Southeast

When you’re trying to tap geothermal energy, for heating or electrical generation, you’ve got to consider a number of factors.

“The temperature is the obvious one. Flow rate is really important too,” says Gwen Holdmann, director of the University of Alaska’s Center for Power and Energy. She spoke at the recent Rural Alaska Energy Conference in Juneau.

“You might have a really high temperature resource and one good example that’s pretty close by here (Juneau) is Tenakee Springs. They have a fairly high temperature but they have an extremely low flow rate,” she says.

You also need to know the extent of the hot-water reservoir, its depth and the rate it recharges itself.

Another importation factor is location. Being close to a city or transmission lines make tapping power more affordable.

That’s why the Aleutian Islands city of Akutan, and the local Trident Seafoods plant, are looking at nearby Hot Springs Valley.

“We hit water as hot as 350 (degrees)-plus at 500 feet,” says Ray Mann, a consultant for the city of Akutan, northeast of Unalaska.

“But according to the studies that have been done that’s the outflow resource and we probably will not get the flow and the capacity we need. So we have to go further up the valley to the upflow zone. And the estimate is we could achieve anything between 15 and 100 megawatts, with a minimum of 8 megawatts, to provide power,” Mann says.

Outflow is where water comes from the ground. Inflow is the subterranean area where it travels to near the surface.

There’s been interest in the Akutan site for at least 30 years. New wells were drilled this and last year, one finding water up to 500 degrees. Deep water is under enough pressure that it does not boil off at those temperatures. And other studies further defined the resource.

Mann says the city is committed to building an approximately $60 million plant, including about 5 miles of road and transmission lines.

He says it could bring down power costs, from 66 cents a kilowatt-hour, without power-cost equalization, to around 13 cents per hour. Studies have shown it’s a better option than wind or hydropower.

“This has been the option because of the proximity of this resource and the size of the resource. There really aren’t that many other applications that are going to generate 7 to 8 megawatts for you the way this will do, because it’s right there and accessible,” he says.

Seven or eight megawatts is what Akutan needs, including the seafood plant. Trident is conducting its own study, and Mann says they’re working together.

He says the town already has about $10 million toward the project. It’s seeking another $15 million from government sources, and $45 million in private sector investments, which could include Trident.

Energy conference speakers say another area with a significant geothermal resource is Pilgrim Hot Springs, near Nome.

“We selected this site because we thought it was one that had potential to be developed to benefit the region,” says Gwen Holdmann of the Center for Power and Energy.

She says the former spa was first drilled in the late 1970s. She says the crew found two surprises.

“They didn’t hit bedrock, which is pretty interesting. They went down to 1,000 feet. And then the second thing that happened is that they drilled through a really shallow layer of super-hot water, up to 200 degrees Fahrenheit. That’s really hot. That’s barely below boiling temperature,” she says.

More drilling took place in the past two years. The work is not finished, but agencies think it’s worth developing. Holdmann says studies show the resource could produce more than enough electricity to power Nome.

“Right now the estimated potential for power generation is approximately 5 megawatts. We haven’t found anything to change that number at this point in time. That’s still a viable number,” Holdmann says.

A preliminary report, released about 4 years ago, estimated total cost at $50 million to $115 million, depending on the depth and generation system. A final report is due in about a year and a half.

A significant part of the expense would be transmission lines. That’s because the site is about 50 miles from Nome.

Holdmann says developers could tap the $4 or so million a year the town spends on diesel generation to help pay off construction costs.

Alaskans looking into geothermal energy are watching existing developments to see what they can learn. One point is the limits of some hot-water reservoirs.

“Renewable is not the same as sustainable and can’t be used interchangeably,” says Jo Mongrain of the University of Alaska Fairbanks Geophysical Institute.

“Geothermal is a renewable resource. You extract energy and it’s going to be replaced by a comparable amount of energy. But what renewable doesn’t tell you is over what kind of time scale and what are you actually doing to that resource,” she says.

Mongrain has studied Chena Hot Springs, east of Fairbanks. It’s home to one of the state’s best-known geothermal energy projects.

She says research have shown several underground hot water zones below the resort. And some have showed lower temperatures and pressure as more wells have been drilled and more water removed.

“We certainly have interzone mixing within the well, although some of that’s being addressed by filling the wells up with bentonite. We need to look at the data in more detail but we may also have some kind of mixing within the reservoir,” Mongrain says.

She says sealing exploratory drill holes, and lining open shafts, can help keep cold water out of hot zones. And systems where cooling water is returned underground to maintain flow need separate wells.

Further studies could lead to additional recommendations for making future systems more sustainable.

A state-sponsored economic development panel wants suggestions for creating new timber industry jobs.

