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Winds of Change Could Reach Maine's Islands First

November 05, 2008 - ROCKLAND -- Maine's island communities face some big challenges these days.

And one of the biggest is the cost of energy, which can be two to five times higher on some islands than on the mainland.

But islanders are resourceful if nothing else, and they're sensing a huge opportunity in the breeze that sweeps over them virtually every day.

"Islands are small pieces of land surrounded by lots of water, and they're also small pieces of land surrounded by lots of wind," said Philip Conkling, president of the Island Institute in Rockland.

Maine's 15 islands with year-round residents are, in many ways, the most likely places to lead the transition away from dirty, expensive fossil fuels. Vinalhaven and North Haven are well on their way, with plans to convert to wind energy starting next summer. Others plan to follow.

In one sense, islanders now hope to sustain their communities using the same winds that fueled their settlement in the age of sail.

"It's taking really a historically valuable resource that hasn't been used for roughly 100 years and putting it back to work," Conkling said.

Next week, an islander who lives off the coast of Denmark will be in Portland and other coastal communities to provide an extra measure of inspiration.

Soren Hermansen lives on Samso Island, which became a global laboratory for renewable energy 10 years ago. Then, like Maine's island communities, it was threatened by the high costs of energy and goods and a struggling economy.

Today, the island of 4,300 residents generates more wind power than it uses and is considered a carbon-neutral community, which means it keeps as much carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere as it puts in. And, led by Hermansen, it has ensured that a way of life will not be swallowed by a global energy or economic crisis.

"His little island has become kind of a worldwide symbol," said Conkling, who arranged for Hermansen to bring his story to islanders here.

Maine's island communities can use a little pep talk.

Already facing higher costs for energy, food and transportation, islands have been hit especially hard by the global economic meltdown. Their financial lifeblood, the lobster industry, tanked in the past month along with the global banking system and demand for lobster dinners. Lobstering families all along the coast, and entire offshore communities, are heading into a harsh winter.

The pressures are sure to add support, and urgency, to the quest for wind power. Islanders are protective of their landscapes and scenic value, but that doesn't appear to be standing in the way of huge turbines, or energy independence.

Ninety-eight percent of the electric ratepayers on Vinalhaven and North Haven recently supported a $14 million plan to build three large turbines on a Vinalhaven hilltop. Unlike with more controversial wind projects, the people who will have to live with the sight and sound of the turbines are the same people who will reap the benefits of clean, cheap energy.

On Thursday, Hermansen will visit Portland and Casco Bay islands, and he'll speak at the Portland Museum of Art at 7 p.m. (For tickets, call 207-594-9209 or go to www. islandinstitute.org.) He'll travel to Vinalhaven and North Haven on Friday and will speak at the Sustainable Island Living Conference in Belfast on Saturday.

Conkling believes hearing the story of Samso's islanders will bring hope here.

"They're islanders," he said. "They're just not about to embrace a new idea for the sake of a new idea, and yet they realized they basically had to do something different if their way of life was going to survive. And that's basically the same story here."

By JOHN RICHARDSON November 1, 2008
Portland Press Herald


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