SEAK Solutions

Friday May 9, 2008

Thursday April 3, 2008

Brought to you by the UAS Sustainability Committee, in conjunction with the International Polar Year

Friday, April 4th 8:00am to 5:00pm
Location Egan Lecture Hall, UAS Campus

For the past few years, the UAS Spring Forum has provided an opportunity for the Juneau and campus communities to come together to learn about important issues, engage interesting questions, and challenge our assumptions.  This year promises to be no different: a full slate of interesting panelists will present ideas, roundtable discussions will provide opportunities for everyone to engage, and we think you'll walk away with some new perceptions and questions.   We are adding one wrinkle for 2008: focus.  Instead of the broadly conceived notions that have given the Forum direction over the last few installments, this year we want to roll up our sleeves and take on one specific issue: energy use in Juneau. This year's Forum will turn to Juneau as a case study to ask an important question facing many Alaskan communities: what will it take to achieve environmentally acceptable and sustainable electricity power generation?  The workshop will involve several presentations, demonstrations, and roundtable discussions that explore this challenge, positing technological and social solutions to the problem of achieving energy sustainability.

Topics include:

• Local and global perspectives on sustainability                       
• Peak oil                                             
• Hydroelectric Power vs. Fossil Fuel Burning        
• Prospects for renewable energy in Southeast Alaska
• Impacts of climate change on runoff and hydro-electric potential in Juneau     
• Biodiesel Production   
• University of Alaska Southeast efforts toward becoming sustainable     

In preparation for the Forum, we ask that you take an online Sustainability Survey, the results of which will be presented at the Forum.

To access the Forum Schedule, online info, and distance viewing links, please go to UAS Sustainability Forum Homepage.

Watch the forum on UA TV, Cable Channel 11, Juneau Cable Channel 6 Fairbanks or access the live stream on UATV.

Contacts:

Kevin Maier
UAS, Assistant Professor of English
(907) 796-6021
kevin.maier@uas.alaska.edu

We will be hosting a table at the Homeshow at Centennial Hall this Saturday with a biodiesel demonstration and talk at 2pm. At this time we will begin to accept membership dues and sign people up with the intention of forming a Non-profit group dedicated to producing biodiesel for the members and advocacy of alternative energy use in Southeast Alaska. Hope to see you there!!! 

NEW!  Check out these articles on energy in the Southeast.

Senate Minority Press Release 2-14-08

Senator Wagoner's Bill Gives Alaskans $750 Annual Credit on Home Energy Bill

Juneau - Sen. Tom Wagoner , R-Kenai, announced today that he has a sponsor substitute for Senate Bill 217 that will be introduced in the Senate on Friday.  The new language in the bill provides every home owner and renter in Alaska a $750 annual credit on their residential electric bill - or $62.50 a month. 

"Energy prices are soaring and Alaskan's need some relief." Wagoner said.  "In addition to provided that relief, my bill goes a step further and sets up the Alaska Energy Council, which will be tasked with preparing an energy plan to address residential, municipal, and rural community energy delivery and needs in the years to come."

The relief afforded under the bill, SB 217, also called the Alaska Power Cost Reduction Program, will take affect only when oil and gas prices reach the level where the state's ACES tax progressivity is triggered, about $60 per barrel, and stays at that level for at least 12 consecutive months.

"The reason we had the $750 energy credit kick in when oil and gas prices are high is because that's when utility costs start to rise and when the Alaskan people most need a break.  That is also when the state can most afford to help out residents because state revenues will get a boost from ACES progressivity tax. 

"Let's use the tax money we get from high oil and gas prices to reduce the negative affects of those high prices" Wagoner explained.

2-25-08 Alaska editorial: The state should think now about energy alternatives

We've been talking about getting new energy supplies for Southcentral Alaska. But it's been just that: Talk.

It's time to get real.

State officials, local utilities and businesses need to work together to make something happen soon, or it's going to get very cold for Alaskans.

