By MICHAEL TAVOLIERO
As I gaze out my window at the tranquil morning blue February sky, I’m struck by the contrast between my modern comforts and the challenges faced by my ancestors in this unforgiving climate. Thanks to advancements in energy production, my family and I enjoy a level of warmth and light that was once unimaginable.
Yet, in my retirement, I’ve grown increasingly concerned about the direction of our energy management. While cost-saving measures should be a priority, it seems that the emphasis is shifting towards sustainability at the expense of affordability and common sense. The Chugach Electric Association, for instance, champions sustainability as a cornerstone of its business ethos.
But what does “sustainability” truly mean for us, the rate payers? It appears that decision-makers, including incumbent board members, are fixated on certain renewable sources like solar and wind while disregarding others like hydro. This narrow focus overlooks the financial realities and practicalities of energy generation.
For us, the average rate payers, this raises critical questions about the reliability and cost-effectiveness of our energy supply. Relying solely on intermittent renewables without adequate storage solutions risks grid instability, particularly during calm or overcast periods.
In engineering decisions, ideology must not trump practicality. While renewable energy is vital for our environment, it must be implemented in a manner that ensures both affordability and reliability for consumers. Ultimately, effective energy management should take precedence over ideological preferences.
For me, understanding the nuances of energy resource quantification is key to controlling costs. Renewable resources can be classified as either intermittent or firm. Intermittent sources, like solar and wind, are weather-dependent and energy-limited, while firm sources can produce power 24/7.
Consider this: The CIRI wind farm on Fire Island costs 9.6 cents per kilowatt hour, while Bradley Lake Hydroelectric only costs 4.6 cents per kilowatt hour. The projections for the Susitna-Watana Hydroelectric Project, with its immense capacity, were similarly cost-effective.
While the Chugach Electric Association’s focus on sustainability is commendable, the reality is that intermittent renewables alone cannot sustain Alaska’s energy needs. Firm resources like hydro must play a central role if we are to secure a reliable and affordable energy future. Let’s ensure that practicality prevails over ideology as we chart our course forward.
Michael Tavoliero is a writer at Must Read Alaska.
Anything other than fossil fuels for next 50+ years is a pipe dream. Build a container ship using renewable to cross the Pacific, or a Boeing 777. Not to mention all the textiles.
Renewable isn’t only a lie, it’s a joke!
It’s no joke because it’s not funny. People who worship renewable energy sources are just plain stupid.
Precisely why we keep electing Lisa Murkowski. She is a joke with her bipartisan approach in all her lies.
Renewables are a con with a side of faux religion.
Get back to me when any renewable can offer sustained base load power during winter.
Not only is the Eklutna hydroelectric power economical and dependable, but it is also critical to the value of intermittent renewable sources of energy. Without it and other dependable sources of power, such as conventional power plants, solar and wind power almost become a joke, as the power will go off when the wind doesn’t blow, or the sun doesn’t shine. Of course, batteries or pump storage plants can store power for short periods, but if there isn’t wind or sun, especially during long stretches in the winter, our lives will become miserable or worse. Unfortunately, conventional plants must still be kept running to be able to instantaneously pick up load when intermittent renewables fail, and in doing so at low loads, they are quite inefficient, and in some cases, maintenance costs significantly increase.
It’s way too late to trade pleasantries. This is happening all over the west, the UN is a communist organization and it should be criminal for any Alaskan citizen or company to comply with any UN mandates. Why we play soft against Agenda 2030 is really the question. Grand Juries are forming for the purpose of routing out these domestic agents of this agenda and other foreign subversives. Reject the UN or support one world government. Don’t look to the GOP for help they will do what ever AIPAC tells them and AIPAC is funded by porn money , vile cowards.
Well said Joel. Also, people need to do the research on those ugly wind turbines!
Anytime people push for renewable energy like windmills, solar etc..etc., I can’t help remembering the disaster Texas went thru 2-3 yrs ago when they had based much of their electrical grid on the windmills. They had that disastrous ice storm and all windmills froze up. People died of the cold in their homes and Texas was shut down for about a week before they were able to restore. Much of these renewables are fantasy and dreams of the leftists.. Much of these might work in the summer, but they don’t “pan” out for weather changes. As we also see in the electric car, a fantasy dream. We need hydro/water, nuclear energy, and coal.
A big component of the Texas issue was a decision NOT to install ice-free valves on the gas pipe. They couldn’t de-ice the valves fast enough. Constant gas curtailments, pressure losses in pipes. That was the problem.
It is so important to vote out Mark Wiggin on the Chugach Board. And hopefully the Chugach Board will hire a true leader as a CEO.
Did you know that Chugach is the only utility to use a woke “Triple bottom line”? This means that all Chugach economic analysis includes social and environmental variables that skew the economics away from common sense.
I am still waiting for somebody, ANYBODY, to explain to me how unrecycleable and environmentally toxic fiberglass wind turbine blades, and equally unrecycleable and even more environmentally toxic heavy-metal-laced photovoltaic panels, are in any way “sustainable”.
Bueller? Bueller?
Because we say it is, comrade.
Yet you are unable to provide fact that the renewable energy is effective. 25 years is the most you will get from a windfarm, which only produces power when the environment allows it. I know, I helped build EVA Creek windfarm above Healy. It places a huge pain in the ass for the Healy coal plant. Have to reduce production as the windmills produce energy, and have to ramp it up when the turbines cannot operate. Sounds really efficient huh? Go watch Planet of the Humans on U tube, you will learn the truth about said green energy. Cannot operate without a coal or natural gas plant on line at idle to accept the pittance of energy they create.
