A friend says that among his most satisfying moments are those he stands contemplating his pile of firewood. He inhales the sweetness of birch, the tang of aspen and the sharp bite of spruce while he ponders the moisture wafting out of his wood.

My friend knows how to have a good time. And he is appreciating a process that is important in places where people burn wood and release its smoke into an air column that doesn’t stir much in winter — burned dry wood results in much better air quality than wetter wood.

“I think it’s a big issue,” said John Davies, a longtime woodburner and senior researcher for energy policy at the Cold Climate Housing Research Center in Fairbanks. Researchers at the center recently collected firewood from people in Fairbanks to check it for moisture content, and are also measuring the drying progress of cordwood they have stacked on the grounds of the center in Fairbanks. Fairbanks often exceeds Environmental Protection Agency air quality standards. Its poor winter air quality is due in a large part to the emissions from wood smoke. People make the problem worse when burning unseasoned wood.

Join Alaska IPL at the Pioneer Park Civic Center on Saturday, January 30th, 2010 from 11 am to 3 pm, for an inspiring community event — One People, One Earth.

This free, family-friendly event will infuse fun, faith, education and charitable opportunities to learn about environmental stewardship and how you, your family, schools and congregations can save energy, resources and money.

Click here for more information.

New Energy for Alaska Communites

Gwen Holdmann, Director of the Alaska Center for Energy and Power for the University of Alaska

7:00 pm, Tuesday, January 19, 2010 in the Westmark Gold Room, Fairbanks

Click here for more information.

Environmentalists and conservatives have joined forces to help solve air pollution in Fairbanks.

Their report goes before the Fairbanks North Star Borough air pollution control commission today, and one of the recommendations calls on the government to improve access to wood cutting on public lands. The group also calls for the government to provide incentives to people to upgrade their wood stoves and to educate people on the merits of proper wood burning.

Similar recommendations and harsher ones, such as temporary bans on wood burning, have gone before borough officials before. This is the first list of recommendations to come from a broad-based community coalition.

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Current optimism for a continued economic turnaround is driving oil prices higher, despite high inventories, according to the DOE’s Energy Information Administration (EIA). The EIA released its monthly “Short-Term Energy Outlook” on November 10. Its forecast for the average price of oil during the winter heating season is now $77 per barrel of oil, up from a $70 forecast a month ago. Assuming that U.S. and world economic conditions continue to improve, the EIA is forecasting that oil will reach a monthly average of $81 per barrel by December 2010. The EIA also notes that should the economic recovery stall, oil prices will likely weaken. The report notes that sustained economic growth in China and other Asian countries is already beginning to cause a rebound in world oil consumption.

In general, gasoline and diesel fuel prices follow oil prices, and the current trends are no exception. The EIA expects regular grade gasoline prices to average $2.66 per gallon in the fourth quarter of 2009, up from the average price of $2.55 per gallon in September and October. Gasoline is expected to average $2.81 per gallon in 2010. Meanwhile, diesel fuel averaged $2.63 per gallon in August and September and is expected to escalate in price, averaging $2.79 per gallon during the fourth quarter of 2009 and rising to $2.94 per gallon for 2010. See the EIA’s “Short-Term Energy Outlook.”

• Total Energy Production
• Crude Oil Production
• Natural Gas Marketed Production
• Coal Production
• Total Net Electricity Generation
• Carbon Dioxide Emissions by Electric Power Producers
• Total Energy Per Capita
• No. 2 Heating Oil Residential Prices
• Motor Gasoline Retail Prices
• No. 2 Diesel Fuel Retail Prices
• Natural Gas Residential Prices
• Electricity Residential Prices

… we’re focusing upon tracking energy usage, since the first step to cutting down on our power consumption is being able to measure it. Smart meters installed as part of smart grid projects will make it extra-easy to monitor home energy use — and while there are numerous smart grid-linked energy monitoring devices coming out soon, there are also are plenty of ways to keep track of your power consumption with an old-fashioned meter.

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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.

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From the New York Times on Wednesday, January 14, 2009:

“From the manufacturers’ standpoint, it’s pretty serious,” said Bill Stewart, president of SolarCraft, a California installer, in a conversation with Green Inc. Until last summer there were still shortages of solar modules (which in turn were due to shortages of the polysilicon material they are made from), so installers like SolarCraft sometimes had to badger manufacturers to make sure they would get enough panels.

Now, said Mr. Stewart, the situation is reversed, and manufacturers are calling installers to say, “‘Hey, do you need any product this month? Can I sell you a bit more?’”

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President-elect Barack Obama said yesterday that he wanted to double the production of alternative energy over the next three years, a goal that will probably require a new set of government incentives for the capital-intensive solar and wind industries.

Six months ago, some of the biggest names in solar- and wind-project finance were firms such as Lehman Brothers, Morgan Stanley, GE Capital, Wells Fargo and Municipal Mortgage & Equity. But many of those firms are mired in their own financial crises, and existing tax benefits for renewable energy projects are now unattractive to them. A technical aspect of the bank bailout has even made renewable tax incentives useless for some profitable banks.

Click here to read the whole story.