The federal government is giving Alaska $700,000 to take steps to improve energy efficiency in the state by 2020.

The U.S. Department of Energy funding is intended to go toward efforts such as expanding current energy efficiency programs and outreach and creating necessary policy to lead to a 15-percent improvement in efficiency over the next decade.

The department says this is part of nearly $30 million going to 12 states and territories.

Art and science are not mutually exclusive disciplines and the artists and scientists behind “In a Time of Change: Envisioning the Future” are going to prove it.

A project in two parts — a gallery exhibition and a stage performance — has the intention of changing the ongoing dialogue on climate change, according to scientist and performer Mary Beth Leigh.

“It’s how we’re seeing the effects of climate change,” she said. “And trying to figure out how the future might look.”

Funded through a grant from the National Science Foundation, applications for the program were accepted early this year. Then this summer, dozens of artists chosen were given the chance to see what climate change scientists are doing to gather data at the Bonanza Creek Long Term Ecological Research program. Together, in small groups of about 12, they would go out to the site and look at how climate change has been affecting the area.

Those trips were a chance for the artists to see what was happening in the environment and a chance for them to interact with scientists studying climate change.

The entrance of the garden at the Tanana Valley fairgrounds smelled like a minty fusion as about a dozen students harvested crops Tuesday afternoon.

“The spearmint needs to be weighed. The kale needs to be weighed,” said Sheryl Meirerotto, who teaches the eighth-grade class from Effie Kokrine that was busy digging, plucking and weighing vegetables.

The class will prepare a portion of the produce for a potlatch dinner during the Alaska Federation of Natives Convention in October.

The garden, which has existed for many years and has been managed by the University of Alaska Fairbanks for the last two years, demonstrates how much can be grown in the Interior.

“The purpose of the garden is to represent the crops grown in the Tanana Valley. People don’t know we can grow things like corn,” said Jeff Werner, a UAF researcher and Alaska Future Farmers of America adviser.

A state program designed to ensure that rural Alaska communities have an adequate supply of home-heating fuel is headed into its second successful year, the state reported in a press release.

The Fuel Watch program is an initiative of Gov. Sean Parnell that was implemented by the Department of Commerce, Community and Economic Development through its Division of Community and Regional Affairs.

Fuel Watch came about as a proactive approach to preventing the kind of seasonal hardship that fuel shortages caused in many rural communities in the winter and early spring of 2009.

To date, DCRA staff have made hundreds of phone calls to communities around the state to verify that fuel supplies are in order for the upcoming winter. In the program’s first year, DCRA staff made more than 1,500 phone calls and assisted 200 communities prior to the onset of winter. Alaska villages saw a significantly reduced number of fuel shortages than were experienced a year earlier.

“Fuel Watch is an excellent example of the proactive and supportive relationship our department strives to develop with communities throughout Alaska. Working to prevent another crisis situation is a much better use of state resources than responding to an actual crisis,” said Susan Bell, commissioner of the Department of Commerce, Community and Economic Development. “Alaskans will be better prepared this winter because of the dedication of Division of Community and Regional Affairs staff.”

DCRA officials are also working with fuel delivery companies and rural communities to identify where assistance may be needed. Communities with limited financial resources are being encouraged to apply for financing through state loan programs.

“Ensuring that rural families stay warm in the winter is part of our division’s mission to promote healthy and safe communities,” said DCRA Director Tara Jollie. “It is not too early to start thinking about the coming winter. When we take steps to avoid an emergency, it is a win-win situation for everyone involved.”

The Fairbanks Rescue Mission celebrates the first anniversary of its recycling center today with a barbecue and open house starting at noon.

Executive director Rodney Gaskins will be available to guide things along. Visitors might get to check out the baler that compacts the cardboard, mixed papers and aluminum the center receives. One bale of cardboard can weigh 800 pounds, while a bale of mixed paper can weigh about 1,700 pounds.

“It’s a mark of success,” Gaskins said of reaching the one-year mark.

