No, Alaska Doesn’t Need 80% Renewable Power

September 12, 2024

There’s a message being driven by eco activists, renewable power champions and well-funded non-profits that Alaska’s urban population centers from Fairbanks to the Kenai Peninsula (known as the “Railbelt”) can achieve 80% renewable power generation by 2040.

Not only is that goal completely unnecessary, but their plan also is complete hogwash.

Groups pushing this agenda – and the “renewable portfolio standard” legislation to force it on consumers and businesses – overlook the fact that here are centuries of known coal and natural gas reserves that could power the Railbelt.  They’d provide low-cost and always-on power from deposits and fields located between Cook Inlet, the North Slope and Alaska’s Interior.

The advocates of this agenda primarily define ‘renewable’ as wind and solar, overlooking new hydro and nuclear generation opportunities altogether.  They conveniently forget that there are numerous existing hydro projects that provide firm power at some of the lowest costs per kilowatt hour in the state.  They don’t want expansion of those, due to potential impacts on fish.  In fact, they want to dismantle a dam outside of Anchorage that provides power to nearly 28,000 homes and businesses in the area!

Traditional energy powers Alaska’s economy, it powers and heats homes and businesses throughout the state, and it – through companies and their employees – provide millions of dollars and thousands of hours of philanthropic activity to various non-profits.

Renewable-above-all advocates fail to take those into consideration, but they’re a big part of Alaska’s community fabric.

It is high time to end the fantasy of forced renewable energy transitions in the Last Frontier, and focus instead on bringing centuries of power potential to market.