Obviously, you didn’t get that the statement made was satire. My fault, I guess, thinking that most here are intelligent enough to grasp wit requiring a higher level of comprehension. I thought I made it fairly easy, given the “Politboro” commentor name combined with the rest of the wording in the actual comment. I’m sure Jefferson got that I was agreeing with him by using satire in the context of politics regarding this issue to mock the standard operation of those with the Socialist worldview….
I was going to say that, you’re 100% correct. Nonrenewable & non- recyclable, made from “fossil” (no fossils in carbon power) fuels.
The entire carbon control narrative, especially for Alaskans who produce so little GHG even if you believe that scam, have to pay more than full freight for the implementation of the green new deal. Just stop all capitulation, grifting and banking of carbon control.
‘https://youtu.be/91z7YPCLSWk?si=5gVOSouspe2Tnkdn
We need to be looking at new hydro plants in the railbelt. They last 100+ years, store energy in the resovior and are currently the most economical plants on the Railbelt system
I have worked in the power industry for 35 years, and am now “semi retired” and am running for the Chugach Board to apply logic and reason to our electrical infrastructure decisions.
Vote for Dan Rogers and Todd Lindley for a common sense Chugach Board.
Will do! Rogers & Lindley!
“The projections for the Susitna-Watana Hydroelectric Project” need to be seriously looked at by those who haven’t been studying it for decade upon decade. Anyone with and understanding of the industry who hasn’t been on the payroll understands the shortcomings of this long studied and never quitr feasible government boondoggle of a project.
Precisely what makes Watana a boondoggle? And don’t say earthquakes, as we have 3 hydro dams in the railbelt (Eklutna, Bradley Lake, Cooper Lake) that all have done quite well in earthquakes. As previously stated, hydro dams in Chile also do well in earthquake country.
The biggest problem with Watana recently was that the project office was infested with greens who featherbedded their way to an easy paycheck without any deliverables. Cheers –
Don’t have to be a greenie to be concerned about the $5.2B price tag, potential for unlimited cost escalations and project delays, and in this modern era, vulnerability to malevolent foreign influence.
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Cook Inlet natural gas seems much more cost-effective, requires less capital investment, has potential to produce greatest long-term economic benefit to the regional economies with the least environmental and social impact.
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In other words, the long-term, affordable alternative is for the State to finance, explore and produce the Cook Inlet Basin gas, which it already owns.
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For far less investment than the potentially bottomless money pit of Susitna dam, the state can meet the Railbelt demand for electric power and heating well into the next century with stable pricing, one-third that of a Susitna kilowatt hour, with less environmental impact than a Susitna dam.
Agimarc,
We’ve been over this before. What makes the project that has been studied for decade upon decade upon decade at a cost of how many hundreds of millions a boondoggle, really?
It’s not earthquakes that make it a boondoggle, it’s not even the greens with their featherbedded paychecks.
Why do you think a project that “makes sense” to those studying it decade upon decade upon decade hasn’t been built? When is electrical usage the highest in Alaska, when does the fuel that powers a hydroelectric generator become available for use in Alaska, how much of that fuel is required to flow (unused) by the dam and when is it required to do so, how big is the reservoir and how long will it provide the amount of power that proponents claim it will? Ultimately, how much is this project going to cost, how long will it take to pay off, and how much will it cost each and every single rate payer?
Since you are a proponent of Susitna-Watana, I’d be curious if you’ve ever been paid with money earmarked for Susitna-Watana.
We need to give the left what it wants.
We should cut off all fossil fuels they currently are using and they can have the fire island wind farm power.
Good point Jefferson
Nuclear
Geneva Switzerland, WEF and its ties to PG&E and Alaskan utilities! The Green New Deal being forced on Alaska! Brain washed employees that are indoctrinated at seminars for utilities in Alaska! The WOKE agenda! Cheap central bank loans to utilities by the federal reserve (WEF) if they fallow the WOKE agenda!
Vampires, monsters and goblins are real; all presiding in Geneva Switzerland!
Instead of tacitly giving in to the other side’s argument that “sustainability” is a thing and we must submit to it, why not reframe their argument with something bluntly personal, such as:
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Will -your- plans make -our- electricity cheaper, more reliable; if not, what should -we- do with -you-?
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What they’re planning for us is about as personal as it gets, especially at 20 below, no?
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Sure and it means dusting off everyone’s “Rules for Radicals”. Winter wasn’t hard enough for the working class, now the the Ruling Class want to disrupt their electricity supply, make it even more expensive?
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Let’s recap:
It’s cold and dark outside.
Ruling Class want to mess up the very thing that makes it affordably warm and bright inside.
Ruling Class tyranny is rarely deterred by pleasantly logical argument.
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So… how to return the favor, make this as personal for them as they make it for us?
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If it means organizing, dusting off everyone’s “Rules for Radicals”, should we do so now, or is it better to wait until the dam’s blown up, it’s really cold, and rolling blackouts hit?
Vampires like the dark: want everyone in the dark easier to control them and victimize them while they live in luxury at Switzerland!!🧛🧛♀️🧛♂️
What do strippers and “green energy” have in common?
They both stop working when you stop throwing money at them.
No matter how you slice it heating bills will be 50% higher in 5 years. I hear zero conversation on energy use reduction, or why banking your future on non renewable resources is a winning strategy
And, with increasing bans on the use of natural gas, petroleum based products, and wood stoves, how much will the heating bills be then?
Oh… I am guessing your 50% higher in five years is BECAUSE of a reliance on (so-called) green energy, rather than rejection of it.
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