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July 28, 2006
White Gold
Hydroelectric Power In Alaska
by Brian Yanity, insurgent49

     Hydro power is a proven energy source that has been used for centuries. It uses the pressure of moving water to turn turbines, producing useful power. Rivers and streams have been used for such uses as milling grain and powering sawmills since ancient times. Hydroelectric power is the most common form of renewable energy used in the world today.

     When most people think of hydropower, they think of large and ecologically destructive dams.  Much of the hydropower in the world certainly comes from such facilities. However, hydropower is a diverse resource, coming in many shapes and sizes. The degree of environmental impact of a hydro plant is site-specific, and some hydroelectric sites do not require dams or impoundments.

     Alaska has one-sixth of the total land area of the United States, but about 40% of the nation’s flowing fresh water. This directly translates to one third of the hydroelectric potential in the U.S. Less than one half of 1% of the state’s hydroelectric potential, however, has been tapped. More than fifty hydroelectric plants currently operate in the state, providing Alaska with 14% of its electricity.

     Hydropower played an important part in Alaska’s early industrial development. Alaska’s first hydroelectric plant was installed in Juneau in 1893. By 1908, more than thirty hydropower plants had been developed, powering the mining, timber, and fishing industries. As late as 1956, half of Alaska’s electricity came from hydropower. 

     The proportion of hydro in the total ‘electricity mix’ has declined since the early 1960s, as natural gas has become the dominant power source in the state. Natural gas is the state’s largest source of electric power, though natural gas prices are increasing in Alaska, as in the rest of the world.

     A lake-tap hydroelectric plant uses an existing natural lake as a reservoir. Most hydropower capacity in Alaska is of this type. Lake-tap hydropower facilities generally have low environmental impacts.  Bradley Lake hydroelectric plant near Homer with 115 megawatts of generation capacity is the largest hydroelectric plant in the state. A megawatt (MW) is one million watts of electricity, enough to power an Alaskan town of about 750 people.

     Bradley Lake, Cooper Lake, and Eklutna Lake are the three hydroelectric plants that serve the Railbelt area. The cities of Ketchikan, Petersburg, Wrangell, Juneau, Sitka, Haines, Cordova, Valdez and Kodiak, receive almost all of their power from hydroelectric.

     Compared to the hydroelectric potential of the rest of the United States, Alaska is simply in a class by itself.  Alaska has a huge untapped small hydropower resource potential, the largest of any state. In 2004, the U.S. Dept. of Energy’s Wind and Hydropower Technologies Program estimated that the state contains about 45,000 MW of water energy resources available for consideration as new hydropower resources, low power (less than 1 MW) resources representing 8,000 MW this amount are widely distributed across rural Alaska.
 


Challenges and Economics

     Hydropower is a diverse resource that comes in many shapes and sizes, with many possibilities in Alaska.   While there are a huge number of potential hydroelectric sites, the degree of environmental impact of a hydroelectric plant is site-specific, and some hydropower sites do not require dams or impoundments. Large dams and reservoirs historically have had many serious problems, including flooding of forestland, silt-buildup and other forms of ecological damage. In-stream, or free-flow, hydropower technology is in the experimental stages, but has very low environmental impacts because it does not require any dams or impoundments.

     Aside from environmental protection, a major barrier for hydropower is the high capital costs of construction, particularly in remote areas.  Building transmission lines from remote hydroelectric plants to population centers can be very costly. Over the long term, however, hydroelectric plants are often very economical because they require no fuel costs and only minimal maintenance. 

     Under the right conditions, hydro can be cheaper than power generated by fossil fuels.  For example, the cheapest electricity in the state is generated by Eklutna power plant north of Anchorage. Hydropower is slated to become even more economical in the years ahead as fossil fuel prices continue to climb. The economics of hydroelectric power plants in Alaska is strongly weakened by the lack of large electric loads (i.e. population centers) near most of the potential hydropower sites. 

     By contrast, populated areas are very close to hydropower resources in the deserts of the southwest. The dry state of Arizona produces almost five times as much hydro-electricity as Alaska.  Even dry Nevada produces more hydropower than Alaska.

Alaska’s Big Hydro Proposals

     Over the past few decades, USACE, DOE, and the Alaska Energy Authority (previously known as the Alaska Power Authority) have done studies on hydropower potential in Alaska. Based on these studies, there is about 90,000 MW of theoretical hydropower potential within Alaska. The state’s present electrical generation capacity is just over 2,000 MW, the majority of which is gas-fired. However, these studies assume that most of this potential, if developed, would have to be utilized with conventional hydroelectric technology.  Large hydroelectric dams, such as those proposed on the Susitna and Yukon Rivers in the past, are no longer feasible due to environmental impacts.

     By the middle of the 20th century, several huge and destructive proposals were in the works for Alaska hydropower. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ massive 5,040 MW Rampart Dam project, first proposed in the 1950s, on the Yukon River which would have created a 10,800 square mile reservoir, flooding Native communities and what is now the Yukon Flats National Wildlife Refuge.

