Results: Calendar of Events
July 28, 2010
By MATTHEW L. WALD of the New York Times: The rapid growth of wind farms, whose output is hard to schedule reliably or even predict, has the nation’s electricity providers scrambling to develop energy storage to ensure stability and improve profits.
As the wind installations multiply, companies have found themselves dumping energy late at night, adjusting the blades so they do not catch the wind, because there is no demand for the power. And grid operators, accustomed to meeting demand by adjusting supplies, are now struggling to maintain stability as supplies fluctuate. On the cutting edge of a potential solution is Hawaii, where state officials want 70 percent of energy needs to be met by renewable sources like the wind, sun or biomass by 2030. A major problem is that it is impossible for generators on the islands to export surpluses to neighboring companies or to import power when the wind towers are becalmed. Read more
July 28, 2010
By LOUIS GARCIA in the Kodiak Daily Mirror: The Kodiak High School wind turbine project that started in 2008 is starting to pick up speed. Various administrators and KHS teacher Jane Eisemann have been meeting with the Kodiak Electric Association and the Coast Guard to get the Wind for Schools Program under way. The Skystream, a small wind turbine, is the model being used in what will be a green academic venture for the district.
“It’s going to provide a curriculum and education to students in the natural resource class on sustainable energy,” Eisemann said at Monday evening’s school board meeting. “It’s just a nice segue on what’s happening already in our community … with our hydro and our beautiful wind turbines on Pillar Mountain.”
Data will be sent to the district classrooms 24/7 from the turbine. Read more
July 27, 2010
From Anne Hillman at KUCB: Only 90 people live in the Aleutian Island community of Akutan. But the village hosts one of the largest fish processing plants in the state. And soon, they might also be home to one of the largest geothermal energy plants. With over $2.5 million from an Alaska Renewable Energy grant, Akutan is exploring the potential of their active volcano. KUCB’s Anne Hillman visited Hot Springs Bay on Akutan Island and has this story. Hear more
On Saturday, August 14 from NOON to MIDNIGHT , Balance Alaska, an
organization dedicated to supporting Alaska’s local economy and
bringing community together, is hosting the first annual Dirty Deeds
Music Festival, a benefit for the Alaska Farmland Trust (AFTC) and
other local non-profits.
The Alaska Farmland Trust (AFTC) is a private, non-profit land trust
dedicated to assisting landowners in preserving their working
agricultural lands. Preserving farmland in production is essential as
Alaska faces increasing food security issues.
Visit www.BalanceAlaska.com for more information and tickets.
September 24, 2010
The 2010 ACF Conservation Achievement Awards Banquet is just around the corner! And you’re invited. Save the date…
When: Friday, September 24, 2010
Time: 6 pm Reception, 7 pm Awards
Place: Lucy Cuddy Hall, University of Alaska Anchorage
Watch the ACF website at www.alaskaconservation.org for future details and announcement of this year’s winners.
July 23, 2010
From Renewable Energy World.com: One hundred and eighteen new offshore wind turbines were fully connected to the grid in the first half of 2010 according to new statistics released today by the European Wind Energy Association (EWEA). Those 118 turbines have a capacity of 333 megawatts (MW) – well over half the 577 MW installed offshore last year – showing continuing strong growth in offshore wind power despite the financial crisis.
In addition, 151 turbines (440 MW) were installed but not yet connected to the grid, EWEA revealed this week. Overall 16 offshore wind farms totalling 3,972 MW were under construction. Of these, four became fully operational: Poseidon in Denmark, Alpha Ventus in Germany, Gunfleet Sands and Robin Rigg in the UK. Read more
July 22, 2010
From Alaska Dispatch: According to the Kodiak Daily Mirror, Island Seafoods, a small fish processor on Shelikof Street in Kodiak, is hoping to boost the marketing of its product by touting its connection to sustainable energy, via Kodiak’s Pillar Mountain wind farm. “We’re going to have a green label that says something like, ‘Sustainable fish produced by clean, sustainable wind turbine energy,’” Island’s general manager John Whiddon told the Mirror. The processor uses about the same amount of power from the wind turbines as homes and other businesses on Kodiak do, but because it doesn’t use more than the wind farm produces, the label could reasonably apply, the Mirror reports. The effort will also be a boost of publicity for Kodiak Electric Association, the co-op that owns the wind farm, and there is discussion of a marketing partnership between it and Island Seafoods, and perhaps other processors involved in processing the lower energy-intensive fisheries. ““I doubt this would work as well for pollock,” noted KEA’s president. Read more here.
