Results: Calendar of Events
December 27, 2011
By Ellen Lockyer, KSKA: RuralCap, an organization which advocates for services for rural villages, has taken on the work of energy saving upgrades for many of Alaska’s most remote communities.
Kent Banks, a coordinator with the Energywise program for RuralCap in Anchorage, says the program has helped some of Alaska’s most economically strapped residents save on energy costs. Currently the program is operating with funds from NANA Regional Corporation.
Banks says the program is aimed at creating an awareness among rural homeowners on how and where energy is wasted. Energywise trained crews visit with residents to find out where “vampire power” is sucking up energy.. and raising costs.. in both old and new appliances.
Banks says about 20 percent of utility energy costs to the homeowner can be saved by going through the Energywise proram.
Most rural villages have diesel powered electrical generation facilities.
The Energywise program creates jobs, too. Energy workers, such as the ones brought into Kotzebue by NANA, are paid. A crew leader is hired and trained from each village. Crew leaders return to their own villages and hire energy workers locally, who are in turn trained in energy assessment work.
Banks says information on energy loss coming back from the villages will be put into a database. One of the big energy wasting culprits.
NANA is funding the program for all villages in its region. Banks says other Alaska Native regional corporations have expressed interest in helping with the program. Hear more
December 27, 2011
By Patty Sullivan of the Mat-Su Borough: The Matanuska-Susitna Borough continues to lead the state in constructing energy efficient and sustainable buildings. The year-old community recycling center is the first industrial facility in Alaska to be LEED certified at the Gold level. Today Mat-Su Borough Mayor Larry DeVilbiss accepted a glass plaque for the achievement.
LEED Is Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design. It’s a third-party certification program and a nationally accepted benchmark. Mayor DeVilbiss accepted the plaque from Mark Masteller, the Alaska Director for the Cascadia Green Building Council and a former Chair of the Borough Planning Commission. Masteller spoke before a small gathering in the recycling center classroom off 49th State Street near Palmer.
“Achieving better buildings—including LEED certification—truly involves an integrated team approach. As we move forward in Alaska, and especially given the growing concern about energy costs, we need stellar examples of leadership like this,” Masteller said.
“The Mat-Su Borough has shown that leadership in the arena of high-performance buildings, with the farthest-north LEED schools in the world, and now the first LEED-Gold Industrial building in the state,” he said.
Mayor DeVilbiss highlighted the savings for taxpayers on such buildings. The recycling center alone will save a projected $8,916 annually in utility costs, he said. The first LEED certified school in the state is the Machetanz Elementary School. Its utility costs, under traditional building standards, would have been $300,000 annually. Under LEED standards they were expected to be $85,000. The annual utility costs turned out to be $64,000, DeVilbiss said. “It’s important to build it right, up front,” DeVilbiss said.
Mollie Boyer is Executive Director of the Valley Community for Recycling Solutions, the nonprofit that operates the recycling center for the Borough. Boyer said the center achieved the Gold LEED certification. because how the building was made reflects its ongoing activities. MORE
December 26, 2011
PORTLAND, Ore. — Dec. 6, 2011 — Nearly 200 teams have signed up to design a small home on the Aleutian Islands that just might revolutionize how we build affordable housing.
The winning design will be used to create a new home for Jimmy Prokopeuff, a 32-year-old Aleut man living in Atka, Alaska, whose current house is badly in need of replacement. But the true goal of the project is to re-envision sustainable, affordable housing in one of the world’s harshest locales.
The Living Aleutian Home Design Competition, hosted by Cascadia Green Building Council in partnership with the Aleutian Housing Authority, aims to inspire teams to bring the tenets and principles of the Living Building Challenge 2.0 ™, to Atka, an Aleutian Island that has been continuously occupied for more than 2,000 years. Currently, Atka has a population of 61 people.