Natural gas is our main source of fuel for power generation and heating. Hydropower from dams at Bradley Lake and Eklutna provide about 20 percent of our electricity, but gas provides the majority of our energy. And the gas-producing fields in Southcentral are sputtering, leaving us with about eight years of supplies.

The news gets worse. The aging gas wells in the fields can't produce enough gas for heating and power generation on the coldest days. Luckily we have the liquefied natural gas plant in Kenai as an emergency backup, but we may not have that forever. The federal license for the plant expires in 2009, although it may be extended to 2011.

There are huge stranded gas reserves on the North Slope, but there's no pipeline and so there's no access to that gas. And plans for building a gas pipeline are bogged down in Juneau politics.

Eight years of gas left. That's really right around the corner. Even if our state politicians can agree on a gas pipeline plan, it will be 10 years or more before Slope gas will flow.

Meanwhile, big Southcentral power utilities Chugach Electric Association and Municipal Light and Power are planning to replace old turbines and build new power plants. Want to guess what they're building? New gas-fired plants.

Matanuska Electric Association wants to generate its own power to be less reliant on buying power from Chugach, but MEA had to back off a proposal to use coal as a fuel source, and will probably wind up generating power with gas.

We need other alternatives, and we need to get working on them now. No one energy source should supply all of our needs. Renewable energy, like hydro, wind power and even geothermal, should be part of a diversified solution.

Hydro has proven to be cost-effective and reliable - the track record of the Bradley Lake and Eklutna are proof of that - and we applaud the interest of state legislators in taking a new look at the Susitna hydro proposal, which could make a valuable addition to the Railbelt electricity grid.

Susitna was considered as a large hydro project in the mid-1980s but it was deemed too costly and would have generated more power than the Alaska power market could have used. The plan was scrapped in the mid-1980s. Legislators have in mind a smaller version designed to fit the region's current power demand.

It isn't the only hydro project available. TDX Power is investigating another project near Anchorage that could fit nicely into a plan to meet the Railbelt power needs.

But hydro projects take years to build and they are not near-term solutions.

The Fire Island wind project could be online sooner. Local utilities have mixed views on whether wind turbines could produce power at competitive rates. These questions should be resolved.

The mothballed Healy Clean Coal Plant should be put back into operation as soon as possible. This is a new-technology coal-fired power plant that was shut down over a commercial dispute between the state - its owner - and operator Golden Valley Electric Association of Fairbanks.

And let us not forget conservation. The state should build on awareness programs to encourage reducing consumption in homes and businesses, and educate Alaskans on federal tax breaks relating to energy efficiency, in remodeling for example.

Wind power from Fire Island and coal power from Healy are near-term actions that could cut our use of gas for power generation. Gas use will be further reduced if midterm solutions, like new hydro projects, are viable. That will allow our remaining gas supplies to be used for home heating and as a chemical feedstock for manufacturing.

Eventually, if a North Slope gas pipeline is built, there would be still other options. That's way off in the future, though.

All of the near- and midterm options should be front-and-center when Gov. Sarah Palin appoints a new state energy director, which is expected soon.

But let's not have more bureaucratic shuffling on this. Eight years of gas is cutting it thin.

 posted by Amy Dripchak 2-27-08

 January 12 2008

We are currently seeking an administrator to tackle paperwork and applications for funding opportunities  and getting permits, 501(c3) status, etc. This will be a paid position with a set of goals to be accomplished in a set time. Please send all inquiries to info@SEAKSolutions.org 

January 12 2008

Summer Class at UAS...maybe

We are in talks with UAS about the potential to have a biodiesel class taught out at one of the labs, with access to all sorts of testing equipment and a Chemistry class component taught by Dr. Lisa Hoferkamp. All aspects of biodiesel manufacturing for the home user would be covered, in addition to lectures on energy issues facing Alaska and their impact. This would be the most comprehensive way to understand biodiesel and its possiblity will depend on interest in the class.  Dr. Hoferkamp has graciously offered this opportunity and you can help by giving an indication of whether you would like to attend. You can email us at classes@SEAKSolutions.org 

January 2 2008

Here is an article you should read. Full text can be found here

Running on Empty
On a Road to Nowhere

An Alaskan village asks a scary question:
What happens when oil is too expensive to use? 