The Alaska Timber Jobs Task Force will hear comments from the public during a meeting Friday and Saturday in Coffman Cove. The town is a former logging camp on Prince of Wales Island.

Governor Sean Parnell created the task force last spring, with a focus on Southeast.

State Forester Chris Maisch, a member, says it has a number of goals.

“One of those does speak to state forest recommendations for additional acreage or even recommendations for additional units in the state forest. And, of course, that can be statewide, potentially,” Maisch says.

Public comments will be taken starting at 1:15 p.m. Friday at Coffman Cove City Hall. Teleconference connections will also be available at Department of Natural Resources conference rooms in Juneau and Fairbanks, and at Division of Forestry offices in Anchorage and Ketchikan.

Saturday’s session, at 11:20 a.m., will take comments via phone. The number is 1-800-315-6338. Enter the code 8467# when prompted. (Link to meeting details here.)

In addition to state forest management, the task force is focusing on state harvest rules, timber demand, and Tongass timber sales.

Parnell created the task force after pulling out of the Tongass Futures Roundtable, which had a broader agenda and membership, including logging opponents.

The Alaska Native Brotherhood and Alaska Native Sisterhood are celebrating a big anniversary.

Officers and delegates at the 99th annual Grand Camp Convention are meeting this week in Klawock, on Prince of Wales Island. The meeting has the theme, “Reviewing 100 Years of History – Preparing for the Next.”

The Brotherhood was organized in 1912 and calls itself “the United States’ oldest indigenous persons’ civil-rights organization.” The Sisterhood formed several years later.

The meeting, at Klawock High School, began Tuesday and continues through Saturday.

Beyond history, members are discussing the landless Natives issue, tobacco cessation programs and suicide prevention.

They will also hear reports from Sealaska, the Veterans Administration, the Sitka Local Foods Network, the Southern Southeast Alaska Technical Education Center and other groups.

The ANB and ANS will also elect officers and pass resolutions guiding the organization’s direction for the next year.

The Alaska Marine Highway System has finalized its summer 2012 schedule. Officials have made only one change since a draft was released in August.

Captain John Falvey says the change involves the direction of mainliners during May.

“We had three southbound sailings coming through Sitka. Two of them involved the Malaspina and one with the Columbia. Sitka had some concerns. So we made an adjustment with the Matanuska and created a situation for one northbound and two southbound stops,” he says.

The draft schedule proposed a number of changes from this past summer’s version. All of those remain.

The fast ferry Fairweather will start calling in Angoon twice a week, connecting the town to Sitka one day and to Juneau the other. There will be one more weekly Juneau-to-Sitka sailing and one fewer Petersburg run.

The Malaspina, the main Lynn Canal ship, will reverse its route, beginning in Juneau most days instead of Skagway.

“So we’ll be starting out in the morning on the Malaspina, which is high-capacity day shuttle going northbound up the canal, except Sunday night, when it will overnight in Skagway,” he says.

Gustavus will get four weekly port calls from the small ferry LeConte, twice this past summer’s number.

Most other routes will remain the same. That includes the relatively new Bellingham-to-Whitter express, which has been well-used.

No major changes were made to sailings to and from Valdez, Homer, Kodiak, and other Prince William Sound and Southwest Alaska communities.

The new schedule is on the marine highway website at www.ferryalaska.com.

More and more Southeast government buildings and businesses are turning to woody biomass for heat. Some experts say the region is close to having enough demand to justify building a pellet mill. But it won’t be easy.

Boilers heated by wood pellets or chips are being installed in Coast Guard and Forest Service buildings throughout Southeast. Sealaska and some other businesses have done or are looking at the same thing.

And Yakutat is among those considering wood-powered electrical generators.

But in most cases, the pellets have to be shipped from Canada or the Lower-48.

Tongass Forest Supervisor Forrest Cole says that could be about to change.

“There are a number of hurdles to cross, but I believe in the southern part of Southeast Alaska we’re pretty much getting close to a tipping point where we could supply the wood available off a roaded land base to a mill that could create a pellet that could be somewhat competitive in the market today,” Cole says.

One of those hurdles is land selections or trades that make part of the Tongass National Forest’s future uncertain. That includes Sealaska and University of Alaska land selections, trades with the Mental Health Trust and potential claims by landless Native corporations.

Speaking at a biomass workshop at the recent Rural Alaska Energy Conference in Juneau, Cole says they’re due their claims. But …

“I find it extremely difficult in order to invest a buck today and ensure it’s there 10 years from now, when there’s so many hands in the pot of who’s going to own the land,” Cole says.

He says logging to just supply a pellet plant is not profitable.

But he says there’s enough timber, even with reduced harvests, to provide the mill leftovers that can be turned into pellets. He says if low sales cause mills to shut down, there won’t be that waste wood.

