I didn't realize Alaska was becoming like a Third World Country! (Anchorage: houses, buying)

[Trouthunter]

I'm not sure if many of Alaska residents outside of the Mat-Su area realize this but there may be a Coal Plant built just outside of Palmer in the near future. MEA (Matanuska Electric Ass.) doesn't want to import electricity from Chugiak Electric anymore (and who could blame them) and so they are looking to build a Coal Plant. Yes, I said a Coal Plant. I thought the US was moving to be a more progressive eco friendly country, but with this and Pebble I’m not sure anymore. Is Alaska going backwards in these things or what?

I wonder what other people's views are about this. Are there any people around the US who have or had a coal plant in their current or past community? What are your experiences and feelings about this type of energy use (positive vs. negative).

[Arcticthaw]

Originally Posted by Trouthunter

I'm not sure if many of Alaska residents outside of the Mat-Su area realize this but there may be a Coal Plant built just outside of Palmer in the near future. MEA (Matanuska Electric Ass.) doesn't want to import electricity from Chugiak Electric anymore (and who could blame them) and so they are looking to build a Coal Plant. Yes, I said a Coal Plant. I thought the US was moving to be a more progressive eco friendly country, but with this and Pebble I’m not sure anymore. Is Alaska going backwards in these things or what?

I wonder what other people's views are about this. Are there any people around the US who have or had a coal plant in their current or past community? What are your experiences and feelings about this type of energy use (positive vs. negative).

Well lets see... Fairbanks, has a coal fired power house downtown on the river, Ft. Wainwright, has a coal fired power house just a few mile from Fairbanks, Eielson AFB has a coal fired power house 23 mile to the south east.

I beleive all are equiped with bag houses now that reduce the amount of particulates and such.

To be fair There are two refineries in Northpole. One sends jet fuel and gasoline to Anchorage and the mat su.

Coal is the least expensive form of energy we have right now. Enviromentally there are challanges, and that was what the new clean coal plant in Healy was supposed to help solve.

We experience tempature inversions mainly in the fall and spring, this causes a higher than allowed level of polution than the EPA allows. You have something similar in Anchorage I believe. The still blame the automobiles over, the power plants, refineries, and Jet aircraft, and homes that heat with oil. Which most do here in the Northstar borough. The kicker is they did a study this summer and found that the majority of vehicles driven were less than 5 years old if I remember correctly. That means we have the latest polution technology on the roads.

Back to coal plants. Before they improved the bag house on the Chena 5 plant (in Fairbanks on the river) there was some residual ash in the area. The FT. Wainwright plant was sited for non compliance for a few years, but a couple of years ago they added bag houses and other technology so at least visibly they have improved.
The bottom line question is what is our air quality doing? I think someone would need to do a photo research for visible effects. There should be enough around to give us a history of Fairbanks for the last 50 years or so.
I don't think coal plants are bad, and Usebelli has enough coal to feed all of Alaska's needs for generations, so digging for more coal is probably not nessecary.

Don't you guys have shallow well methane there? Maybe that would be a good source.for your power plant.

[Arcticthaw]

I just remembered, UAF has a coal plant with Fuel oil back up. I am not sure what they use down in Clear AFB.

Maybe if everyone pushes for some sort of instate gas line we can supply the whole Rail Belt with natural gas and even send some to Anchorage to make up for what they will need soon. Lets see use our royalty share of the gas to provide for cheap heat for Alaskans, now that should bring good industries to Alaska.

[DannyL]

For a second I thought you were talking about juneau.

But anyhoo, i don't see why they don't biuld a nuclear power plant up here.

[Arcticthaw]

There used to be one by Ft. Greely near Delta years ago.

The biggest reason not to build one is the earthquakes. Then supposedly most of Californias are either near or on a fault line.

[rotorhead]

Coal-fired power is hardly third world, it's more like the real world.

