“What can we do here in Maine?” to get cleaner, more dependable and affordable energy?

That question has lingered at the end of energy symposiums sponsored by the Camden Conference for each of the last five years on diverse and sometimes distant-seeming topics ranging from Middle East oil supply risks to the resource squeeze associated with China’s rapid industrialization.

This year, the symposium is tackling the question head-on: What can a low-income, low-population state do to take control over an energy future that often seems to be determined more in Houston, Riyadh or Beijing than in Bangor or Augusta?

The answer is almost certainly “a lot,” but determining what Maine’s energy future should look like and how we can get there won’t be easy. Maine’s energy problems are many and the solutions far from evident or easy – especially now that it’s clear we need as part of this effort to also fight the global warming that threatens to inundate large sections of our beautiful coast.

Decisions on such tough and important issues won’t be made in a day. What those of us who are involved this year’s daylong symposium hope to do is help Mainers focus on moving the discussion beyond the pattern of recurring crises that has constituted so much of the state’s experience with energy issues in recent years.

That pattern is evident again this winter. Officials and citizens groups have lurched from attempts to mitigate heating oil bills and firewood prices literally unaffordable to many shivering citizens to debates on the lessons of electricity supply alerts experienced in December when problems at a gas production platform off Nova Scotia left power plants in Maine short of fuel and consumers facing stern requests to conserve.

To avoid continued wandering in the energy wilderness, the first thing we should do is become better informed. Did you know, for example, that more than 80 percent of Maine homes are heated with fuel oil, while nationwide, fewer than 8 percent of homes have oil heat? And that worldwide, the basic oil product that is both heating oil and diesel is in increasingly tight supply and therefore likely to be pricier than competing fuels much of the time in the future?

Equally, did those of you intensely committed to either opposing or supporting a liquefied natural gas terminal in Maine know that, whether it’s licensed or not, such a facility won’t be built and can’t be used before 2012 – and probably not until much later – because there’s no LNG to put in it? Because all stable supply worldwide through that date is already tied up under long-term contracts?

Already, a proposed terminal in Nova Scotia that was fully licensed, well-funded and backed by substantial oil and gas producer Anadarko was dropped in 2006 because dependable LNG supply couldn’t be found.

So is fighting – or supporting – such terminals how policy-makers and community activists should be spending so much of their time? Or do we need first to step back and take a more studied, broader view of what our longer-term energy future should be and how can we establish a more secure and diverse energy mix?

Iberdrola, the Spanish utility that is buying out Central Maine Power, is the world’s largest wind power producer and a substantial operator of minihydro plants. What role should it be encouraged to play? Should an Ocean Energy Institute in Rockland be part of the answer?

Should Mainers be pushing to get broader access to natural gas to replace fuel oil in their homes, or is the state already too dependant on gas for electricity generation? Should propane provide a bigger part of the state’s heating?

Is nuclear power a necessary part of the energy mix after all, given the grave risks many see from climate change resulting from burning of all fossil fuels? Or is it still untenable in light of unresolved safety and waste disposal concerns? What about coal gasification?

All these myriad questions need to be examined, along with the underlying issue of how the state’s energy policy should be formulated. Often in Maine, complex up or down decisions on major energy projects are made at a local level. While community-level involvement is vital, outside help and broader participation are needed, too, in decisions on which so much rides for all of us Mainers and which so few of us thoroughly understand.

Informed debate and decision-making is required, and the energy symposium is a place to start.

Sarah Miller is the editor of “World Gas Intelligence” and moderator of the 2008 Camden Conference Energy Symposium, “Maine’s Energy Portfolio: What does it look like now? What should it look like in the future? How do we get there?” The symposium is from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 9, at the University of Maine Hutchinson Center in Belfast. For more information about the symposium, call 236-1034, or visit www.camdenconference.org.