“If we lose the current timber industry in Southeast Alaska, we’re going to miss a huge opportunity in order to take a product that’s being produced today and basically a burden on the mills, in order to make a pellet that could readily heat and get a lot of the communities in Southeast Alaska off of oil,” Cole says.

Read Smith, another energy conference speaker, says the Forest Service is unusual among government agencies. He says the Department of Defense is also bullish on alternative energy. But much of the rest of Washington, D.C., is slow to recognize wood-energy opportunities.

“The problem is they don’t get it. They don’t get what we’re trying to do here,” Smith says.

Smith works for the group 25-by-25, which is pushing to get a quarter of the nation’s energy produced from renewable resources by the year 2025. He expects Alaska to be a leader in wood energy.

“The bottom line is biomass is a huge, huge piece and I don’t think anybody, anywhere in the United States is positioned better to capitalize on some new technology that’s just going to be implemented here in the next five to ten years,” Smith says.

Wood boilers are most often used as a source of heat.

But Dave Sjoding of the Clean Energy Application Center in Pullman, Wash., says it can do more.

“When you’re putting in systems for pellets, think about layer-caking on top an organic rankine cycle (heat recovery) system as well and get some power out of the deal as well,” he says.

He says a heat-recovery system can add value to a wood-energy project.

It also can replace expensive diesel generators when connected to a power grid.

“So one of the ways to think this through is using the hydropower system as a great big storage battery. So as you do energy efficiency, or renewable energy, you’re preserving and stretching out that cheap hydropower,” Sjoding says.

Wood biomass energy faces other challenges beyond funding. Advocates acknowledge opposition due to pollution worries, though they say a well-built system generates few emissions.

They also know any industry linked to timber harvests will face opposition in some communities. But they say wood boilers would mostly use leftovers from mills.

David Dungate of ACT Bioenergy, and others at the conference, say it’s worth serious consideration.

“When you look at what’s the best return per dollar invested in energy, if your target is reducing carbon, what’s the most cost-effective way to do that, and what’s the best way to create jobs per dollar invested, biomass comes out very well on all those,” Dungate says.

The Alaska Wood Energy Development Task Group is trying to spur development of wood-energy projects statewide. The group is accepting statements of interest from those exploring community heating projects.

The task group, a coalition of agencies, will hire consultants to visit project locations and craft reports that could help with funding. The deadline is November 4th.

Haida Energy is starting to build Prince of Wales Island’s next hydropower plant. But it still needs more funding.

The Reynolds Creek hydroproject has long been a dream of the Haida village Native corporation, based in Hydaburg.

Project manager Corry Hildenbrand says that dream is close to becoming reality.

“We are on the ground. Durrett Construction is moving in with their barge. We awarded early in September. And we’ve got 9 to 11 weeks of work, so hopefully the weather will cooperate and we’ll get this first phase of work done,” he says.

Reynolds Creek is about 10 miles from Hydaburg, which is about 25 miles southeast of Craig. It’s being developed by Haida Energy, a joint venture of the Haida Corporation, and APT, the Alaska Power and Telephone Company.

Its powerhouse and small dam will feed electricity into Prince of Wales Island’s grid, eliminating the use of high-cost diesel generators.

Hildenbrand, speaking at the Rural Alaska Energy Conference in Juneau, says there’s a long list of projects for this fall.

“Repairing the roads, building a road into the powerhouse site, building a road into the dam site so we can do our geotech investigations confirming what we have for foundation conditions. APT is also starting construction of the transmission line from Hydaburg out toward Deer Bay. The turbine generation is very close to being on order. And then we’ll be moving into final design based on our geotech work this fall,” he says.

The project’s power is expected to cost 11 or 12 cents a kilowatt-hour.

Its overall cost is estimated at $28 million, paid for by a mix of grants, loans and backing from its developers.

Alvin Edenshaw of the Haida Corporation says that’s more than they have.

“Along the way, since 2000 and 2006, the cost has gone up. So we’ve gone back to the state and we are in the process right now with the Alaska Energy Authority and AIDA to develop another $9 million loan to bring our project on line,” he says. (Read a letter about Reynolds Creek from Edenshaw to shareholders.)

Haida Energy is also looking for ways to save money.

One approach is to change its Fish and Game Department permit. It requires what’s called a rotating drum fish screen to keep grayling out of the turbine. Hildenbrand says the fish were stocked and are not native to the area.

“So we’re looking to mitigate the cost of that fish screen and the possible operation problems with some outside mitigation funds so they can go ahead and perhaps in Hydaburg enhance some of the fisheries streams that have been damaged over history,” he says.

He says the screen costs about three-quarters of a million dollars.

Developers hope to have the hydroproject complete and producing electricity in 2014.