Just about half the electrical power in the US is generated by coal. Ironically, even given widespread concerns about global warming and coal stack emissions, the percentage of our power made by coal is rising as utilities rush to complete (relatively) cheap coal plants to meet future demand before more expensive environmental regulations kick in.

Even given that the MEA will almost certainly build the cheapest, dirtiest plant possible under the current regs (unless forced to do otherwise by the legislature), it would actually mean that the valley would get more efficient power than they do now. Here is where virtually all of S. Central Alaskas power comes from. It's called the Beluga power plant, and it's way out there completely off the road system on the other side of Cook Inlet, near the village of Tyonek.



Every working generator in this plant is powered by natural gas from the Cook Inlets platforms, and spun by a jet-engine style gas turbine instead of the more efficient steam turbines found in coal plants. To make things worse, all of Belugas gas turbines are simple-cycle, with the exhaust heat just dumped out the stacks instead of being used to generate steam for a combined-cycle turbine. This means that most Alaskans are getting their electricity from a power plant thats maybe 25-30 % efficient (they're pretty old turbines), while a modern coal plants steam turbines would be typically 36-38% efficient. Beluga could upgrade to a combined-cycle process, which can approach 50-60% efficiency but it would be massively expensive.

Calling a coal plant "third world" is a misnomer at best. It's where the majority of the US gets it base electrical load from every day.

[Xa'at]

I think trouthunter is just reacting to the fact that coal plants may be the norm in most of the country, but they are very sparse on the West coast, no less Alaska. For a region that relies mostly on hydroelectric, building a coal plant sure feels like moving backward to me.
I think it's a sad reality that Alaska has huge deposits of every kind of oil you'd ever want, but heating and gasoline prices are still among the highest in the nation. Maybe it's time for people in our government quit being blinded by all the dollar signs and start thinking about our welfare.

[Trouthunter]

Rotorhead don't get too bent out of shape about my "third world" comment, it was mostly meant as a catchy lead. But "real world" would be far less dirty emissions and far greater efficiency, as you and others have nicely stated. And thanks about the quality info on the Beluga plant. I'm sure most people are clueless on how outdated the plant is.

In our "first world"/"real world" country there are ample technologies and resources that can be applied to make better (efficient/cleaner) power plants. Heck, they are already out there.
Tampa Electric - Polk Power Station
http://www.nema.org/media/ind/20070205b.cfm (broken link)
There is no denying that even these can be improved upon. This is just the US technology, just think if we used other countries improvements with our own.

My wish is to make sure Alaskans know that they already exist, before we get the cheapest plant that can be built. My gut feeling is that Roterhead is right about MEA building the cheapest hence dirtiest plant possible. We all know current Alaska and Federal laws aren’t strict enough about emissions control.

My belief is that a true "first world" country would be the progressively leading researcher/developer/user of such power plants, and if we have outdated plants current Fed law should mandate upgrades to fit strict emission laws. Unfortunately it is obvious to me that the privately owned sector has Alaska/Washington in their back pockets, and I feel this is a shame to our states/countries so called "first world" integrity.

[jrmontag]

Yep, nuclear is the way to go. I'm willing to overlook that with the whole earthquake dilemma though.

[rotorhead]

Actually, the ironic thing is that the average coal-fired power plant typically releases at least triple the amount of uranium into the environment every year as a similar sized nuclear plant does. When you're burning the (literally) mountains of coal that it takes to make those megawatts, even very small concentrations of incidental by-products that are naturally present in coal add up to some pretty big numbers. The same goes for mercury, it's present in extremely low concentrations but they burn so much fuel that it's the number one global source of mercury pollution. Natural gas is by far the cleanest of the hydrocarbon fuels, but there's no source in S. Central Alaska that could supply enough to power a plant of the size they're proposing. Sure, you could build a web of shallow gas wells to tap coal bed methane, but look what a stink that just a couple wells in Wasilla stirred up two years ago.

