By KASSIE ANDREWS
The Alaska Sustainable Energy Conference continued this week with a panel called “Financing the Future of Sustainable Energy.”
The affair was marketed as a technical conversation about capital deployment and community resilience. In reality, it was a tightly scripted showcase for dark money networks, federally entangled “green banks,” and billionaire-backed influence peddlers laying the groundwork to control Alaska’s energy future, all without public consent and under the pretense of grassroots support.
Former Alaska legislator Lesil McGuire—who served in the House and Senate from 2000 to 2016-moderated the panel on behalf of New Energy Alaska, a group funded by the New Venture Fund, one of several nonprofits managed by Arabella Advisors and backed by billionaires like George Soros and Swiss national Hansjörg Wyss.
In 2023, the House Natural Resources Committee launched an investigation into Wyss’s influence, citing concerns that foreign nationals are steering U.S. energy and environmental agendas. Wyss has funneled hundreds of millions into Arabella’s political network, which plays a central role in shaping national climate policy. McGuire opened by boasting about a poll claiming 82 percent of Alaskans support renewable infrastructure, 86 percent believe it will create jobs, and 74 percent think it will diversify the economy. What wasn’t mentioned? How much are Alaskans, as federal taxpayers and ratepayers, actually willing to pay for this in dollars and lost reliability?
McGuire’s panel included representatives from Meridiam, Ameresco, Sustainability Partners, and Banyan Infrastructure. These four companies have polished credentials in ESG finance, infrastructure-as-a-service models, and public-private partnerships. This was far from a conversation about free markets. It was about financializing Alaska’s energy sector under a new regime of climate capitalists who frame their profit models as philanthropy while leaning on public dollars, federal loan guarantees, and regulatory capture.
Case in point: The Coalition for Green Capital (CGC), the Biden administration’s designated national green bank, received $5 billion from the Environmental Protection Agency in August 2024 under the Inflation Reduction Act’s Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund.
Days before the Trump administration took office, a former EPA staffer was caught on hidden video referring to this disbursement spree as “throwing gold bars off the Titanic”—a desperate rush to get billions into friendly hands before oversight could kick in.
Panelist Ileana Riverón referenced a $10 million investment in Spruce Root, a native Community Development Financial Institution in Southeast Alaska—formally announced in October 2024 through a partnership agreement with the CGC. On June 3, 2025, the same day the energy cabinet visited Alaska to speak at the Sustainable Energy Conference, CGC placed a full-page ad in the Anchorage Daily News, seemingly as a public plea to the Biden administration to unfreeze EPA funds.
The $10 million commitment is part of CGC’s $5 billion award under the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, which is now tied up in litigation after the EPA moved to revoke the grant.
Ameresco has been involved in energy system upgrades in Alaska, including work at Elmendorf Air Force Base, the installation of LED street lighting in Anchorage, and energy audits for the University of Alaska Anchorage (UAA) and the University of Alaska Southeast (UAS). Meridiam is involved in a project pitched as a solution for wind integration—at an estimated $330 million, a “long-duration” energy storage facility at the site of the soon-to-be-retired Healy coal plant. It doesn’t generate a single kilowatt of power on its own. The justification? By their own admission, only 10 percent of wind disruptions last less than four hours.
This means that expensive, multi-day storage is a requirement for something that is constantly sold to the public as inexpensive. During the keynote lunch presentation on Tuesday, Energy Secretary Chris Wright stressed the consideration of total system cost—highlighting how projects like this reveal the real price of integrating unreliable energy sources. The project is also part of Golden Valley Electric Association’s plan to meet its CO₂ reduction goals, replacing baseload coal with intermittent energy, which is often backed by costly storage that is often overlooked when promoting the renewable narrative.
As this conversation was about financing the transition, equally troubling is what was left out of the discussion. Curtis Thayer of the Alaska Energy Authority, during the lunch presentation, later pointed out that the Renewable Energy Fund has already spent $325 million, including $47 million on renewable energy projects in the last five years alone. Additionally, under a 2014 law, 20 percent of Alaska LNG project revenues (after paying into the Permanent Fund) are set to be allocated to the Renewable Energy Fund, potentially resulting in significant funding for renewable energy.
