FCAC's August Energy Newsletter: Reality Checks
As we work for the fossil fuel free future we need, it’s important to stay rooted in the reality of what this change really looks like on the ground. In this issue of our energy newsletter, we’ll look at our reality - including where our local energy utilities are currently at in their transparency and openness to member input, a study to assess different real-world scenarios for lowering carbon emissions in the state, and lastly, we’ll look at the LNG false promises being made by our government, and assessing them in the context of our actual global energy market.
What is the Alaska Energy Transparency Project (AETP)?
The Alaska Energy Transparency Project (AETP) is an editorially independent initiative of the nonprofit Alaska Public Interest Research Group. AETP breaks down complicated energy issues and shares this important news, providing information about how our electric utility cooperatives make decisions, and making it easier to engage with utilities.
AETP covers stories from GVEA, MEA (Matanuska Electric Association), CEA (Chugach Electric Association), and HEA (Homer Electric Association) focusing on these coops as the democratically managed organizations that they are.
Recently AETP published a transparency scorecard to “examine how open and transparent cooperative board meetings are to member-owners and what impediments may exist to members becoming more active participants in shaping policies and decisions.”
Of the 4 railbelt coops, GVEA scored the highest with 22.5 out of 26 points. As more and more members have gotten involved with GVEA, they’ve become more transparent and are doing many things well. For example, GVEA Board of Directors meetings are in the evenings to allow more public participation outside of normal work hours and they have options to attend both in-person and virtually.
However, there’s still lots of room for improvement when it comes to GVEA’s transparency.
- In 2022, GVEA spent 47.6% of their Board meeting time in executive session which means almost half of their conversations happened behind closed doors with no way for members to be involved.
- GVEA requires member owners that wish to comment to sign up by 6:45pm on the day of the meeting, a policy imposed last year. In the past, GVEA allowed member owners to comment even if they had not previously signed up, giving them access to respond to the educational presentations at the beginning of the meeting and making it more accessible to comment.
- Although they still receive GVEA services and are impacted by the decisions our utility coop is making, GVEA does not allow participation from people like renters who technically aren’t member owners because their name isn’t on an account.
You can read the full results from the Transparency Scorecard here! Want to write a community piece for AETP? Email brian@akpirg.org!
To learn more about transparency and energy justice issues of GVEA reach out to kenzley@fbxclimateaction.org!
Railbelt Decarbonization Study: Results from Public Comment Period
Last year the Alaska Center for Energy and Power (ACEP), in collaboration with Information Insights, utilities, and other stakeholders, began a study of different pathways to decarbonization - the process of reducing and ultimately eliminating net carbon emissions from Alaska’s Railbelt electrical system. They received 64 responses to their public comment survey which considered 3 different scenarios for decarbonization: scenario 1 - decentralized energy transition; scenario 2 - centralized low carbon generation; scenario 3 - export project offtake.
The full results have been compiled in this Railbelt Decarbonization Pathways Study Public Comment Summary report.
Here are some of the biggest takeaways from the report:
Of the technologies considered in this study, the 2 most supported are on-shore wind with 74% strongly in favor and large scale solar photovoltaic with 72% of respondents strongly in favor.
There was also majority support for Cook Inlet tidal, off-shore wind and geothermal.
Advanced micronuclear had a split between those in favor and opposed as did thermal generation with hydrogen or ammonia. Many respondents were neutral or unsure about development of those technologies.
There was a consensus of responses saying the focus should remain on proven technologies such as wind, solar, and hydro.
The 3rd scenario, looking at a large-scale export project, received intense skepticism, showing the widespread opposition to natural gas, increased fossil fuel infrastructure such as new pipelines, and unproven false solutions such as blue ammonia. This large export scenario will no longer be considered in response to the feedback given.
An Update on the Proposed AK LNG Project
On August 11th the Center for Biological Diversity and the Sierra Club filed a petition to reverse the Department of Energy’s April approval of the massive proposed AK LNG (Liquid Natural Gas) Project that would bisect the state in order to ship North Slope gas out of Nikiski to Japanese and South Korean markets.
This news comes at the same time that a new Wall Street Journal report says that the project is not getting the traction from potential buyers in these key markets as they are not “confident in the project’s timeline.” The proposed project has made “too little progress for too long” to come online in the timeframe in which many buyers would like to be buying LNG.
AK LNG would also need significant subsidies from the federal and Alaska state governments in order to be economically viable to investors, in addition to the over $400 million that has already been spent. Sullivan and Murkowski appear to be working to try to slip a loan guarantee for the project into amendments to various unrelated pieces of legislation. At the end of July they tried to add amendment #971 to the National Defense Authorization Act that would have “allow(ed) the credit subsidy fee for this loan guarantee to be paid with funds already appropriated into other DOE loan programs.” This letter from the Sierra Club explains: “This would undermine a key safeguard designed to protect against reckless investments and further displace the financial risk of the project onto taxpayers. The majority of the DOE’s existing loans and loan guarantees have gone to support renewables and electric vehicles.” This is a blatant attempt by Sullivan and Murkowski to prop up a risky, dead-end investment while betting against Alaska’s renewable energy future.
We can take action against these attempts to subvert our real energy needs. On September 16th, Fairbanksans will be gathering at Golden Heart Plaza to March for a Fossil Free Future. That weekend, we will be joining the rest of the country in demanding that the Biden administration declare a climate emergency and roll back recent fossil fuel permit approvals like the Willow Project and AK LNG Pipeline Project.
We will also call on our federal and state officials to stop subsidizing fossil fuel companies and instead put that money into transitioning our communities, energy infrastructure and workforce to renewable energies and regenerative economies.
Join us on September 16th, from 4:30-5:30, for a march from the Golden Heart Plaza to Veterans Park to show your support for a fossil fuel free future!
There will be art parties to prepare for the march at 60 Hall St on September 9th from 3-6pm and September 13th from 5-8pm. You can get more information from the march at our facebook event here or reach out to arleigh@fbxclimateaction.org if you would like to get more involved.