The fact that the Beluga plant is entirely gas-turbine based is pretty much an artifact of the Cooks Inlets oil exploration history. The dozen or so platforms in the inlet off Kenai were originally drilled seeking oil, which they did obviously find in at least a few spots. That oil is the main reason why a lot of CIRI shareholders are driving new trucks and there's a big, new hospital facility at ANMC. The upshot is that they also found quite a bit of natural gas as well, but there was (and still is) no really economic way to transport it to the W. Coast like they do with N. Slope oil. The gas was "stranded" until someone decided to build a big powerplant on the nearest shoreline and run a dedicated gas pipeline directly to it. The powerplant was built near Tyonek since it was cheaper and easier to run the electricity out to the Anchorage area by powerlines than it was to pipe the gas to a powerplant on the road system. Since they were the only market for the majority of the Cook Inlet natural gas supply, they got a great price for it, on multi-decade contracts. In fact, the gas was so cheap that there was no reason to invest in high-efficiency steam turbines. Although they've tried running a combined-cycle rig out there in the past, the ones they're using now are all simple-cycle gas turbines, basically modified jet engines just like they use on airliners, but converted to run a generator instead of producing thrust. I know that when we were living in Eagle River the cost of power went up significantly and was scheduled to rise even more, as those multi-year fixed-price gas contracts have all expired now. Since the Beluga power plant was built the market for gas has expanded as well. In the Kenai/Nikiski area they've built an ammonia plant, a synfuel project, and at least one LNG facility which all compete for a diminishing amount of Cook Inlet natural gas. Unless the price stays high they're not going to be very interested in drilling too many new offshore wells either, so it's not looking like those low, low prices for gas or electricity are coming back anytime soon.

People have talked about hydroelectric power for a long time in the Anchorage area, and I think that there are at least a couple of small hydro projects in S. Central. I know for sure that there's one that feeds into Kenai Lake, I've flown past it many times. There are a couple of big problems with hydro power in Alaska, and they're both related to both ecology and money. Back in the 60's the powers that be were gung-ho on a huge dam across the Susitna river, with a big hydro plant too. Obviously that never happened, too much money and not enough garantee that there would be any salmon left in Cook inlet after it was done. Sure, hydro plants are carbon-neutral and usually make pretty cheap power (provided you don't have to pay to build the huge dam, that is), but they kill fish. They especially kill salmon, and the proposed Susitna Dam would have shut down spawning for the whole drainage. Look what hydro power has done for the fish in WA state and Oregon. Their salmon runs used to be as strong as many Alaskan rivers, but they're a pale shadow of that nowadays. In the Pacific NW they're actually tearing down many old dams trying to restore the spawning populations, but it'll probably be a failed effort in the long run since the dams have permanently changed the drainages and their ecosystems.

I'm a fan of nuclear power as well, but I'm not so sure it would be ideal for coastal Alaska given its frequent earthquakes and location on the "ring of fire". I'd love to see the Japanese build the proposed nuke plant in Galena, for example. I'd wager a significant amount that the chances of a nuclear containment failure are a WHOLE lot lower than the chances of a disastrous fuel barge spill, or spills. When you're meeting your entire electrical need by diesel generators, you're talking about buying, shipping and burning a vast amount of fuel, all moved hundreds of miles up the Yukon river....every summer. With a nuke plant, you move one barge of fuel every decade or two, at most. It's a numbers game if there ever was one...a very small risk of a bad nuclear spill, or a very high and repeated risk of a less bad but still destructive fuel spill...take your pick.

In short, like everywhere else there's no easy answer to the powerplant problem. It's one of those things that's just a consequence of having a lot more people than there used to be. There's more of them, and they need more power than ever these days as well with all the new gadgets and our power-hungry lifestyles. Unless you're advocating turning back the clock and drastically trimming our standard of living, there's going to have to be a new powerplant some day. The way it's looking now, it's gonna be sooner rather than later, and for now that means coal.