Renewable Juneau

Featuring an energy efficient envelope and heat pump.

Is Climate Change Making Your Life More Expensive? A new survey reveals 67% of American voters believe global warming is affecting the cost of living in the U.S.

Volvo CE and Hitachi Energy have signed an MOU to bring zero-emission job sites closer to reality, pairing battery electric construction equipment with clean energy, intelligent storage, and management systems.

LNG may help improve local air quality by reducing particulates and sulfur and nitrogen oxides, but it's not clear that it will reduce the greenhouse gas emissions and massive climate pollution produced by cruise ships.

"The major cruise lines in the Alaska market, through their trade association, have committed to net-zero greenhouse gas emissions from ship operations by 2050."

Alaska cruise line experiments with alternative fuel | Alaska Beacon The newest cruise ship operated by Princess Cruises is the first oceangoing vessel to be refueled with liquefied natural gas, which could be the start of a new way of fueling the Alaska cruise ships that operate out of Seattle and Vancouver all summer.

A fossil energy system is incredibly inefficient, with up to 70% of energy wasted. In reality we’ll need to produce far less energy when we electrify everything.

Renewables: too costly - not reliable - worse for the environment - job killing ? Here are the facts:

Earth.org Debunks Clean Energy Myths - CleanTechnica Clean energy myths abound, but Earth.org has five strategies for countering disinformation that have proven effective.

Solar power expected to soon be cheaper than natural gas power in Anchorage Alaska’s largest planned solar farm, expected to break ground west of Anchorage this summer, is likely to deliver cheaper electricity than possible with imported natural gas, according to information the state’s largest electric utility shared with state lawmakers this month.

Given the wholesale dismantling of climate action at the national scale in the U.S., this year NPR's Climate Solution's Week is focusing on climate solutions at the regional, state, city, and even neighborhood level.

How one Oregon city has raised a billion dollars for climate change The Portland Clean Energy Fund has raised a billion dollars for climate change action via a retail tax on large corporations in the city. Other cities are starting to shape similar funds.

There's just no good reason for Alaska Marine Lines to stop hauling EV''s.

Electric vehicles are often portrayed as a major fire risk, but the data behind this graphic comes from a 2022 analysis by AutoInsuranceEZ that examined U.S. transportation and safety records, including data from the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) and the Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS). The analysis found that battery electric vehicles were associated with about 25.1 fire incidents per 100,000 vehicles sold, compared with roughly 1,529.9 for gasoline and diesel vehicles, while hybrid vehicles recorded the highest rate at 3,474.5 per 100,000 vehicles sold.

Researchers and fire safety experts note that EV fires can be more difficult to extinguish because damaged battery cells may enter thermal runaway, a chain reaction that can reignite even after a fire appears to be out. However, according to the analysis, such incidents occur far less frequently than fires involving conventional internal combustion vehicles.

Opinion: Alaska’s power problem needs a patchwork solution
By Frank Bass

Gasoline prices in Alaska are above $5 per gallon. Heating oil delivery prices have topped $6. The long-term future of natural gas at any price is uncertain. And electricity prices that have already gone through the roof appear poised to ascend into orbit.

It’s not as if we didn’t see this coming. We did — more than 15 years ago, in fact.

The Alaska Legislature passed a nonbinding resolution in 2010 to increase the share of electricity from renewable energy to 50%. At the time, renewables accounted for about 21.5% of total generation, with roughly 21.2% from hydroelectric projects.

And now?

The key word is “nonbinding.” According to the Energy Information Administration, Alaska currently gets about 30% of its electricity from renewable sources. Do the math: That’s about 0.5% growth in renewable generation every year.

Compare that figure with Texas, another state well known for its oil and gas production. In 2010, the Lone Star State got about 8% of its electricity from renewables. By 2025, about 37% of its electricity was provided by renewable energy. Or we can compare it to the rest of the nation, where generation from renewable energy has more than doubled, from 10% in 2010 to 26% last year. Twenty-nine states and the District of Columbia have created renewable portfolio standards that require utilities to generate a set amount of electricity from renewable sources by a specific date; Alaska is not among them.

The lack of progress in Alaska is even more galling since the state has long been a pioneer in developing renewable energy sources. The Gold Creek Power Plant, which still provides Juneau with backup power, was built in 1896 — less than two decades after the invention of the Pelton wheel made it possible to obtain electricity from rivers. Kotzebue emerged as an Arctic pioneer in wind energy in 1997 with the installation of three 66-kilowatt wind turbines. Dozens of off-grid Alaska villages are turning to solar energy during the long summer days to reduce their annual diesel fuel costs.
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So why did the state fail so miserably at meeting its 2010 goal? Three reasons:

• Geology. Alaska is a huge state with a varied landscape. Hydropower might work well in Southeast, but it’s not easy to build dams in many parts of the drier and flatter Interior and North Slope. Wind is generally useful along the coast but encounters natural barriers as it moves inland. And solar is extremely efficient in cold climates and clear skies, which rules that source out for most of the state’s coastal communities. There is no one-size-fits-all-places solution.

• Demography. About three-fourths of the state’s electricity is consumed along the Railbelt, stretching from Fairbanks to Homer. The major communities in the Railbelt — Anchorage, Fairbanks, the Mat-Su, Homer and Seward — all developed separately. As a result, they all have different electric cooperatives providing power. Unlike the Lower 48, there is no independent system operator to ensure the smooth flow of electrons up and down the Railbelt. And we can’t forget that there are 200-plus off-road villages that are essentially operated on free-standing microgrids because they’re too remote to connect to a statewide system. Alaska cannot, and never will, have a single electric grid because of its population distribution.

• Politics. Alaska has historically been the home of the One Big Project. Think of the plan to use nuclear weapons to build a port at Cape Thompson; the proposal to create a Lake Erie-sized reservoir by damming the Yukon River; or a domed community for 40,000 people on the Knik Arm. Alaska politicians tend to swing for the fences, and with those swings come strikeouts. There’s also an unfortunate tendency to kick the can down the road until the next deus ex machina like World War II, the Cold War or the trans-Alaska pipeline appears — if one does. When it comes to energy, Alaska needs to punt on the idea of another megaproject savior.

It’s easy enough to hand-wave the current high energy prices, blame them on a misguided but temporary Middle East war and assume that a $44 billion gas pipeline will solve our energy problems. Given the tortured history of the Alaska LNG pipeline project, that’s a bit like Ahab waiting on the white whale to beach itself. But even if the pipeline is built on budget — some estimates have placed the cost at $70 billion — and completed by 2031, five years is a long time for most of the state’s population to sit in the cold and dark.

If Alaska is ever to become truly energy independent, lawmakers will need to realize that it will occur through a patchwork of sources, with different renewables of different sizes in different locations as the key element. Given its vast natural resources, the state should shift its focus from megaprojects to smaller, less costly efforts distributed throughout communities. The Alaskan economy — and the people who are suffering from ever-rising energy prices — can’t wait.

Frank Bass is a former investigative journalist and graduate student majoring in Arctic and northern studies at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, specializing in the history of renewable energy.

Opinion: Alaska’s power problem needs a patchwork solution Families and businesses need relief long before one massive project might come online.