With key tax credits set to sunset under the current version of the “Big Beautiful Bill,” the future of these projects is anything but certain. Now is not the time to keep heads buried in climate slogans, ESG spreadsheets, or the rebranding of old climate policy as “resilience” or “energy equity.” It’s time to return to energy reality. The frozen funds and growing reliance on government guarantees are exactly what you get when we embrace the delusion of “all of the above.”
The government was never meant to serve as the backstop for risky investments disguised as climate virtue. That mindset has steered us into uncertainty and chaos—and it’s high time to course correct.
Nice article. A good summary of the BS that is the Green Nude Eel right here in the Great White North.
Renewable energy will cost us taxpayers but so will any energy project in Alaska at this point (cough LNG cough cough). As Suzanne pointed out earlier this week, renewable energy is popular. why not take an all-of-the-above approach?
Economics, costs, risks, long term viability and retention of local (best) control over your energy supplies.
Sure, renewables are popular, right up until the full cost analysis walks in. As Alex Epstein said yesterday, we need to stop apologizing. If coal works, use it. If hydro works, build it. Instead, we are dealing with people on the complete opposite end of the spectrum who tried to tear out the Eklutna Dam and in real time are shoving Alaska into renewable mandates and decarbonization goals that outlaw the real solutions.
And here we are – in an “energy crisis” where we are being sold the idea that the solution to this is first a renewable mandate followed by costly, sprawling intermittent energy sources. How do you encourage drilling in Cook Inlet when utility co-ops are being overrun by climate activists pushing decarbonization goals? Are those goals even compatible with signing long-term gas contracts? The signal to invest in gas development isn’t great when utility boards are stacked with climate activists, co-ops are chasing decarbonization goals, and policymakers are pushing mandates and constantly threatening to tax the companies into oblivion, undermining the very fuel they claim to need.
“All-of-the-above” mantra is exactly what got us into this mess – Chasing every shiny idea pushed by ENGOs instead of doubling down on what works. Now that energy sanity is returning, the money for boondoggles appears to be on the chopping block — and rightfully so. They should’ve spent their time backing the most reliable, affordable, non-political energy.
In tiny population centers or remote microgrids, wind and solar might have a niche role- especially where diesel is the only alternative. But even then, those systems don’t survive without subsidies, storage, and backup. As for serving the other 75% of Alaskans? Imagine if all the time, money, and political muscle wasted on intermittent energy had gone into building 100% baseload power. In Alaska, that means coal, gas, and hydro.
Physicist John Droz frames this really quite well – including ALL options would mean unreliable, very expensive and environmentally destructive sources would be put on the grid. How about “all of the sensible” instead?
‘https://wiseenergy.org/Energy/PR/All_of_the_Above_Expanded.pdf
Hear hear!!
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I disrespectfully disagree with you
“risky investments”? How’s about “grift”, “money grab”, “taxpayer rip-off”. Euphemize much? HIDE THE DECLINE USING MIKE’S “NATURE TRICK”!
“Renewable energy”, is nonsense. The very best, lowest cost energy is hydroelectric for which our state is uniquely suited.
Jeanette–Hydroelectricity IS a renewable energy source. It utilizes the power of moving water to generate electricity, and the water supply is not depleted in the process, making it a sustainable source.
I really hope Andrews is not a regular. Her association with the far right whackos who believe that anything that has the word carbon in it means Dunleavy is trying to control us, is not in alignment with any part of conservativism. Conservatives believe in all manner of new things, new power, new developments, new ways of protecting the environment we steward. We believe in incentivizing new industrys. Do we always get it right? Obviously no. But having this child, with a questionable resume, lecture us with her “pablum”, in a news organization we have come to love, is a bit much.
Andrews is indeed part of the farthest right whack job FACL crowd and she is sponsoring the FACL training this month in Alaska, which teaches conservatives how to be destructive political terrorists, and even here she barely hides her disdain for the governor and most of us conservatives out here who believe in an “all of the above” energy solution. Kassie Andrews is not worthy. Do better, MRAK.
Lmfao. “Not worthy” Ms. Celeste. What would be considered worthy to you, Celeste? Kassie Andrews advocates for the cease of climate martyrs- what the hell are you, then? I’m questioning if you aren’t a McCabe burner account?
Lmfao exactly how? She is a conservative questioning all
Types of authority. Damned if she does, damned if she doesn’t. It’s almost as if democrats push her
Into the category of “crazy” for being a conservative and questioning conservative beliefs? Yall need to do better with the hypocrisy 😂😭😂😭😂😭