Anchorage along with the rest of city Alaska are confronting a natural gas supply shortage. Fears are growing about how the area will be able to access fuel on a regular basis for heating homes and to generate electricity.
Environmental and consumer groups suggest that one method to lessen the state’s dependence on natural gaz is through an “renewable portfolio standard.” This is a law that requires that Alaska’s electric utilities produce some amount of energy using renewable sources.
A freelance journalist Nat Herz, at his publication Northern Journal, has been writing about state legislators’ efforts to create such a law. However, Herz claims the idea is in limbo within the Alaska Capitol amid intense opposition from utility companies.
Listen:
The transcript below has been lightly edited to improve clarity.
Nat Herz: So, we pay a lot for natural gas-generated electricity here in the Railbelt. And, in the past couple of years, the major natural gas company operating within Cook Inlet, Hilcorp, has stated, “Look, you guys have run out of gas we can locate in a manner that’s not more expensive than what anyone would need to.” So there’s this natural gas cliff we might fall off within the next few years, and suddenly we’re required generate power in an alternative way, or we’re having to shell out lots of dollars to import natural gas as a liquefied form into tankers from outside of the state.
One thing people believe we could do is that is to lessen the dependence of natural gas, like by installing large quantities of solar, wind hydroelectric, and other forms of renewable energy. However, there’s not a lot of faith from these advocacy groups that utilities will be able to be able to accomplish this by themselves. One way they’ve attempted to force this is to use what’s known as the “renewable portfolio standard.” This is basically a piece of legislation that requires utilities to produce a certain amount of electricity from renewable sources within the end of a certain time.
Casey Grove: Here in Alaska the renewable energies bill passed by the legislature in the year 2000. Please tell me more about that.
Nat Herz: It’s fascinating to note that Republican Governor. Mike Dunleavy was the one who suggested the renewable portfolio standard that would make it mandatory for utilities to produce 80percent of their electricity using renewable resources by 2040. That is quite a quick turnaround considering that they produce roughly 20% power at present. The governor’s bill did not appear to be able to achieve anything. We also obtained emails via public records requests which revealed the deputy Dunleavy appointed to take legislation through Legislature, Curtis Thayer, who is the director of the Alaska Energy Authority, the emails indicated that he was working behind the scenes when this legislation was in the process of being put together trying to make the legislation slightly more appealing for the utilities who were expressing concerns about the speed and the degree of renewable energy adoption that was originally incorporated in the legislation. Through the legislative process this year, the bill was amended to permit sources such as nuclear power, for instance as well as to delay implementation by around 10 years, until 2050. However, the bill was never approved and was subsequently discarded at the conclusion of the session in the legislature in the year before.
Casey Grove: Are I understanding correctly? Concerns about the addition of more wind, solar and other renewable sources of power into the grid are that it will increase the cost of electricity or impact the reliability of the grid? What are we able to know about this?
Nat Herz The thing is the thing that is interesting is that they’re actually very, very, extremely different approaches to how this will increase the cost of electricity? Since the cost of renewables has been dropping to a minimum in the last five, 10, 15, 15 years. The utilities claim they have models that suggest that shifting to renewable energy in the manner the governor’s law in the last year envisioned could push rates to rise by as much as 15 percent 20 %, 20% and 25 percent. Another analysis was conducted by a reputable independent energy analyst which shows that the expense of building all the renewable power sources is much less than the savings on fuel which could result in being able to avoid the expense of buying natural gas to fuel our natural gas power stations. There’s a more reliable study due to come out from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory that was requested by Governor’s offices. This study will hopefully end this debate. It’s still not finished therefore we don’t know the details. It’s becoming a point of discussion, since lawmakers have thought about the legislation proposed.
Casey Grove: The debate hasn’t been put to rest on in this particular instance. What is the status of this idea in the present?
Nat Herz: So the governor did not bring back the bill this year. I spoke with him about the issue, and he stated, “I had too much other work to attend to. I was considering legislation to make Alaska’s forests more profitable. I created an energy task force focused on clean energy.” The governor stated that it was his intention to wait for lawmakers to present the bill. There were a handful of them who did submit a bill, but the process took longer than two months to get it through the session to pass it. They started at the beginning without any of these issues that were added upon request by the utilities, such as including nuclear power into the category of renewable energy, and slowing the process of implementing. Now they’re getting into the legislative process over again.
In the meantime, we’ve been for another two years since the governor announced his first plan, in which we’ve been making use of the dwindling supplies of natural gas at Cook Inlet without a clear plan of what to do if that gas is gone and without a amount of clear urgency, and with no new initiatives being announced by utilities. There are some big concerns regarding how this all is going to go.