RUSSELL GOLD / Wall Street Journal 9jun2007

Shungnak, Alaska — When Genevieve Norris was born 59 years ago in this remote Eskimo village, hunters used dog sleds to pursue caribou and moose. Wood stoves kept out the cold during the long, dark winters.

Then Shungnak entered the petroleum age, and fuel was barged up the Kobuk River every summer. Noisy electrical generators arrived, which allowed lights and indoor plumbing to be installed. Soon, nearly every home had snowmobiles, four-wheelers and heaters.

Now as crude-oil prices have doubled in the past couple of years, Ms. Norris and the rest of the village are being priced back out of the petroleum age. She heats her home with wood as much as possible and only occasionally buys gasoline for an outboard engine to go fishing. "Fuel right now, I'm only purchasing if I have to," says Ms. Norris.

Even though Shungnak is in energy-rich Alaska, home to the largest U.S. oilfield discovered in the past half century, it is at the very end of the oil-distribution system. By the time gasoline makes it here from where it is refined, it costs $8.11 a gallon, more than twice the current U.S. average.

The U.S. has long enjoyed among the lowest oil prices in the industrialized world — and until recently, even in remote Alaska, fossil fuel was affordable to the majority of people. Decades of cheap energy prompted Americans to use more and more petroleum, lengthening their commutes in the lower 48 states and trading in dog sleds for snowmobiles in Alaskan villages.

Today, the price of oil and all the products made from it has surged and seem likely to remain high for some time. This has raised the unsettling question: What happens to a community accustomed to cheap energy when the energy is no longer cheap?

Remote villages like Shungnak have long been fragile economies with little to offer residents by way of jobs and opportunity. High fuel prices have made a bad situation worse, threatening the survival of Shungnak as well as more than a hundred other remote villages. Some of the estimated 101,000 people living in these villages have left for Alaska's large cities, creating what one former state elected official has called "energy refugees."

These native-Alaskan villages are among countless poorer communities across the world that have been hammered by the new century's energy-price boom. Over all, strong economies such as China and most of the U.S. have held up well despite the sting of higher fuel prices. But in poor regions, the price shock has hit hard. Thousands of Nepalese took to the streets of Katmandu last year, resulting in bloody clashes with police, to protest a 25% rise in gasoline prices. In July 2005, under pressure from the International Monetary Fund, the Yemeni government lifted gasoline subsidies and the resulting riots left 22 people dead. The government buckled and restored subsidies. In Africa, Guinea's decision to reduce gasoline subsidies over the past two years helped spark general strikes and riots that claimed at least 11 lives.

The village of Shungnak was officially founded in 1899, but Eskimos have lived in the region for thousands of years traveling between summer camps and winter camps. Today, the village is a collection of 75 homes, a store, a school, a community health clinic and a city office building along a half dozen dirt streets. The foothills of the Brooks Range rise in the distance over the tundra.

Petroleum didn't arrive here until the middle of the 1960s. As the crow flies, Shungnak is only 310 miles northwest from the Flint Hills Resources refinery outside of Fairbanks, Alaska. But since there are no roads to Shungnak, the journey is a complex route that stretches more than 2,000 miles, passing mountain meadows where grizzly bears graze, caribou herds sipping from glacier-fed streams and mile after mile of rugged, unpopulated coastline.

Tanker Cars

First, fuel from the Fairbanks refinery is loaded onto rolling tanker cars and taken south through Denali National Park, past Mount McKinley and into the Port of Anchorage. Then it's loaded onto a barge and towed through the Unimak Pass, a navigable break in the Aleutian Islands, before it heads north for Kotzebue on the coast.

From there, the fuel is loaded once a year on a shallow-draft barge and pushed up the Kobuk River during a brief period when the snow melt engorges the river and makes it navigable. By the time it gets to Shungnak, it has traveled a distance equivalent to the drive from New York to Las Vegas.