The Living Building Challenge dares the building industry and all inhabitants of the built environment to rethink how buildings are designed, how materials are sourced and how people interact with the built environment. The Aleutian Islands, often called ”the birthplace of the winds,” encompasses a 1,050-mile archipelago that is a treeless, windswept land of steep, high volcanoes, flower-strewn, moss-covered meadows and long, wide beaches.
Prokopeuff is an Alaska native, and more fortunate than many of his classmates, he found a good job in his hometown and is happy to remain. He is the production manager at the Atka Pride Seafood Plant, the community’s largest employer. He says he’s hopeful the plant will continue to thrive, with plans in the works for additional processing lines. Prokopeuff’s love for family and a passion for hunting and fishing make Atka the perfect place for him. Almost.
His living conditions are less than optimal. His small, ranch-style home was built by his father and grandfather shortly before he was born. It is typical of any house built during that time – where comfort depended on cheap fossil fuel. But heating oil shipped to Atka is no longer cheap. Given today’s prices of $6 to $8 a gallon, that can mean monthly heating bills of $600 in the heart of winter, which can last anywhere from four to six months.
“It is so expensive,” Prokopeuff says. “I am so excited for my new home. Everyone here is. It could change things.”
It could change things everywhere. The Living Aleutian Home Design contest challenges teams to create a prototype for affordable, sustainable residences in a rural community confronted with sky-high construction costs, an extreme climate and a pressing need for adopting alternative fuel strategies.
When it’s over, the Aleutian Housing Authority (AHA) will have a replicable design it can use in all 10 villages where the authority builds homes. And it will help demonstrate to others, in rural areas everywhere, that there are ways to radically reduce energy consumption and make the switch to renewable energy, in safe, healthy, affordable homes, explains Mark Masteller, Alaska director for Cascadia.
“The Living Building Challenge deals with far more than energy, of course, but that’s the big driver in rural Alaska,” Masteller says. “With this competition, the AHA will be able to help scores of families, and it will stimulate progress among other builders, here and hopefully across the globe.”
Judging the contest are:
Dan Duame, Director at Aleutian Housing Authority
Sebastian Eckmann, Builder at Nordic Constructors
Jack Hebert, President/CEO at Cold Climate Housing Research Center
Bryan Mackay-Lyons, Principal at Mackay-Lyons Sweetapple Architects
Jason McLennan, Architect and CEO at International Living Future Institute
Lauri Straus, Architect at kpb architects
Susan Szenasy, Editor-in-Chief at Metropolis Magazine
The first prize submission will receive a $35,000 cash prize and have the option to work with the AHA to bring the design to completion. The second-place winning entry will receive a $15,000 prize. Winners will be announced at Living Future 2012, Cascadia Green Building Council’s annual unConference, May 2-4 in Portland.
About Cascadia Green Building Council:
Founded in 1999, Cascadia is a proud chapter of both the US and Canada Green Building Councils and serves the green building community in Oregon, Washington, British Columbia and Alaska. Cascadia promotes LEED and the Living Building Challenge through a comprehensive program of education, outreach, advocacy and research. A network of fourteen branches located in each of the region’s population centers ensures that Cascadia’s programming is targeted and locally relevant. Cascadia is a program of the International Living Future Institute, which is also home to the Living Building Challenge, The Natural Step Network, USA and Ecotone publishing. Please visit http://www.cascadiagbc.org.
About the Aleutian Housing Authority:
The Aleutian Housing Authority is the Tribally Designated Housing Entity for 12 federally recognized tribes in 10 communities in the Aleutian and Pribilof region. Since inception in July 1977, the housing authority has successfully developed 304 single-family homes, 65 low-rent units, and 17 fair market rentals. AHA continues to own, manage and operate 258 housing units throughout the region. For more information, visit http://www.aleutian-housing.com/.
