Cristoforo Colombo

Vermont is the East Coast's answer to Ecotopia. Despite being downwind from Midwestern coal plants, the Green Mountain State has been able to lower air pollution to unprecedented levels. It is the first state to achieve secondary treatment on all sewage plants and is now working on tertiary treatment.


Efficiency Vermont, a nonprofit established by the state public service board, is the nation's first utility company dedicated solely to improving energy efficiency.


Vermont recycles more than a third of its garbage and is aiming to achieve 50 percent by 2005. Over the last 10 years, the state has doubled its land set aside for conservation, buying 77,000 acres and acquiring the development rights to another 120,000 from timber companies. Osprey, loon and peregrine falcon have returned to their nesting grounds; the falcon has become the state's symbol for conservation. For an extra $20, residents can buy a special falcon license plate, with the money donated to acquiring even more lands.


The private sector has joined hands. "Green Hotels for the Green Mountain State," a consortium of local hostelries, provides low-impact accommodation for eco-tourists. The Vermont chapter of the Northeast Organic Farming Association has 800 members and 230 certified organic farms. Brattleboro's Co-Op—featuring every conceivable variety of organic foods-is one of the city's most successful supermarkets. Less than a mile away, an abandoned 19th-century cotton mill has been turned into an incubator for handcrafts, software firms and organic food companies. "The environment is a number-one priority for residents of this state," says James Bressor of the Vermont Department of Environmental Conservation. "People move here just because of the quality of life."


What is the engine that keeps this Ecotopia running? Nuclear power. An amazing 70 percent of the electricity generated in Vermont is nuclear—the highest proportion of any U.S. state. Reliable Vermont Yankee's reactor in Brattleboro supplies a third of Vermont's own power and exports the rest to neighboring states. Coupled with cheap hydroelectric power from Quebec, this enables Vermont to keep its lights lit, yogurt cold and computers humming, while burning almost no coal, oil or natural gas to generate electricity. The state's largest carbon-based fuel is wood, which powers 5 percent of the grid. "We've cut our use of fossil fuels as much as possible," says Dorothy Schnure of Green Mountain Power, which serves a third of the state and has just built a 6-megawatt (MW) wind farm, the biggest east of the Mississippi. "We think nuclear, hydro and renewables give us a very diversified power supply."

Do we really have an energy crisis? In terms of natural resources, the answer is a resounding "No!" As a glance at the historical price curves for everything from oil and coal to corn and soybeans will show, we are awash in natural resources. Coal supplies are plentiful enough to last for centuries. Shale oil deposits are good for 5,000 years. Natural gas is much more abundant than previously realized (and may be nearly infinite, if some contemporary theories are to be believed). Then there's nuclear power. Tapping into the root energy of the stars, the power inside the atom can run an entire city on a handful of fuel. It will be enough to help us colonize the moon and the planets if we ever become that ambitious.


So why do we live in perpetual fear of an energy crisis?