Last year, one of the barge companies made it up the river and delivered distillate — a blend of heating oil and diesel that powers nearly everything from generators to furnaces — to the school and electric company. The other barge company, less experienced in the region's serpentine rivers, couldn't make it up to Shungnak during the brief window of time that the river thawed. Fuel had to be flown in from Fairbanks on propeller cargo planes, raising the cost to $8.11 for a gallon of gasoline and $6.50 for a gallon of heating oil. In February, heat in the town's only two-story building, which holds the city offices, post office and tribal-council office, went out for three days because the tank ran out and no one was willing to pay to fill it up again. The temperature inside dropped to 30 degrees below zero.

Many Jobless

Half of Shungnak village is jobless, according to the state. Commerce Department data suggest that Alaskans living in remote villages like Shungnak already receive about 50% of their income from government programs, two and half times the average in the U.S. Now the situation is exacerbated because it is difficult to attract economic activity because of the high energy costs. Village leaders say their only choice is even more government aid.

"Half the village doesn't know how to go out and do a subsistence way of life...their lifestyle is living off the store, even though you hear them say 'We're natives, we can survive,'" says Raymond Woods, a member of the Shungnak tribal government.

Some residents are leaving town. Ms. Norris's daughter moved to South Dakota and her high-school-aged son talks about leaving after he graduates.

Those that remain behind are scraping along. Henry Douglas, 48, says he eats less meat and fish than he used to. Like most people here, he receives state energy assistance — credit at the tribal store. He got $1,500 in January to pay for heating oil. It lasted him through March. Afterward, he used a wood stove in the main room of the log cabin where he lives with his sister and his nephew.

His younger brother, George Douglas, 39, says he's fortunate to have a job as a school-maintenance worker. The paycheck gives him the $100 required to fuel up his Polaris snowmobile. He uses it to hunt caribou and distributes the meat to three households of relatives, including his brothers. Few of his relatives can afford to hunt much anymore because of the high cost of fuel.

Signs of the cost are everywhere in Shungnak. On a recent visit, there were photocopied fliers posted throughout the village with a stark reminder: May 29 is the day the Alaska Village Electric Cooperative bill collector was scheduled to be in Shungnak. The co-op, known as Avec, has seen past-due accounts soar in the past couple of years. Last year, it took out ads in local papers threatening to cut off paying customers if they allow delinquent customers to move in with them.

Researchers at the University of Alaska Anchorage estimated that one-quarter of household income in remote villages last year went to paying utility bills, double the percentage in 2000. The poorest residents in remote villages spent 61% of their income on utility bills, also double the level a few years ago.

Fuel bills are also swallowing the city's budget. Last November, the village's fuel and electrical bill accounted for 61% of total expenditures, according to town administrator Helen Mitchell. In response, it has cut costs. The hours for city workers were cut to six hours from eight hours a day last year. The part-time patrolman position was eliminated a couple of years ago.

The result of these crushing bills is that remote villages face a slow decline. Four schools in the last two years have shut their doors when they fell below 10 students and lost most state funding. In Shungnak, school enrollment is off 7% in the past decade. A few miles down the Kobuk River, the village of Ambler has lost 29% of its school-aged population.

Despite shrinking enrollment, the regional school district has been on a building boom in recent years, largely supported by state grants. That, in turn, has only increased its need for fuel. The new schools, despite better insulation, require more petroleum to operate.

New School

In nearby Noatak, an 18,000-square-foot school was torn down and replaced with one more than twice as large with a new air-circulating system and more lights.

"We have a very fragile economy in most of these villages already and then you add the jolt of high fuel-oil prices. It's my guess that many of these communities will not find themselves viable if fuel prices stay here," says Mike Black, director of community advocacy at Alaska's Department of Commerce, Community and Economic Development. The villages, he says, "are begging, borrowing and stealing to get enough fuel."

The extreme costs of fuel in rural Alaska have led to numerous energy experiments. But various efforts to reduce rural Alaska's dependence on petroleum-based energy have struggled. Petroleum is easy to store, handle and transport, says Brent Sheets, head of the federal government's Arctic Energy Office in Fairbanks. "It is hard to beat diesel fuel," he says.

