This editorial first appeared in the Kodiak Daily Mirror:
While Alaska struggles with fuel prices and many people complain, some places are trying to do something about it.
The city of Old Harbor is pressing ahead with a new hydroelectric power plant, betting that cheap hydroelectricity will make village life affordable.
Old Harbor is on the right track, but it shouldn’t be the only one of Kodiak’s rural communities doing it.
The city of Kodiak has shown how hydroelectric power cuts electrical prices, ensuring that power costs, at least, are one thing Kodiakans don’t have to worry about in a worldwide recession.
Cheap electricity is an incentive to industry, something Old Harbor realizes. It has improved its dock and is beginning an expansion of its airport runway. A project to bring high-speed Internet and cellphone service to the city will take place this summer.
When cheap electricity becomes available, fish processing may soon follow. With fish processing comes jobs, and jobs mean a chance to reverse the flight of rural residents to urban areas, a trend that has accelerated in recent years.
Hydroelectricity doesn’t come cheap. Permitting a new hydroelectric plant, even one without a dam, can cost millions of dollars. Half a million dollars has been spent so far on Old Harbor’s project.
We encourage the state of Alaska to act on small-scale hydroelectric plants just as with the enormous Susitna Hydroelectric Project in Southcentral.
Unfortunately, we cannot always expect the state to act quickly. In Ouzinkie, a wooden dam that supplies both water and power for Spruce Island is near failure and needs help. The state has supplied some assistance, but villages in the Interior and elsewhere also need help. Alaska’s attention is split.
Therefore, we believe the best agent to act for small-scale hydroelectricity in Kodiak is private industry.
Among private industry in Kodiak, only regional and local Native corporations have the financial resources and interest to make small-scale hydroelectric power work. These projects would benefit Native shareholders directly, and any investment in a power plant would be repaid to the company through fees charged to ratepayers.
It would not be a quick return, but it would be a steady one.
If Kodiakans are serious about deterring village flight, we need to encourage rural industry and security. Cheaper electricity is a good place to start.
Comments (9)
Add commentCheaper fuel is the start
What does it take to get the equipment, construction workers, materials, etc. to the proposed site? What runs the equipment once construction begins and replenishes supplies and workers? Fuel! Lower fuel prices bring down the fixed costs and spur development. This is the place to start.
OK! Here goes a slim chance!
Much like a lot of rural municipalities, transportation and the needed fuel to and fro is the main problem in the beginnings a hydro-electric plant. Then the years of construction and wasted time. Well, what if you didn't need to build one? What if there was a created, already patented and proven source of ever cheaper and more efficient energy source, with a vastly smaller footprint on the environment? Maybe its about time somebody really did use what comes free and unobstructed 24 hours a day, 365...Rural Alaska is the right place and the people are the right ones and its just too darn energy efficient and cheap to not try. Somebody in the local Kodiak gvmnt please see this!!! Over 100 years ago Nichola Tesla invented and patented his "Radiant Energy System"! It was proven to be self sustaining and continuous. It was also driven into obscurity and demolished by who else, but the people that have the meters. See, it comes from our environment and has the upstart nerve to bypass the corporate system of THE BILLING. Google it, the plans are there! Peace!
skatdachef
Have a website about this "radiant energy system?" Sounds just radiant.
Old Harbor sure sounds to be on the right track.
Infrastructure! These folks are on the cusp! Sounds like a good investment, or at the very least get out of the way.
AEA is a major impediment to responsible development in Southeas
It is hard to imagine that Alaska Energy Authority would recommend spending half a billion dollars on pellet stoves for everyone in Southeast at a cost of $.29 cents per KW. Southeast needs to develop its hydro power, where the same half a billion dollars could build Cascade Creek, Ruth and Scenery Lake, more than doubling Southeast hydro power production. There is corruption at the highest level of AEA and the monopoly Electrical Utilities are paying the ransom. Every Village should be outraged at the cost of their electricity, knowing full well that it shouldn't cost more than a dime per KW.
What's this??
Brad is criticizing the "free market"?? Say it isn't so!!
Good reminding article
I use to love to read Lew Williams (editor? KDN) articles and his call for help in Southeast. He cared what was happening beyond his own town of Ketchikan.
Just google---Teslas radiant energy---
Haysues christo and more, so lets just keep buying the corporate 29cent, 50cent, 10cent, I don't care how much crap!! It doesn't matter an iota to a venture that would pay for itself and then some. Here it goes "he's toast and totally nutso" this chef guy! I'm telling ya that the machine is REAL and it works the system better and more efficiently than the guys you pay your KW bills to. A small unit next to a house the size of a breadbox and 'voila' power for the rest of your life. FREE. But ya see, free just isn't the American way...Somebody always has to pay-------bullsh**!
@skatdachef: in addition to
@skatdachef: in addition to completely failing to understand the laws of Thermodynamics (energy has to come from somewhere), why don't YOU provide evidence for Tesla's "radiant energy" thing? Tesla came up with a lot of crazy ideas, and a "small unit" that sits next to your house sounds like one of them, unless it contains a miniature fusion reactor inside of it.