AMHERST — What would it take to make more renewable energy sources available? What roadblocks do we face in trying to replace fossil fuels?
These are questions being posed by a group we usually associate with nonpartisan election information: the League of Women Voters.
An energy subcommittee of the Amherst League of Women Voters is planning a set of talks looking at how we make choices about our energy future, beginning with a Nov. 29 presentation at Jones Library by Ann George, vice president of ISO-New England, the independent electric grid operator for the region.
“Lighting our Future: The Choices and the Challenges” will also present a Dec. 6 talk by James Manwell, director of the UMass Wind Energy Center on “Offshore Wind Energy: A New Frontier for Massachusetts,” at 7 p.m. in Bangs Community Center.
The subcommittee began researching energy topics about two years ago, said spokeswoman Joyce Hatch, and it decided to share information it’s gathered on how we get to a more renewable energy future.
“It began as information-gathering and problem-solving, knowing there’s no knee-jerk answer to how to reduce fossil fuels and how to migrate to more renewable energy,” she said.
With 4,200 megawatts of nuclear, coal and oil capacity being retired over the next few years — including the 1,500-megawatt Brayton Point coal-fired plant in 2017 and 680-megawatt Pilgrim nuclear plant in 2019 — George’s talk will offer a “big-picture” view of sources of New England’s power supply and the investments that will need to be made in building transmission capacity to bring hydroelectricity to the region from Canada and wind power from interior northern Maine.
“How are we going to get there?” asks Hatch. “There are a lot of roadblocks, a lot of costs. The current infrastructure needs replacement. There’s potential out there, but how will we capture it? How do we keep lights on?”
Manwell, a professor of mechanical and industrial engineering at UMass, has been a U.S. representative to the International Electrotechnical Commission for offshore wind turbines and has served as an adviser to the National Academy of Sciences on offshore wind-energy technology.
The League subcommittee is looking at the possibility of additional presentations in the future on related topics, such as energy conservation, Hatch said.