     The Rampart Dam project was pushed heavily by then-Senator Ernest Gruening, which at the time would have been the world’s largest hydroelectric plant. It would have inundated seven Athabascan villages, which prompted in 1965 the organization of Gwichyaa Gwich’in Ginkhii – “A person of Fort Yukon speaks”, a forerunner to the Tanana Chiefs Conference. Fortunately, the Rampart Dam project was cancelled in 1967.

     Other such proposals included Yukon-Taiya, a joint U.S.-Canada project proposed in the 1950s, that would have consisted of a ten mile long underground tunnel going under Chilkoot Pass from Bennett Lake in British Columbia to the Taiya River near Skagway. Chakachamna and Susitna were large hydro projects that were proposed in Alaska until the mid-1980s.

     The Susitna River project was to consist of the Devils Canyon and Watana dams east of Talkeetna, and the Chakachamna lake-tap project was to be built just south of Mt. Spurr, 90 miles west of Anchroage. Both have not yet been built, due to high capital costs of construction and environmental concerns.  If these two large projects were built, all of the Railbelt’s current electricity needs could be provided by hydro. It may be possible in the future to develop either project on a smaller scale with minimal environmental impact.

     Small and In-stream Hydropower

     Electricity produced from low-cost, in-stream hydroelectric systems could offer energy cost savings for many homes and villages in rural Alaska. New studies are needed to specify potential small in-stream hydroelectric sites. In-stream hydroelectric power could offer economic and environmental benefits for both urban and rural Alaska. Alaskans should start seriously considering wave and tidal power, as well as low-impact small hydro, and be ahead of the game.

     Small hydropower is booming next door to Alaska in British Columbia. 50% of new electric generation in B.C. must be certified as renewable. In Southeast Alaska, there are plans for electric heat, electric vehicles and future hydrogen production with goal of total elimination of fossil fuel use, except for boats and planes.

     Alaska Power and Telephone, one of the state’s few investor-owned utilities (or IOUs) has various small hydro projects in the Haines-Skagway area as part of the Upper Lynn Canal Power Supply System. Most of this capacity was installed after 1990.  In Skagway, the Dewey Lakes with the first part installed in 1908, has 950 kW of total capacity. The 250 kW Lutak project near Haines, was built in 1990. And seven miles north of Skagway, the 4 MW Goat Lake project was installed in 1997. The Proposed Kasidaya Creek project, three miles south of Skagway, was issued a Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) license in 2002 and construction has begun in the past year. The proposed 10 MW Connelly Lake project, 12 miles south of Skagway, has received a preliminary FERC permit and is in the preliminary design stage. Since 1998, the 15-mile underwater transmission line in Taiya Inlet, has allowed diesel-powered generators at both Skagway and Haines to be quiet for the first time in almost 80 years.

     On Prince of Wales Island, Alaska Power and Telephone installed the 4.5 MW Black Bear Lake project, in 1995, replacing diesel generation in the towns of Klawock and Craig. The new 2 MW South Fork run-of-river hydro plant augments the existing Black Bear Lake project generation.  Located on land owned by Sealaska, an Alaska Native corporation, it needed only state and federal environmental permitting, and not a FERC license. Construction began in 2004, costs through September 2005 was just over $3.5 million, funded by a combined loan/grant from the Alaska Energy Authority.

     Near Valdez, next to the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System marine terminal, the Solomon Gulch 12 MW plant provides about 60% of the total electricity used in Valdez and Glennallen. Allison Creek is being proposed as a second hydroelectric plant for the area, as is a hydroelectric project for the small Copper River Valley town of Chitina.

     In Southeast Alaska, the best way to reduce consumption of fossil fuels is through use of hydroelectric power. One resource that Southeast Alaska can count on is rain: rainfall in the panhandle ranges from less than 50”/year in the ‘dry’ northern end to 200” on the southern end around Ketchikan.

     The proposed Southeast Alaska Intertie Project is envisioned to electrically connect all the major towns of Southeast Alaska. The purpose of such a project, which would cost several hundred million dollars, is to reduce (to the maximum extent possible) the use of diesel as a primary fuel source for the generation of electricity.  

     In the southwest of Alaska, the Tazimina and King Cove small hydropower plants were built in the 1990s and new projects are presently under construction on the Aleutian islands of Atka and Akutan.

     Conclusion

     The state government’s capital budget should be spent on useful public works such as low-impact hydroelectric projects. Alaska is blessed with plenty of “white gold”, and we can harness a lot more of it with low environmental impact. With a possible future electrical interconnection to British Columbia from SE Alaska, the Great Land could even sell its hydropower to the continental power grid of North America. 

     We have plenty of water and plenty of mountains, the two essential ingredients for hydroelectric power. As the great English poet William Blake once wrote, “great things are done when men and mountains meet.”  



Learn more about small-scale hydropower in Alaska:
www.akenergyauthority.org/programsalternativehydroelectric.html
ses.uaa.alaska.edu/Projects/Chugach%20SHP.htm
www.absak.com/alternative-energy/hydro-power.html






Brian Yanity is a graduate student at UAA, activist and freelance writer. He resides in an undisclosed location in Southcentral Alaska, and can be reached at byanity@insurgent49.com.
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