Sustainable North

From the New York Times on Tuesday, February 10, 2009: If people knew how much electricity they are using every time they turn on the lights, fire up the oven or lower the thermostat on their air conditioner, they would make smarter decisions about their energy use, and presumably, conserve more. That’s the idea behind [...]

[Read more →]

From New York Times on Friday, February 6, 2009: Environmentalists dream of a bigger and “smarter” electric grid that could move vast amounts of clean electricity from windswept plains and sunny deserts to distant cities. Such a grid, they argue, could help utilities match demand with supply on the hottest afternoons, allow customers to decide [...]

[Read more →]

From the Anchorage Daily News on Sunday, February 8, 2009: Gov. Sarah Palin plans to introduce a bill calling for creating a joint corporation of the six Railbelt electric utilities. Palin says such an entity could unite a “fragmented group of rival utilities” and could save rate payers $40 million annually. The utilities are Fairbanks-based [...]

[Read more →]

BY Adam Wasch, Energy Outreach Consultant for CCHRC and UAF CES Energy Focus: Fairbanks Daily News-Miner February 5th, 2009, Section A3 Seal it. Tighten it. Insulate it. Weatherization has become a high priority among homeowners, contractors, and builders – and for good reason. The cost of heating oil may have declined from last year’s record [...]

[Read more →]

From the Washington Post on Thursday, February 5, 2009: Seeking to jump-start the housing market, the Senate added new tax relief for homebuyers to its $900 billion economic stimulus bill yesterday as the legislation moved toward a final vote. The amendment, offered by  Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.), represents a significant victory for Republicans. GOP lawmakers [...]

[Read more →]

From the New York Times on Wednesday, February 4, 2009: FOR the last two years, Rachel Muston, a 32-year-old information-technology worker for the Canadian government in Ottawa, has been taking steps to reduce her carbon footprint — composting, line-drying clothes, installing an efficient furnace in her three-story house downtown. About a year ago, though, she [...]

[Read more →]

From the New York Times on Tuesday, February 3, 2009: Wind and solar power have been growing at a blistering pace in recent years, and that growth seemed likely to accelerate under the green-minded Obama administration. But because of the credit crisis and the broader economic downturn, the opposite is happening: installation of wind and [...]

[Read more →]

From the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner on Monday, February 2, 2009: Businessman Bernie Karl said he’s ready to move ahead with a prototype power system: A small-scale energy plant he’d link to indoor food production and biofuel cultivation. The project — which he said he started eyeing a few years ago — has drawn recent interest [...]

[Read more →]

From the Anchorage Daily News on Sunday, February 1, 2009: An effort to find new sources of renewable “small hydro” power for the Railbelt is running into opposition from advocates of another, equally noble environmental cause: protection of the mountain headwaters of the fish-rich Kenai River. Electric Association, working with a private consortium, is studying [...]

[Read more →]

Would you like to receive a daily email digest of Sustainable North blog posts? Click on the Subscribe to Sustainable North by Email link, located in the left column of this page. Please note, if you have signed up for the email updates prior to today, you will need to sign up again. We apologize for [...]

[Read more →]