A proposal to build a small nuclear power plant for one small town was shelved when a study concluded that the federal security requirements made the project uneconomic. Solar isn't a good fit for Alaska, because fuel demand goes up in the winter when the state gets little sunlight. The Energy Department office even looked at turbines designed to harness river energy, dodging logs and car-sized icebergs, but plans never made it past the theoretical stage.

One alternative-energy success stories is in Kotzebue, the hub community to the west of Shungnak on the Chukchi Sea. On the tundra outside of Kotzebue, where the only sign of life is paw prints from an Arctic fox, are 17 windmills capable of generating one megawatt of electricity. The windmills "are a hedge against rising fuel costs," says Brad Reeve, a Minnesotan who came to the town 30 years ago to run the public-radio station and now heads up the electric cooperative.

As the cost of bringing in diesel has grown, electricity from the windmills has looked better and better. But the windmills have a high upfront cost — they sit on special pilings with chemicals that ensure the tundra remains frozen to hold the windmills steady. And on a recent morning, as a computer in the coop's offices showed 2.8 megawatts of demand, the wind wasn't blowing. All of the electricity came from distillate-burning generators, a reminder that Kotzebue needs to keep a steady supply of oil.

In Shungnak, Mr. Woods, the tribal-government official, says he expects the oil will keep on flowing. Eskimos are accustomed to adapting to extreme conditions, he says. But there is little effort being made to teach children how to hunt the old way. "Their lifestyle now is so convenient," he says.

Hanging out on the steps of the village store after school with friends, 11th-grader Dion Tickett says he didn't grow up learning how to hunt or take care of a team of Alaskan huskies. He grew up watching television and riding snowmobiles, something he and his friends do to pass the time. "There's nothing to do around here," he says.

After school let out on a recent afternoon, Mr. Woods spent $90 to fill up his Arctic Cat snowmobile to take his son out hunting. But he doesn't expect his son to need these skills. In a couple of years, when his son enters high school, Mr. Woods plans to move his family to east Texas, where he was stationed in the military. Gasoline there costs just under $3.00 a gallon.

 January 2 2008

This was an in the Anchorage Daily News Dec. 18th 2007 found here

Fuel costs strap the Bush

Bright side? Those high prices drive search for alternatives

Published: December 18th, 2007 12:57 AM
Last Modified: December 18th, 2007 01:11 AM

For Alaskans in our part of the state, paying more than $3 a gallon for gasoline really puts a noticeable hole in the wallet when it's time to fill up the tank. A similar price shock showed up this year in local natural gas bills, which jumped by about 30 percent.

Painful as those energy prices are, they pale in comparison with what Alaskans living in remote communities must pay.

In a survey this summer of 100 Alaska communities, the state found that the average price of gasoline was $4.49 a gallon. Heating oil was only slightly cheaper, at $4.14 a gallon. Prices like that take a heavy toll, especially with the harsher weather and drafty homes common in many Bush communities. And most Bush residents must get by on much lower incomes than their urban counterparts.

State Rep. Mary Nelson, D-Bethel, told a rural energy conference in Fairbanks earlier this year that energy bills for a typical family in her region eat up about 10 percent of their income, compared with about 2 percent in urban areas. High energy costs are one of many factors leading a noticeable number of rural residents to desert their homes for larger communities. One prominent Bush leader says the migrants are "energy refugees."

It's probably inevitable that energy bills will be higher in rural Alaska. The weather is more extreme, and shipping supplies to remote areas is always going to be expensive. But the high energy costs are a painful irony, since Alaska is a storehouse of energy and has grown rich from the same high energy prices.

Some modest efforts do help lighten the burden of high Bush energy prices. Short-term financial aid includes the state's Power Cost Equalization program, which underwrites part of home electricity bills, and the federal low-income energy assistance program, which helps poor residents pay energy bills. Neither source comes close to meeting the need, however.

