Results: Calendar of Events
July 31, 2011
Guest editorial by Mark Masteller in the Anchorage Press: With little public discussion, the Anchorage Assembly, at the request of the Mayor’s office, recently took an abrupt about-face regarding the development of energy efficient, non-toxic city-owned buildings. This is an unfortunate turn, as these “green” buildings save taxpayer money, provide healthier indoor environments, save energy, promote use of regional and recycled materials, produce fewer greenhouse gases and promote local product development and innovation. In short, high performance buildings promote an economically and environmentally sustainable community while increasing our energy security.
It’s puzzling why Mayor Sullivan would want to eliminate the Sustainable Building Policy, when he has quite correctly and publicly noted the fragility of our Cook Inlet natural gas supplies, which supply us with both heat and electricity. Nationally, buildings use about 40 percent of our primary energy, and about 70 percent of our electricity. And energy experts will tell you that the cheapest-and fastest-way to save energy is by first pursuing energy conservation and efficiency measures. Increasing the efficiency of large buildings helps prolong our local gas supplies.
So what did the assembly do? In a 6-5 vote they eliminated the requirement that new city-owned buildings meet the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, or LEED, building standard. Increasingly accepted around the world, LEED was developed by the U. S. Green Building Council and has become the norm for hundreds of municipalities and federal agencies. There are four LEED certification levels: certified, silver, gold and platinum. The MOA was requiring “certified,” and the plan was to go to “silver” in 2012. Instead, they’re going backward. Read more
July 25, 2011
Mark Clayton | The Christian Science Monitor | Jul 23, 2011: As temperatures soared across America, power grid operators and utilities called on all their energy sources – from jet-engine-powered natural-gas turbines to coal-burning behemoths to glowing nuclear reactors – to meet the electricity demand.
Right now, the massive mechanical equipment is doing its job well, with only pockets of energy distress during the heat wave.
Why are things going so smoothly?
A lot of it has to do with a weak economy that has left plenty of backup power available. The rapid growth of energy-efficiency measures is also responsible, as well as something called demand response – when commercial and industrial electricity users are throttled back by the use of computer-controlled switches and the Internet.
“We have definitely seen an impact from increased energy efficiency and demand-response efforts,” says Mark Lauby, vice president of reliability assessment and performance analysis for the North American Electric Reliability Corp. (NERC), an organization tasked with ensuring that the nation’s power grid keeps running. “It’s giving us more margin, more resources.”
The recession had an impact on energy demand, as businesses closed or cut back operations. Nationwide, energy demand fell about four percentage points in 2009, before rebounding slightly in 2010. The net result has been a chunk of generating-capacity padding.
In Wisconsin, for example, the recession led to factory closings that chopped power demand from a 2006 peak. Yet this year, We Energies – a utility near Madison – completed new plants that were built in response to power shortages experienced during heat waves of the late 1990s, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Result: plenty of capacity and few problems meeting power demand in Wisconsin. Read more
July 20, 2011
by Jeff Richardson for Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, July 19, 2011
FAIRBANKS — The Alaska Department of Natural Resources has given preliminary approval to a large-scale wind farm near Healy, despite the objections of a competitor in the wind-power business.
The DNR preliminary approval is the latest step forward for the Eva Creek project, a 24.6-megawatt turbine farm envisioned by Golden Valley Electric Association near Healy. The GVEA board of directors unanimously voted in favor of Eva Creek in June, advancing a 16-turbine project that will become the largest wind farm in Alaska if it’s developed.
GVEA President Brian Newton said that unless any new complications emerge in the next month, the state is on pace to give final approval in late August or early September. GVEA hopes to launch the project in September 2012.
“We’re not anticipating any problems,” Newton said.
DNR approval is needed for the Eva Creek project because it requires development on and around state land. A 43-acre lease for turbines and support facilities is needed, along with permission for road construction and upgrades to the site.
The lease process has raised objections from CIRI, the regional Native corporation developing its own wind farm on Fire Island near Anchorage. CIRI had offered to supply wind-power energy to GVEA, but the board chose the utility’s own Eva Creek project in February.
Continue reading here.
July 20, 2011
But now the focus is turbines and barges tapping rivers, not concrete dams
By Alan Sayre, AP, July 19, 2011
NEW ORLEANS — The powerful flow of the Mississippi River, which brought destruction to scores living near its flooded banks this spring, is viewed by a new generation of energy entrepreneurs as a reliable alternative way of generating electricity.
These developers aren’t planning giant concrete dam projects that brought electric lights to many Americans for the first time. Instead, their idea is to put turbines on the bottoms of rivers and mount them from barges to spin generators.
It’s all part of the emerging technology of hydrokinetics — using flowing water to generate power without dams.
“If we’re going to control the cost of converting to new forms of energy, hydro has to be part of that equation,” said Jon Guidroz, project development director for Boston-based Free Flow Power, which wants to generate energy from the Mississippi River.
Hydrokinetic generation isn’t a new idea — but only in recent years has technology made it feasible.
Continue reading here.
July 18, 2011
by Sam Friedman for the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, July 18, 2011
A new housing development on Eielson Air Force Base is expected to receive a major environmental-building certification.
