Comments:

erak

If they care about clean energy then why is it for the last 30+ years they have opposed the Susitna-Watana project?

  • erak – spot on.

    We burned half of the beluga gas solely because the sierra club (at the time) opposed Susitna in the 70s and 80s. Susitna, if built today, would likely be $0.03/kWh power at the bus. In contrast, the Fire Island Wind project is contracted at $0.097.

    if you want green energy that is reliable and will last for the next century, build Watana now.

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Two of the three extremists won, while the third just missed being seated.  Chugach’s board now holds a 5-4 majority for the “green” movement. That’s not good for ratepayers.

With extremists in power positions across the state’s electric utility boards, expect to see actions to cripple Alaska’s resource development-driven economy and lock up the state from future opportunities.  They’ll propose programs to replace coal, natural gas and other traditional energy sources with wind, solar and other renewables.  

You’ll also hear about Renewable Portfolio Standards, which is a forced market manipulation, whereby penalties are enforced for not transitioning an increasingly high percentage of the utility’s energy production to renewables during an arbitrary time period.  The activist-driven desire is to have the Railbelt at 80% renewables by 2040 (compared to 15% today).

Those goals, aside from being impossible to meet given today’s technologies and “green” energy and battery storage limitations, would also be dangerous to Alaskans. A winter storm in Texas crippled wind turbines in February 2021, leading to grid failure and tragically taking 246 lives.

STORY