The center surpassed its millionth pound of recycled materials in July and expects to hit 1.5 million pounds by the end of this month. The recycled paper is sent to Anchorage to become insulation, and the aluminum stays in Fairbanks where it’s sold to C&R Pipe and Steel Inc.

So far, the program is paying for itself. “A nonprofit is mission-driven,” he said, “we’re successful whether we’re making money or not.”

The plan was for the Rescue Mission to take baby steps at least until it had one year under its belt. Now he believes the recycling center can take the next big step.

“We really wanted to start small,” Gaskins said.

As he put it: “Don’t start a restaurant until you have the capability of managing a hot dog stand really well.”

The center plans to expand in the near future by adding plastics to the list of materials that can be recycled but that can’t now because of insufficient storage space.

“For us, it means that we have been able to build a sustainable recycle program,” said John Lofquist, who works at the center. “It’s allowed Fairbanks to have a recycle option.”

The center will operate at its regular hours during today’s celebration; it will be open to the public from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.

As an Alaska Native veteran, I want to see our country expand our clean energy sources. It will help our planet and our state, it will help Alaska’s Native peoples and it will help our national defense.

I am 69 years old. In my lifetime I have seen many changes connected to global warming. A big part of where I grew up has permafrost. The small village where my mother was born has sunk in and is now part of a large lake. I saw the old village of Kasigluk begin sinking in my short lifetime. The island where my maternal grandparents lived is mostly gone. A new Kasigluk was created almost a mile downriver from the old village. A new school, federally funded houses, post office and airport had to be built at a high cost.

The warming has affected the fall white fish runs on the Johnson River not far from Bethel. People there rarely fish for them anymore. The black fish creeks are almost nonexistent because of the changing river channels due to warming. The Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta has been invaded by beaver, which dam up the many small tundra creeks, disrupting the black fish runs.

Newtok, where my maternal grandmother’s family is from, and the village of Shishmaref need to be relocated at great cost due to erosion. Our elders link the erosion to changing weather due to warming. The melting of the permafrost also increases the cost of constructing homes and public buildings.

In rural villages, the cost of fuel to heat homes is high. So is the cost of electricity, which comes from expensive diesel fuel.

Continue reading: Clean energy can lessen Native suffering

Hospital visits for heart disease, stroke and lung afflictions in Fairbanks rise as the air quality deteriorates, according to new study by the state of Alaska.

A researcher with the state Section of Epidemiology combed over five years of records at the Fairbanks Memorial Hospital. She found that for every 10 micrograms per cubic meter increase of a harmful pollutant known as PM2.5:

• a 7 percent increased risk that someone under age 65 will visit the hospital because of stroke symptoms,

• a 6 percent increased risk for people over age 65,

• a 6 percent increased risk that someone under 65 will visit the hospital for a respiratory illness.

The examination of hospital visits is the first study looking at air quality health impacts in Fairbanks.

Other studies show that wood smoke is a major contributor to PM2.5.

“Basically, this study reaffirms what has already been demonstrated in similar studies performed outside of Alaska,” the study’s author, epidemiologist Rachel Kossover, said in a written statement. “People with heart and lung problems need to take air quality warnings seriously and follow the advice of local officials.”

The success of an innovative new home in Anaktuvuk Pass – which uses a wind power, solar panels and design features of traditional Nunamiut sod housing – is changing the way houses will be designed and built on the North Slope.

“This is a huge leap forward – I hope it has tremendous impact,” said Daryl Kooley, of the Tagiugmiullu Nunamiullu Housing Authority.

The house used just 87 gallons of heating fuel from November to June. Other homes typically use about 100 gallons of fuel per month.

It also cost a lot less to build – just $220,000, compared to a normal three-bedroom home in Anaktuvuk Pass, which runs upwards of $570,000.

