Tag Archives: Energy

Govs consider alternative energy, climate change

From The Associated Press, Sunday, June 27, 2010:

New transmission lines are critical to developing the alternative electricity production needed to meet demand in the coming years, governors of states in the West said Monday.

The need for new energy development and dangers of climate change topped the agenda at the annual meeting of the Western Governors Association, where participants recognized that more renewable energy is a priority that will require considerable private investment.

About half of the governors in the West are participating in the event.

The governors want to find a way to fast-track the construction of expensive, lengthy transmission lines to carry wind and solar power from rural to large urban areas.

Continue reading:  Govs consider alternative energy, climate change

$25M veto cuts into Alaska clean energy plans

From The Associated Press, Thursday, June 23, 2010:

Renewable energy development in Alaska is getting about half the funding lawmakers had approved after Gov. Sean Parnell decided to veto $25 million for projects he said can still be considered.

The Legislature had approved $50 million for the Alaska Renewable Energy Grant Fund, but Parnell cut it in half just before the 2010 Business of Clean Energy in Alaska conference last week.

The conference was organized by the Renewable Energy Alaska Project to show Alaska’s leaders how to build a more sustainable energy future for the state and tap into the worldwide $155-billion-a-year clean energy market.

The Alaska Journal of Commerce reported the veto could delay 46 projects around the state unless other funds are found.

Continue Reading: $25M veto cuts into Alaska clean energy plans

Wind farm could produce cheaper power, GVEA says

From The Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, Wednesday, June 23, 2010:

A wind farm near Healy would likely produce cheaper power than the wholesale prices Golden Valley Electric Association pays, Kate Lamal, a vice president for the utility, said Tuesday. 

Lamal said that if projections hold true, that would prevent customer rates from increasing if the utility finishes the $93 million project. 

Golden Valley is readying Eva Creek following an early June change to borrowing rules. The wind farm, near Healy, would be the largest in the state. 

The farm could produce power for a full cent less than Golden Valley’s current wholesale price, which is about 10.6 cents per kilowatt-hour, Lamal said at a presentation on wind energy Tuesday night. She compared that to projections of 14 cent power that preceded a recent change to reimbursement plans under a federal clean energy subsidy program. 

Lamal said the change means Eva Creek — which based on wind patterns at the site is projected to deliver 9 megawatts of power, a fraction of Golden Valley’s portfolio — won’t increase customer’s bills. 

“We think we’ve found a very elegant solution” to the diverging interests between members willing to pay extra for green power and those more interested in lowering rates, Lamal said. “That was the biggest factor, the (interest rate) that we can get to build this project.” 

Lamal said the utility is addressing the project’s other big variables: Years of data on wind patterns are strong enough to secure loans and a $2 million renewable-energy grant from the state has paid for studies of road access, bird migration patterns and integration with Golden Valley’s existing energy portfolio. She said the utility plans to solicit bids to present to the board of directors this fall. A supportive nod from directors would let engineering advance this winter, road and foundation construction occur next summer and turbine installation in 2012, she said. 

Report: Wood, wind could help meet rural Alaska energy needs

From The Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, Saturday, May 1, 2010:

Fort Yukon could turn to wood-fired power to ease its reliance on diesel fuel. Tanana could install wind turbines and start using half as much fuel within a few years.

The Alaska Energy Authority published those scenarios and about 200 more, including cost estimates, this week. The report comes less than a month after the Legislature set, as official state policy, the target of using wind turbines, hydroelectric dams and other renewable projects for at least half Alaska’s electricity by 2025.

“This gives you the pathway to get there,” said Steve Haagenson, director of the authority.

The agency released the report, an “energy pathway,” to coincide with a three-day rural energy conference in Fairbanks that ended Thursday.

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University of Alaska Fairbanks student helps campus go green

From The Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, Monday, May 3, 2010:

If Michael Golub isn’t readying cars to run on electricity there’s a chance he’s spending his time on bigger conservation projects. 

Golub is one of a handful of staff, faculty and students at the University of Alaska Fairbanks working on an emerging, student-initiated directive to make the campus greener. 

Golub had been converting vehicles to run on batteries when last year students approved a fee to improve energy efficiency and conservation, and invest in renewable energy. 

That money, matched by campus administrators, could mean close to a half million dollars per year during the next decade. The task of deciphering the 2009 student vote and putting that interpretation into motion has fallen to elected and administrative student leaders. 

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GVEA proposes Healy wind farm to boost renewable power

From The Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, Wednesday, April 28, 2010:

The Golden Valley Electric Association announced  plans Tuesday at its annual meeting to pursue the Eva Creek wind project, a $93 million effort to generate about 24 megawatts of power near Healy.

“After almost a decade of planning, study and research we finally think that we have a project that makes economic sense,” said Brian Newton, the GVEA president and CEO.

He said the final decision on the project is to be made in the next few months. It would be the first wind project by any Railbelt utility and the largest of the dozen or so wind farms in Alaska.

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Europe Finds Clean Energy in Trash, but U.S. Lags

From The New York Times, Monday, April 12, 2010:

The lawyers and engineers who dwell in an elegant enclave here are at peace with the hulking neighbor just over the back fence: a vast energy plant that burns thousands of tons of household garbage and industrial waste, round the clock.

Far cleaner than conventional incinerators, this new type of plant converts local trash into heat and electricity. Dozens of filters catch pollutants, from mercury to dioxin, that would have emerged from its smokestack only a decade ago.

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A Grid of Wind Turbines to Pick Up the Slack

From The New York Times, Monday, April 12, 2010:

Like most other sources of alternative energy, the wind can be intermittent. It does not blow uniformly, so power output from wind turbines rises and falls. And when the wind doesn’t blow at all, output drops to zero.

Intermittency is not much of a problem now in the United States, since there are relatively few wind farms and plenty of interconnected conventional power plants to pick up the slack when wind output falls, keeping the power supply stable. But if the proportion of electricity supplied by wind were to grow to, say, 20 percent or more, it would become increasingly difficult to handle the fluctuations in output.

One proposed solution to the intermittency problem is to tie many wind farms together with a transmission line — making an electric grid, as it were, consisting of wind turbines. Now, Willett Kempton of the Center for Carbon-free Power Integration at the University of Delaware and colleagues have shown how this “all-for-one” approach might work with offshore wind farms along the Eastern Seaboard.

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What's that smell? Energy!

From Alaska Dispatch, Wednesday, March 31, 2010:

The methane gas produced by rotting trash smells awful and can even blow up, but Anchorage’s Solid Waste Services has a plan to put that gas to work.

SWS plans to take the gas emitted at the Anchorage Regional Landfill and use it as energy. Estimates say the landfill’s methane could produce about 3 megawatts of power, or enough to power 2,500 local homes. Right now the methane gas is burned off by flares.

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Small wind farm pays big

From Alaska Dispatch, Tuesday, February 23, 2010:

On Tuesday, the village of Unalakleet, seated on Alaska’s northwest coast, celebrated the town’s newest energy force — turbine number six. The awakening of the high-tech wind catcher completes the installation of the town’s new wind farm, which has already saved the village tens of thousands of dollars since the first turbines powered up a few months ago.

Since November, Unalakleet has cut utility costs by nearly $55,000 and generated enough electricity to power 86 homes for an entire year, according the wind farm’s new Web site. The site also claims the wind energy has significantly reduced carbon dioxide emissions that would otherwise have been pumped into the atmosphere through more traditional, diesel-only power generation — the equivalent of more than 580,000 miles of driving in the family car. According to our calculations, that’s about 111 one-way trips between Anchorage and Key West, Florida.

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