Green Times

The Cape and Islands should produce enough renewable energy to meet all of the region’s electricity demands and slash in half the use of fossil fuel for heating and transportation - all by 2020.If it sounds bold, that’s because it is.

The plan represents the long-term vision of the Cape & Islands Renewable Energy Collaborative, or CIRenew, a group aiming to unite people and organizations interested in promoting sustainable energy.

On Tuesday, the group outlined its 2020 goal and other initiatives while issuing a regional energy action plan called “CIGoGreen: A Report to the Community and a Call to Action.”

The report promotes ways Cape Codders can save energy, live and promote a “green” lifestyle, and buy power created from alternative-energy sources. The group’s Web site also has forums “to inspire others” and offers a way to e-mail questions to local experts.

“These goals are extremely ambitious yet technically feasible based on commercial and near-commercial technologies for using energy wisely, generating clean power, creating green buildings, and fueling personal vehicles and transportation systems,” the report states. “The biggest challenge will be to accomplish them in ways that make sense from all perspectives.”

Tuesday’s press conference at the Hyannis Transportation Center came as voters ventured to the polls for the state’s presidential primary. But Chris Powicki, director of the group, said the event had not been timed to coincide with Super Tuesday.

“This was serendipitous,” Powicki said. “We’ve been working on getting something produced that everybody could agree to for a long time.”

[Source: CapeCodTimes]