December 22, 2011
By Tim Ellis, KUAC -Fairbanks: A group of Ester-area residents working to build a community library have approved a ultra energy-efficient design. Thorsten Chlupp, who has worked on net zero energy homes, in Fairbanks, is working on this project as well. Hear more
December 20, 2011
By Joe Viechnicki of KFSK Radio: PETERSBURG, AK. The agency that sells hydro-electric power to the Southeast communities of Ketchikan, Wrangell and Petersburg is going to look into the possibility of raising one of its hydro dams. The Southeast Alaska Power Agency is trying to make up for a shortage of cheap hydro electricity from an increasing wintertime demand. SEAPA officials say adding new hydro plants to the southern Southeast power grid may not be answer. The SEAPA board met in Petersburg this month and voted to investigate the potential for raising the dam at Swan Lake near Ketchikan, and will hold off on applying for a new project near Wrangell.
more
December 15, 2011
By JEFF RICHARDSON,The Fairbanks Daily News-Miner: It’s been more than a year since used paper and cardboard began piling up at K&K Recycling, gradually filling a warehouse at the Richardson Highway business in the form of half-ton bales.
Later this month, that unusual bounty will finally be put to use. K&K owner Bernie Karl plans to burn it, taking advantage of a new technology that will convert its heat to electricity.
Karl and a business partner, Connecticut-based United Technologies, have spent the past year developing the biomass generators. Company officials will arrive in Fairbanks Tuesday to complete the process, which Karl said should result in a new electricity source for Golden Valley Electric Association by Dec. 20.
“Everything is coming together,” he said. “It’s like a funnel, and we’re getting to the bottom of the funnel.”
The process takes recycled cardboard, paper and wood, then shreds it and forms the product into candy bar-sized pellets. Karl said those pellets will be fed through a hopper into five generator units at K&K, where they’ll be burned to create heat that will ultimately fuel an electric-generating turbine.
At least 5,000 tons of biomass pellets are required to fuel the generators each year. Karl said emissions from the generators, which will burn the pellets at 2,300 degrees, will meet state and federal pollution standards.
Karl said the project will initially produce 300 kilowatt hours of electricity before boosting its output to 500 kilowatt hours after the early bugs are worked out. That represents just a tiny portion of the electricity used by Golden Valley Electric Association customers, who consume roughly 200 megawatts of power per hour during winter.
Despite its modest size, the project is also appealing to GVEA, which has a self-imposed goal of generating 20 percent of its power from renewable sources by 2014. Projects like Karl’s allow the utility to incrementally build up the amount of renewable sources in its system, said Mike Wright, GVEA’s vice president of transmission and distribution. Read more
December 14, 2011
President Obama announced on December 2 nearly $4 billion in combined federal and private sector energy upgrades to buildings over the next two years. These investments will save billions in energy costs, promote energy independence, and, according to independent estimates, create tens of thousands of jobs in the hard-hit construction sector. The $4 billion investment includes a $2 billion commitment, made through the issuance of a presidential memorandum, to energy upgrades of federal buildings using long-term energy savings to pay for up-front costs, at no cost to taxpayers. In addition, 60 Chief Executive Officers, mayors, university presidents, and labor leaders committed to invest nearly $2 billion of private capital into energy efficiency projects. They also pledged to upgrade energy performance by a minimum of 20% by 2020 in 1.6 billion square feet of office, industrial, municipal, hospital, university, community college, and school buildings.
The commitments were announced by President Obama and former President Clinton along with representatives from more than 60 organizations as part of DOE’s Better Buildings Challenge. The challenge is part of the Better Buildings Initiative launched in February by the president. President Clinton is spearheading the effort along with the President’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness to support job creation by catalyzing private sector investment in commercial and industrial building energy upgrades to make buildings 20% more efficient over the next decade. Such improvements would reduce energy costs for U.S. businesses by nearly $40 billion. Last year, commercial buildings consumed roughly 20% of all energy used by the U.S. economy.
