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 Golden Valley Electric Association, Homer Electric Association, Anchorage’s Municipal Light and Power, Chugach Electric Association, the City of Seward and Matanuska Electric Association.

Click here to read the whole article.

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 “low impact” small-hydro projects for four mountain lakes and streams around Moose Pass and Cooper Landing.

But the state-funded studies ran into loud opposition in the last two weeks from local residents, who foresee plenty of possible impacts from the proposed diversion pipelines and access roads, including threats to the scenic area’s salmon spawning and its tourist-based economy.

Click here to read the whole story.

State officials assessing hardships on the lower Yukon River area for a possible disaster declaration said they’ll push to create a fuel voucher that could help the poorest families.

After two days of listening to crushing testimony from scores of residents in Emmonak and Kotlik, the team said they would do all they can to quickly help.

“In both communities, we hear loud and clear that the children are going to school not ready to learn, that they’re hungry and cold. That’s really troubling to me,” said Tara Jollie, director of the state Division of Community and Regional Affairs.

“We’re hearing that there are families that are hungry and that’s not acceptable,” she said.   

Click here to read the whole article.

Education leaders look to be sharpening their focus on energy research, a move spearheaded by tentative plans to build a 31,000-square-foot building dedicated to energy research — everything from wind and hydrogen to coal — at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.

The plan is on the fast-track. If it happens, it would meet a demand for more space for energy research and testing — a need previously limited in discussion to the context of a separate project, a proposed expansion of the university’s growing engineering programs.

University leaders are talking of building the $30 million center, which would house the 1-year-old Alaska Center for Energy and Power, during the next two summers.

Click here to read the whole article.

Click here for a link to the Alaska Center for Energy and Power website.

A document submitted as a state energy plan falls short of its mark, while renewable energy projects submitted for funding might go too far, legislators said.

Members of the House Energy Committee, including Rep. Jay Ramras, R-Fairbanks, were critical of the Alaska Energy Authority’s state energy plan as director Steve Haagenson detailed the more than 240-page volume during a hearing Tuesday afternoon.

Rep. Bryce Edgmon, a Democrat from Dillingham and committee co-chairman, said calling the report an energy plan was something of a misnomer. Instead, the report seemed a “first step” toward a state energy plan, he said.

Click here to read the whole article.

The State of Alaska has published its proposal for grant allocation from the Alaska Renewable Energy Fund. This money will fund the construction of a wide range of alternative energy projects throughout the state. The total proposed expenditure from the State of Alaska is $100 million, with a Federal match of approximately $300 million.

Click here for a link to the Alaska Energy Authority page that outlines the proposal and links to relevant documents.

The Alaska Energy Authority has agreed to spend $20,000 to analyze whether energy-efficient wood boilers would be cheaper to use than heating oil for the roughly 50,000-square-foot school being built near Talkeetna. The Matanuska-Susitna Borough, which requested the study, has also chipped in $5,000. …

Local residents cooked up the idea. For more than a year, they’ve pressed the borough to consider using a wood-heated boiler as the primary heating source for the school, and to leave the fuel-oil boiler as a secondary heater. The wood could be harvested on borough-owned land a few miles from the school, whereas fuel oil would be trucked to the school from Nikiski, said mechanical engineer Tami Hamler, a supporter of the wood-fired boiler project. And if sustainable harvest practices are used, wood from public land could heat the school indefinitely, Hamler said.

Click here to read the whole article.

WASILLA — Backyard wind turbines are popping up around the Matanuska-Susitna Borough as energy prices rise and residents try to harness those notorious Valley winds. 

Click here to read the whole article.

Proponents of a plant that would make liquid fuels out of coal say such a facility could be the solution to high energy costs in Fairbanks and Interior villages.

However, a financial specialist warned that private-sector financing will be hard to find without some government assistance, either as cash, loan guarantees or off-take agreements.

The borough and Fairbanks Economic Development Corporation have proposed building a plant that would produce between 20,000 and 40,000 barrels of liquid fuel a day from coal and biomass — a plant that would probably cost at least several billion dollars.

High-ranking officials from the U.S. Department of Energy and the U.S. Air Force, as well as more local players, gathered Friday in Fairbanks to discuss how to fast-track a biomass and coal-to-liquids facility. They heard from seven speakers representing pieces of the project.

Click here to read the full article.

A group of Dillingham, Alaska, fishermen hoping to reduce gas costs for the Bristol Bay fleet are sketching plans to turn salmon waste into fuel.

In Nunam Iqua in Western Alaska, a tiny utility hopes to spin power from the wind electric use will jump when a new school opens and flush toilets arrive.

And in Fort Yukon in the Interior, Native groups hope to heat buildings with wood collected from fire-charred swaths of forest.

Click here to read the full article.