Government today released its nine-year plan for a new energy policy in Bermuda.Environment, Planning and Infrastructure Minister Walter Roban unveiled the White Paper on Energy.Achieving its goals, he said, “will be extremely demanding, and will require nothing short of a national energy transition”.The long-anticipated document “outlines how we will begin a path toward an alternate future not bound by fossil fuels”, Mr Roban said, adding that it was the first of its kind among British dependent territories, and produced by a completely local staff.The two most critical issues driving the policy document were energy security and climate change, the Minister said.“The primary threat to energy security in Bermuda is what has been described internationally as peak oil the time at which the world’s production of oil peaks, and thereafter enters a period of terminal decline,” he said.Mr Roban described Belco, which powers the Island using fossil fuels, as “a partner in the move to make this White Paper a reality”, and “not a boogeyman”.Turning to the issue of climate change, he said: “Climate scientists have made it very clear that greenhouse gas emissions must peak within the next few years, and then decline to less than one ton per person, on average, by 2050, to avoid dangerous changes to the global climate.”Bermudians currently produce 14 tons each. The new goal is to reduce emissions below ten tons per person by 2020.“Fortunately, the technologies required to achieve the goals of the White Paper exist today and most are already affordable, so our goals can and will be reached,” Mr Roban said, citing compact fluorescent lights, solar water heating and solar photovoltaic panels as readily available.Bermuda has a “policy vacuum” with fossil fuel use, the Minister said, and legislative changes would be addressed.These include amendments to the Energy Act 2009 to cut the Island’s greenhouse emissions.According to the White Paper, it will also require transferring responsibility for Bermuda’s energy to an independent regulatory authority.The document can be read in full at www.energy.gov.bm.