and the electric sources of our energy. The first part will be met by the ingenuity of our people and the market place filling our needs as climate change becomes more dire. The second part is something that we as a town can address. We can calculate the energy requirements of the town, now and for our future needs; identify the best sites for wind and solar, have a discussion and come to consensus on which sites meet our criteria the best, pre-permit them and figure out how to build them out (private venture; public/private or town owned). The Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission has funds to help towns conduct studies of this nature and is something we should take advantage. Creating power in our town and state will keep about $850M in Vermont; help fight global warming; create local, well-paying jobs; make us a more resilient community and control energy prices going forward. I am suggesting that a group of SW members spearhead this effort to create this plan or form a Town Energy Committee to do this.