Among those pledging to reduce energy consumption were the District of Columbia, which is committed to a multi-pronged action plan to reduce energy consumption in more than 90 million square feet of city- and privately held buildings in the downtown core by at least 20% by 2020. And Prologis, a global leader in industrial real estate, has made it a key priority to work with its customers to reduce energy consumption in 100 million square feet by 20% by 2020. See the White House press release.
DOE announced on December 1 its $12 million in funding for the awardees of the Rooftop Solar Challenge. The Challenge supports 22 regional teams in 18 states to spur solar power deployment by cutting red tape. The effort streamlines and standardizes permitting, zoning, metering, and connection processes, while also improves finance options for residential and small commercial rooftop solar systems. This project is part DOE’s SunShot Initiative, and is designed to make solar energy more accessible and affordable, increase domestic solar deployment, and position the United States as a leader in the global solar market.
Using a “race to the top” model, the Rooftop Solar Challenge incentivizes the regional awardees to address the differing and expensive permitting, zoning, metering, and connection processes required to install and finance residential and small business solar systems. The 22 teams bring together city, county, and state officials, regulatory entities, private industry, universities, local utilities, and other regional stakeholders to clear a path for rapid expansion of solar energy and serve as models for other communities across the country. The teams will implement step-by-step actions to standardize permit processes, update planning and zoning codes, improve standards for connecting solar power to the electric grid and increase access to financing. Non-hardware costs like permitting, installation, design, and maintenance currently account for up to 40% of the total cost of installed rooftop photovoltaic systems in the United States.
The SunShot Initiative is a collaborative national effort to make solar cost-competitive with other forms of energy by the end of the decade. See the DOE press release, a complete list of awardees, and the SunShot Initiative website.
December 5, 2011
Washington, D.C. – The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and the Denali Commission (an independent federal agency that provides infrastructure and economic support throughout Alaska), launched the Alaska Strategic Technical Assistance Response Team (START) Program today. The START Program is aimed at providing federally recognized Alaska Native governments with technical assistance to accelerate clean energy project deployment. This effort furthers the Administration and Department’s commitment to provide Tribes with the tools and resources they need to foster tribal energy self-sufficiency and sustainability. The main objective is to advance economic competitiveness and create jobs.
“By leveraging our technical resources and expertise we will help Tribal communities, entrepreneurs and small businesses in Alaska create jobs, reduce our reliance on fossil fuels and build a sustainable energy future,” said Secretary Chu. “Working together, we can strengthen the energy security and economic competitiveness of Tribal homes and businesses.”
Through Alaska START, Department of Energy and Denali Commission experts will work directly with community-based project teams. Together these groups will evaluate financial and technical feasibility and provide early development of technical assistance. Therefore the projects are better positioned on financing and construction for the unique energy challenges and opportunities in Alaska. This initiative complements the Department of Energy Office of Indian Energy’s efforts to make reliable and technical information and training available to Tribal communities throughout the United States.
The START initiative will further serve to help Native American and Alaska Native communities increase local generation capacity. In addition, enhance energy efficiency and conservation measures and create entrepreneurial and job opportunities in the new clean energy economy. Awards through this initiative will be provided through two programs:
1. Alaska START Program: Leveraging the combined technical expertise and resources of DOE and the Denali Commission <http://denali.gov/>. This program will help selected Alaska Native communities conduct community-based planning and training and implement a variety of clean energy projects such as energy storage infrastructure, renewable energy deployment and housing energy efficiency.
2. START Program: U.S. Tribes selected for this parallel national program will be paired with DOE experts who have clean energy deployment experience relevant to the selected Tribe’s project development stage and technology.
For more information and application requirements for these technical assistance programs, please visit the DOE Office of Indian Energy website HERE <http://energy.gov/indianenergy/resources/start-program>. Applications are due by January 15, 2012.
DOE’s Office of Indian Energy <http://energy.gov/indianenergy/office-indian-energy-policy-and-programs> coordinates energy education and programs that assist Tribes with energy development of Indian lands and homes.