Chronically short of funds, Power Cost Equalization has not been able to pay the full benefits set in state statutes since 2000. In communities where electricity costs 50 cents a kilowatt hour -- about five times the price in Anchorage -- the modest aid still leaves customers paying about 34 cents per kilowatt hour.

Funding for the federal energy aid payments is considerably less than half the $5.1 billion level authorized in federal law. President Bush just vetoed a funding bill that included a modest increase, about $250 million, in low-income energy aid.

Today's higher energy prices require an offsetting increase in aid to ease the burden on the poor, especially in high cost areas like Alaska's Bush.

Looking ahead to the long term, energy prospects in the Bush are a little brighter. Those high prices are stimulating the search for cheaper alternatives.

In some communities, recovering the heat thrown off by burning diesel in electrical generators is a money-saving option. In other places, such as Kotzebue, wind generators are already making a dent in local electricity bills. If rural communities are reasonably close together, they might save money by connecting onto one large electricity grid.

Extremely high rural energy costs can make even seemingly exotic technologies look attractive. One Nome business just spent $175,000 to install 92 solar panels. A company is looking at using river current on the Yukon to produce electricity; another is looking at using ocean waves to make electricity for Yakutat.

The Denali Commission and the Alaska Energy Authority are helping stimulate the search for energy alternatives in rural Alaska. They're offering $5 million in matching funds for alternative energy projects, all but $1 million of it exclusively for projects in rural Alaska. Another $4.4 million is available for energy conservation projects in the Bush.

These investments can pay rich, long-term dividends -- as long as they provide for sustainable programs with ongoing local maintenance.

Offering modest amounts of seed money is a good way to stimulate projects that will help ease the Bush energy crisis. If the competition turns up more good projects than the agencies can fund, they should be sure to let the Legislature know. Alaska's impressive wealth comes from natural resources extracted in rural parts of the state. It's only fair to use some of that wealth to offset the pain of high energy prices in rural Alaska.

BOTTOM LINE: Rural Alaska pays dearly for energy. The state can afford to help find better ways to power the Bush.

MEETING TUESDAY DECEMBER 18th 7pm @ THE DOUGLAS LIBRARY

1016 3rd St Douglas, AK  DIRECTIONS

What Can We Do

It is our hope to meet, disseminate information and educate ourselves, our community, and our elected representation to make informed and responsible decisions in the course of building a sustainable community. In addition we hope to build a biodiesel reactor, provide technical assistance for alternative energy and heating, and workshops for people wanting to make changes in the way they procure energy.

Since our first meeting we had a newspaper article in the Juneau Empire
This was picked up in a variety of places including most Alaskan newspapers and many biodiesel sites.
Pretty neat.
This shows that the interest has been simmering for a long time and our meeting was just the spark that was needed.
There's more...
-we secured the website www.SEAKsolutions.org . I think this name captures what concerns and desires were raised at the first meeting. Every member gets an email address there. I expect us to have the site as a clearinghouse for alt energy information in Alaska...
-We have been contacted about a television documentary show on the History Channel about a green energy in Alaska episode and could have them filming us in late January. 
-We have been graciously offered a donation of 700 gallons of oil and a 55 gallon drum of methanol, plus a home built reactor. This is all in Juneau.
-About 2000 gallons of fish oil might be available for us. Still working out the details there.
-A couple of state agencies informed me about some grant opportunity and other resources.

All from one meeting.
Hopefully we will have a good turnout this week; there is some great momentum and interest and we will keep it going.

So here are a few things you can bring to this next meeting and things to expect.
* Ideas about space we can use. If you or someone you know has a space where we can build a reactor let us know Tuesday.
* We will formalize some structure, elect a couple of positions, and get some membership dues established.
* if anyone wants to bring something to nibble on that would be great- coffee and those truffle destructo balls will be there, along with some cheese... feel free to add to it.
* bring a friend. Especially if your friend is great at 501(c3) incorporation, grant writing, and/or web development.
*if you have a skill that can be useful please let us know- we will do a list of needs and maybe you can fill it.

We will talk a bit then hopefully break into groups and tackle some issues to get us moving.

Call Us Today!