REAP note: REAP has reported extensively on Kodiak Electric Association’s successful wind farm. The turbines, installed last July, are now generating almost 9% of the utility’s electricity and have cut diesel fuel use in half by more than 900,000 gallons. That adds up to a savings of more than $2.3 million in the first year for a project that cost just over $21.4 million. Plus the utility is now far more insulated against price spikes in the cost of diesel. The utility also uses hydropower, and along with the wind, is generating 89% of its electricity from renewable sources. Kodiak Electric Association was install the turbines thanks in part to a $4 million grant from the state’s Renewable Energy Grant Fund, which REAP helped get created.
July 21, 2010
By Alexis Madrigal at the Atlantic Monthly: Energy markets are weird. Though we talk about renewable energy sources being “competitive” with traditional power plants, the price people pay for electricity varies widely. People in New England pay almost twice as much for electricity as their cousins in Kentucky or Montana. On that spectrum, the strangest places to buy some kilowatt hours are the noncontiguous states Alaska and Hawaii.
Take the town of Gustavus, Alaska, about 50 miles northwest from Juneau. For decades, a generator has been burning thousands of gallons of diesel to generate electricity. Because of the high cost of fuel transport and plant operation, residents of the town were paying several times the national average price of about 10 cents per kilowatt hour.
But that generator’s been switched off now in favor of a microhydroelectric plant, reports the innovative online-only news site the Alaska Dispatch. Read more
July 20, 2010
REAP note: Before switching to hydro, Gustavus was burning about 20,000 gallons of diesel a month.
By Craig Medred of Alaska Dispatch: FALLS CREEK — At the end of a three-mile road to nowhere, on the southern edge of one of North America’s wildest national parks, the sound of a clean, environmentally friendly energy future is drowned out by the noise of a gurgling salmon stream. Just feet to the side of that stream, a hydroelectric turbine for Gustavus Electric Inc. spins in a small metal building not much bigger than a farmland garage.
Any day, salmon will start spawning in the gravels beside the power plant which takes its water from behind a 12-foot cement wall high above two towering waterfalls on a creek that headwaters in the Fairweather Mountains of Glacier Bay National Park, then diverts that water 600 feet downhill through about two miles of buried pipe to generate electricity before putting the water back into the stream at the upper limit of where salmon spawn.
The dream of electrical engineer Dick Levitt, the project is about as environmentally friendly as man can get. There is no towering dam cutting off passage to fish. There are no spinning windmill blades to kill birds. There are no banks of solar cells covering the floor of a valley. And there is, because of this project, no longer an exhaust-spewing diesel generator burning costly fossil fuels in the 400-plus community of Gustavus with a summer population at least twice that. Read more
July 16, 2010
From UAF news: After two years of design and development, oceanographers at the University of Alaska Fairbanks are installing a new alternative energy device along the arctic coast of Alaska. The device will provide power to scientific instruments in remote areas, where sources of electricity are often scarce. “In principle, the device means that we can deploy the radar systems anywhere along Alaska’s coast,” said Tom Weingartner, professor of physical oceanography and the principal investigator for the project. The device, called a remote power module, is equipped with four wind turbines, a solar array and a backup generator. The wind and solar energy provide five days’ worth of battery charge. If the batteries get low, the module recharges using a biodiesel generator. Read more