The house was the prototype in an effort to find ways of building better, more cost-effective houses in rural Alaska, which “grew out of the fact that estimates for new housing were so extraordinary,” Kooley said. A modest, three-bedroom home in Nuiqsut constructed in the usual way, for example, can cost over $1 million to build.

That is a real problem in North Slope villages, which suffer over-crowded, crumbling homes in desperate need of replacement. To find a solution, TNHA teamed up with the Cold Climate Housing Research Center, a nonprofit that works on developing housing designs for the circumpolar north.

“We are going to have diminishing financial resources for building in rural Alaska given the economic reality of the U.S. So how can we together address the high cost of housing? We can do that together so the future is a little brighter for these communities,” said CCHRC president and CEO Jack Hebert.

The Anaktuvuk Pass prototype house was the first structure built as part of CCHRC’s Sustainable Northern Communities project, a program begun in 2008 to engineer housing solutions for rural northern communities.

Continue reading: Taking the chill out of Arctic Homes

By CCHRC Staff

The “Ask a Builder” series is dedicated to answering some of the many questions Fairbanks residents have about building, energy and the many other parts of home life.

Q: What are the advantages of hot water infloor heat versus baseboard heating?

Radiant hot water (hydronic) floor heating systems’ costs are usually higher than baseboards, however they offer significant performance advantages.

The typical hydronic floor heating system consists of tubing installed in a looping pattern in the floor. This arrangement is specifically sized and spaced to release a given amount of heat from the hot water flowing through the tubes.

There are two primary types of installations, “wet” and “dry.” A “wet” system also is known as “slab heating” and involves embedding the tubing in a poured concrete or gypsum floor. “Dry” systems route the tubing either under or on top of an existing wood subfloor.

Depending on the insulative properties of the floor covering (such as carpet), dry systems may need to operate at higher temperatures to perform comparably to wet systems.

With both types of systems, insulation is often added under the tubing to insure that most of the floor heat travels in the desired direction, rather than into the soils around the foundation.

One of the biggest arguments in favor of in-floor heat is the comfort level. With such a large surface area emitting radiant heat very evenly, most occupants with warm floors tend to feel more comfortable even if the air temperatures are slightly cooler, which in turn may lead to lower thermostat settings.

From the energy savings perspective, hydronic floor heating runs significantly cooler than hot water baseboards.

For instance, the water temperatures in the tubing running through a concrete slab usually range between 80 and 130 degrees F while baseboards operate between 130 and 165 degrees F. Usually, the lower water temperatures needed for slab heating allow the boiler to run cooler.

A cooler running boiler has several advantages, such as less heat loss up the chimney when the boiler is in an off cycle. Similarly, the boiler has less “jacket loss,” where heat is lost from the boiler to the room Cooler water heating can also make the best use of a condensing boiler, which can operate at lower temperatures and generate efficiencies of up to 94 percent.

Conventional boilers top at around 87 percent. When it comes to conventional boilers, cooler operating temperatures produce less system stress, which can extend the service life of certain boilers.

Although the initial costs are higher, the longterm benefits of hydronic floor heating are worthy of consideration, and can also contribute to the value of the home.

Alaska HomeWise articles promote home awareness for the Cold Climate Housing Research Center (CCHRC). If you have a question, e-mail us at akhomewise@cchrc.org.You can also call the CCHRC at (907) 457-3454.

If Alaskans aren’t at a crossroads politically, we’re drawing close. Most all candidates running for statewide offices this year have given due time to talk about the state’s energy future, since we’ve been living off of our energy past for so long and change is coming. A dwindling flow of oil down the pipeline makes it impossible to ignore. It’s the way the state pays for much of what it does, so it impacts nearly everyone. Two of the five questions posed to candidates by Alaska Newspapers Inc. deal directly with energy and how we acquire it.

We also asked them about other issues important to rural Alaskans: subsistence, fisheries, jobs. Every candidate running for the U.S. House, U.S. Senate, governor’s office and lieutenant governor’s office was sent the same questions. Below are answers from those who responded.

Continue reading: Finding energy at the ballot box