The new development, simply called Air Force Military Housing, will be home to about half the base’s population with 349 housing units.
As part of a military mandate for more efficient buildings, they were built with the building standards of the Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design, project manager Bob Strum said.
The houses were built to the second-highest LEED Gold rating, Strum said, although they have not yet been certified to the standard.
If they are certified they would be first homes to achieve the rating in Alaska.
Environmental features of the homes include a heating system fueled by waste heat from Eielson’s power plant instead of heating oil and floorboard heating, Strum said.
The homes are sealed and insulated far better than most homes in the country to conserve the heat.
In a “blower test,” in which a house is sealed and pressurized, the homes held air inside about five times better than the average home, said Colleen Groll with the Seattle-based O’Brien and company, which is completing the certification for the project.
Continue reading here.
July 18, 2011
Barbara and Clair Ramsey for Anchorage Daily News, July 16, 2011
With new construction at all-time lows and so many unsold homes, creating a distinct, positive product in the mind of the consumer may be the only way some national builders will survive.
Energy-efficient construction is also a way to create a distinction between new and existing homes. When demand was high and new homes were pre-selling, the building industry balked at mandating energy-efficient features because of concerns they would cost too much. Now, once-optional energy-efficient upgrades are becoming standard features.
It sounds like something new and innovative, but it has really just taken a long time to change our national mindset. It began in the early 1980s with the goal of promoting home energy ratings and providing energy-related mortgage incentives.
July 18, 2011
Developer asks for decision by Sept. 15.
by Wesley Loy for Anchorage Daily News, July 16th, 2011
Alaska utility regulators are weighing a proposed contract between the state’s largest electric power company and a wind farm developer. The developer says a prompt decision is vital to allow construction to begin in time to qualify for key federal grants.
The wind farm is planned for Fire Island, in Cook Inlet near Anchorage’s international airport. The developer is Fire Island Wind LLC, a subsidiary of Cook Inlet Region Inc., the Southcentral Alaska Native corporation. The power buyer is Anchorage-based Chugach Electric Association.
Now the deal is before the Regulatory Commission of Alaska, which has been asked to approve an agreement between Chugach and Fire Island Wind.
Continue reading here.
July 14, 2011
Westport News, July 11, 2011
KODIAK, Alaska (AP) — Kodiak is moving forward with a plan to have more than 95 percent of electrical power generation come from renewable sources within just a few years.
The Kodiak Electric Association is upgrading its hydro-electrical plant at Terror Lake, according to the Kodiak Daily Mirror. Company chief executive Darron Scott said the plan is to build a third turbine.
The addition of a third hydroelectric turbine would increase the capacity of the Terror Lake plant from about 22 megawatts to nearly 34 megawatts. It also would allow the local electric cooperative the ability to cover even peak needs for power generation, such as when canneries are running, with hydro power alone.
The third hydroelectric turbine is expected to be installed by 2013, the company said last week.
Continue reading here.
July 13, 2011
Alaska Native News – Press Release, July 13, 2011
WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, today made the following comments on the Geothermal Exploration and Technology Act (S. 1142) during a Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee hearing.
“Geothermal is one of our most promising sources of renewable energy,” Murkowski said. “This bill will spur investment in geothermal, further expanding its market share to allow the United States to remain a world leader in development of geothermal technology.”
The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee took steps to aid research to expand geothermal energy production nationwide in both 2005 and 2007. This year’s legislation seeks to further expand geothermal energy from the roughly 2.2 gigawatts produced today, to as much as 100 gigawatts of electricity, which the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has suggested is possible in coming decades.
The bill would also establish a revolving loan program to help overcome the high costs associated with drilling geothermal exploration wells. The loan program would consist of a sliding scale cost-share formula designed to incentivize developers while protecting taxpayers from long-term losses.
“This bill is of particular interest to my home state of Alaska, since it will allow for co-leasing of geothermal production at the time that permits are issued for drilling of oil and gas wells,” Murkowski said. “This will make it easier for companies to generate the estimated 11,000 megawatts of power that could come from tapping the hot water produced during oil production through the use of generally low-temperature geothermal technology.”
Geothermal is unique in that it provides a steady stream of power, compared to the intermittent nature of other renewable resources.
View the article here.
July 12, 2011
by Molly Young for The Oregonian, July 10, 2010
AURORA — When Dan Lever advertised a quarter-section of farmland for rent east of town, a man replied with an idea for a more permanent crop.
Lever now has 2,100 ground-mounted solar panels shining near his house. “It’s not a typical sight in a pastoral area,” Lever said. “But we’ll get used to it.”
The $2 million project buzzed to life July 1, one of the first large-scale participants in Portland General Electric’s solar payment option program, which buys electricity produced by customers and transfers it to the electric grid. The 500 kilowatt system is also Clackamas County’s largest ground-mounted solar array, practically hidden on some of the area’s oldest farmland.
“Nobody really knows about it unless you’re one of the neighbors,” said Kirk Cameron, whose Lake Oswego-based firm, NW Photon Energy, developed the project.
Continue reading here.
