PUTNEY — I would like to congratulate the 44 people who came out to the Vernon presentation from the Vermont Council on Rural Development in the middle of winter, to start the process of fixing their future. This is just the beginning of a conversation that many other communities are having and continue to have.
Vermonters and those who live in Transition Towns around the world are facing the same kinds of issues, where for any number of reasons townspeople want to take a more active role in their future. Creating this future through community interaction and communication allows for a more meaningful, more sustainable future, where people produce their own goods, power, and food.
Vernon is blessed with lots of wide-open farmland, access to roads and waterways, and three-phase power lines. In fact, there is the potential not only for increased food production, but also for increased electric production using solar energy and farm waste.
With the closure of Vermont Yankee, the high-voltage power lines that both fed and took power from the plant are now somewhat idled, which means there is tremendous potential to feed electric power into the grid in Vernon - more so than any other place in Vermont.
One of my day jobs is helping solar-energy companies find locations for medium (community-scale) and large (utility-scale) solar projects. So from what I see from my little office in Putney (via Google maps), there are many good locations that could be producing power. In fact, it would take only a couple of years to start producing megawatts of power from several solar PV installations, and that would just be a beginning.
With your large farms, bio gas can be harvested using methane digesters, as it is in Westminster, where waste is converted to energy by the same process used at VY: creating steam to run turbines that generate electricity.
But it gets better: Waste heat can also be used for growing food in the winter, so a local food movement in Vernon could be just around the corner.
Exports of southern Vermont crops continue to grow, because of our clean air and water. Exports of energy could be next.
Vermont gained independence in 1777. We were the first state to draft a constitution, the first to abolish slavery, and the first to give all males (not just property owners) the right to vote.
So by using our natural resources and local ingenuity, Vermont has been and continues to be a leader in innovation and progressive thinking, and to have generated the power needed from natural sources like water and wind, well before atoms were used to boil water. I think it's time we looked to our roots.
This retooling - and re-skilling - begins with a desire to build a future worth living in, and it encompasses all aspects of the community, where some of the richest resources are the people who have been there the longest. Seek them out. Have more meetings. Get involved!
There are any number of possible futures for a more sustainable Vernon. You are off to a good start. I am happy to see it and to offer my help. What an exciting time this future holds for you.