Gov. Sean Parnell says that if Alaska is to meet the ambitious goal of getting half of its electricity from renewable sources some day, it will have to make a major commitment to big hydroelectric project, such as the Susitna project.

On a visit to Fairbanks today with running mate Mead Treadwell, Parnell said that he is putting a group together to see how a major hydro project could be financed. He said he wants to send a “strong signal” of his support of hydro power as a long-range option.

He also is looking for answers on ways to reduce the cost.

The Legislature and the governor approved $10 million earlier this year to update studies on Susitna and the proposed Chakachamna project.

The state now has an official policy that it will be getting 50 percent of its power from renewable sources by 2025, according to a law approved by the Legislature and governor earlier this year.

It may be impossible to reach that target in 15 years. It will be impossible unless decisions are made soon to get something underway.

A Southeast Alaska hydropower plant is closer to completion. A $9 million Alaska Energy Authority grant is the final piece of the funding puzzle for the Prince of Wales Island’s Reynolds Creek project.

Listen online: Southeast Hydropower Plant Approaches Completion

A Southeast Alaska hydroelectric project has come in millions over budget, but is expected to bring Juneau plenty of power for years to come.

Alaska Electric Light & Power now is trying to persuade the Regulatory Commission of Alaska to let it raise its rates.

The utility is trying to show that it deserves to collect an extra $15.8 million or more in additional revenue after finishing the project. The utility says it wants $12.6 million at first and the rest can come later.

Continue reading: Hydroelectric project millions over budget

Fort Yukon could turn to wood-fired power to ease its reliance on diesel fuel. Tanana could install wind turbines and start using half as much fuel within a few years.

The Alaska Energy Authority published those scenarios and about 200 more, including cost estimates, this week. The report comes less than a month after the Legislature set, as official state policy, the target of using wind turbines, hydroelectric dams and other renewable projects for at least half Alaska’s electricity by 2025.

“This gives you the pathway to get there,” said Steve Haagenson, director of the authority.

The agency released the report, an “energy pathway,” to coincide with a three-day rural energy conference in Fairbanks that ended Thursday.

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The city of Juneau has set new emissions goals for cars, homes and office buildings in the hopes of reducing pollution by 2012.

The Juneau Empire reports the city hopes to drop pollution by 21 percent in the next three years.

The Juneau Assembly says one percent of the reduction will come through changes to municipal facilities and operations, while the other 20 percent will need to come from the community.

But 90 percent of the community goal was met when Greens Creek Mine stopped burning diesel for electricity and started using hydroelectric energy earlier this fall.

The city of Angoon has been granted a preliminary permit for the Ruth Lake hydropower project.

The 20 megawatt hydropower project is designed to produce low cost electricity for Angoon, and to eventually provide hydropower to other Southeast communities.

Angoon Mayor Albert Howard says he’s looking for region-wide collaboration on the project.

The mayor says Angoon, as well as most communities off the road system, are getting hit hard by the rising cost of diesel fuel which powers the generators that currently provide electricity.

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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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.

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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.

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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.

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