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May 29, 2009 Greetings, The Senate Resources Committee just spent two days in the Interior looking at the current energy situation there. I wanted to give you a run down of what we did and learned on our trip. We started by driving out to Chena Hot Springs, where owner Bernie Karl has tapped into the geothermal energy that is available there. Bernie’s vision is to make his resort into a self-sufficient community in terms of energy, food, heating and fuel use to the greatest extent possible. To attain this goal, Chena is developing numerous renewable energy and sustainable development projects which are detailed here -- http://www.chenahotsprings.com/index.php?id=home
The next stop was back in Fairbanks at the Cold Climate Housing Research Center. The center was developed by the Alaska State Home Builders Association as a both a research and a teaching institute – a place where building techniques for our unique challenges could be developed and then disseminated back to home builders across the state. The center’s new building opened in 2006 and is located on the campus of UAF. I recommend their homepage, it has lots more information -- http://www.cchrc.org/default.aspx.
We also met with the staff from the Alaska Center for Energy and Power, which is a research center located within the University system, then visited a home under construction in Fairbanks whose owner is installing a ‘heat pump’ to draw energy from the 38 degree water available year-round beneath the frost line to heat his home. If you are like me, and you need some help understanding how that works exactly, check out this Wikipedia page -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_pump. On Wednesday we left Fairbanks in the morning on a plane to Tanana, a village about forty miles away, located where the Tanana and Yukon Rivers meet. Tanana was flooded when the Yukon ice went out, and the people there had been engaged in cleaning up the town for ten days. Tanana generates their electricity the same way that much of Bush Alaska does it -- from diesel burning engines that drive small generators. They have also purchased and installed a state-of-the-art wood-burning boiler system for circulating water to the village’s houses. Tanana is a good example of the struggle that Bush Alaska is undergoing for survival. The school, built for over a hundred children, now has an enrollment of thirty-eight. Gasoline is selling for $5.70 there today. Only half the town has running water and the rest are on honey buckets. Electricity, which is about 10 cents a kilowatt here in Anchorage, is $1.00 per kilowatt in Tanana.
Our final stop was in Ruby, Alaska, another 100 miles downriver from Tanana. Ruby is in the middle of an exciting experiment with river power. The Yukon River Inter-tribal Watershed Council (YRITWC) Energy Department is breaking new ground there with the first ever US application of hydrokinetic turbines. The turbine sits in the water like a fishwheel and could make power far more affordable, and sustainable, in dozens of communities across Alaska.
No one solution will make Bush Alaska sustainable into the future, but the innovations we saw in Tanana, Ruby and Chena may lower the high cost of living there. Whether these innovations develop in time to prevent the slow emigration from village life remains to be seen. I was heartened by the dozens of Alaskans -of all ages- who came out to testify and talk about energy in their communities.
As usual, please don’t hesitate to call with questions and concerns. Sincerely,
Hollis
French |
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![[signed] Hollis French](http://www.aksenate.org/images/signatures/16.jpg)