At the start of a new political season, the attention of many Vermonters is focused on war in Iraq, a deepening health care crisis and Social Security reform. But a growing band of citizens across the state is getting serious about an even bigger political question: whether Vermont should secede from the United States.
Now the debate is coming to the big screen with the release of a three-part documentary entitled “Independence Trilogy: U.S. Empire, Green Mountain Voices, and a Second Vermont Republic.” The film will have its first public screening at the Institute for Social Ecology in Plainfield at 7 p.m. this Thursday.
“I wanted to create a common text that gives a sense of the shared conversation about Vermont independence,” said filmmaker Rob Williams, a professor of history and media studies at Champlain College in Burlington. Williams is a member of the Second Vermont Republic, a group that advocates for Vermont secession. He hopes to show the film around the state in the coming months.
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via Thomas Woods
Second Vermont Republic has more information on the film and the movement.
Vermont is truly a state of great ideas.
BRIDPORT, Vt.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Jan. 13, 2005–Fifteen-hundred Bridport dairy cattle of all ages, from first-calf heifers to mature milk cows, have become the newest generators in Vermont. Blue Spruce Farm today began producing electricity by burning waste methane gas for CVPS Cow Power(TM), (NYSE: CV – News) a first-in-the nation program directly linking CVPS customers, farm generation and the environment.
“The girls are now officially producing two streams of income, a milk check and a power check,” said Earl Audet, who owns the farm along with his brothers and their families. “This is one more way to diversify the farm, improve our bottom line, and manage our manure responsibly.”
CVPS Cow Power(TM), Vermont’s first voluntary renewable pricing program, has been awarded the Agency of Agriculture’s Commissioner’s Choice Seal of Quality. Customers can sign up to get all, half or a quarter of their energy through CVPS Cow Power(TM), which collects 4-cents per kilowatt-hour for the environmental benefit of the energy. That payment, along with 95 percent of the market price for energy, goes to the farm generator. If not enough farm generation is available, the funds support other forms of renewable energy in the region, or the CVPS Renewable Development Fund, set up to provide incentives to Vermont farms to build methane generators.
“Our goal is to create a brand new market, allowing customers a renewable energy choice, and providing farmers with new income and manure management opportunities, and we’re off to a good start,” CVPS program director Dave Dunn said. “CVPS Cow Power(TM) gives new meaning to the old saying: ‘One man’s trash is another man’s treasure.”
The concept is relatively simple. Manure is collected in a large concrete tank, where it is heated up, and methane is collected and produced. The gas is collected and fuels the generator, and the manure byproduct that is left, which contains no pathogens, little odor and no viable weed seeds, can be spread on fields as fertilizer, or the dry solids can be used for animal bedding.
Vermont Cows Bring Methane to the Grid
Blue Spruce Farm is expected to produce about 1.7 million kWh of energy per year. Numerous other farms are considering the idea, and some plan to combine their manure collection. It takes a farm with about 500 milking cows to produce enough energy for the Cow Power concept to be economically viable.
I first read about it here.