By ROBERT SEITZ
With my first commentary published in Must Read Alaska (Feb 7), I had hoped to find practical and knowledgeable readers, who understand that we (Alaska) must make some effort to replace Cook Inlet gas, in kind, or with some alternate source of energy very soon.
To do so, requires that Alaska has a plan in place to allow positive progress to this end. This plan is needed with or without a “Renewable Portfolio Standard,” or RPS.
If I still lived on the Seventymile River (where the family had a gold mine in the 1940’s) and we had solar panels, I would still have cords of wood cut and stacked outside the cabin, to last the winter, because surviving is so much more important than counting carbon dioxide molecules. And applying that consideration, ensuring continued production of Cook Inlet natural gas is imperative for the foreseeable future until a dependable, long term base energy source is established.
Alaska needs to be actively evaluating all possible solutions, including the Eklutna Pumped Hydro, so we don’t miss whatever our best opportunities might be, to have cheap and abundant energy.
David Bigger submitted a letter to the ADN that was published on Feb. 27. His concern was with the evaluation that Cook Inlet Gas provided to the Railbelt was more important than money into the Permanent Fund. I and others have made this claim, and it was not done in any way to diminish all the communities which are not on the Railbelt power system. The continued production of Cook Inlet Gas for the Railbelt is just as important for every community in Alaska, including Mr. Bigger’s town of Kalsag, as they would suffer greatly if the Railbelt power system were to collapse.
Travel, food (other than subsistence), medical needs, major equipment, building supplies and much else that is critical to survival or comfort, anywhere in Alaska, whether in remote communities or Anchorage or Fairbanks, depend on the Railbelt power. If the Railbelt shuts down, there would be a mass exodus of those who work in the box stores, banks, universities and oil companies. There may not be enough people left to provide service to the remote communities. Everyone in Alaska would be in survival mode without many conveniences or comforts. If you have a wood stove for heat and for cooking, you might get along.
One commenter on my first column in MRAK thought $1 billion was a large price for approximately 500 megawatt of pumped storage. That is a low price for that much power and especially since it is rechargeable with just the cost of running a pump from the excess wind or solar energy or whatever other electrical energy they want to dispatch to the dam. And it can be built in stages so the initial cost is nowhere close to that value.
Even Texas could use some long term energy storage. Just because they have good oil and gas production, and have more wind and solar farms than anywhere else, an ice storm did cripple Texas. A storage of LNG, or some other energy storage, that was readily accessible when the gas well froze, and the wind turbines froze and the solar panels were covered in ice, their electrical system could have remained powered.
I began writing about the need for a long term energy plan and long term energy storage for Alaska in January of 2016. There is still no plan and now that we are running out of natural gas, there is no reliable long term energy storage. Whether or not GHG is a real problem, running out of natural gas is a real problem, so there is reason to have a plan and to act on that plan. Generally one looks at more than one solution while working these things out to make sure there is still a solution to work on when some of them fail to be realizable.
In conclusion, I want to see a plan worked out for what sources are planned for and that if wind and solar are considered in the plan, what energy storage is being considered for them. More legislation for RPS is not necessary. And every source considered should have the projected cost per kWh provided whether from an IPP or utility. If we could have cheap energy that would allow refining our mined ore in state, and that would be very good.
Robert Seitz is an electrical engineer and lifelong Alaskan.
