OPINION: Renewable energy sources are key to solving Alaska’s natural gas shortage

Updated: 47 seconds ago Published: 3 minutes ago

In a June 8 editorial, the Anchorage Daily News took on the looming energy crisis in the Cook Inlet region. The editorial board should be commended for highlighting this critical issue, correctly noting that the looming natural gas shortage has been known but largely ignored for years, and that the knock-on effect of higher energy prices that will result from imported LNG will be devastating to Alaska. But in its prescription for a solution, the editorial board made a serious mistake.

The editorial casually ignored the potential of renewable energy to pull us out of the mess we’re in. It claimed that instead of focusing on gas, utilities are putting too much effort into wind and solar projects. That claim doesn’t hold up to even the slightest scrutiny. The only two significant wind farms currently feeding power into the grid are Fire Island and Eva Creek. Both were brought online in 2012, 12 years ago, and no additional wind power has been added since then. Similarly, the first utility-scale solar projects were launched in 2018, and only two additional small projects have been completed in the six years since. Chugach Electric, the largest utility, has no utility-scale solar at all. I wonder how the editorial board came to the conclusion that utilities are “focusing on renewables.”

The editorial stated, “Renewables should be part of Alaska’s energy mix, but it is a fantasy to expect them to be up and running in time to make a difference in the face of the looming natural gas shortage.” This statement clearly demonstrated that the editorial board is blissfully unaware of the current realities of renewable energy, particularly solar, and what is currently happening in the rest of the United States and around the world. In fact, solar, and to a lesser extent wind, may be the only energy source that can be deployed quickly enough and on a large enough scale to prevent large-scale imports of affordable liquefied natural gas.

To understand the potential of renewables, consider what’s happening in Texas, a state with a fetish for fossil fuels. The Lone Star State has already surpassed California as the state with the most solar generation, with Texas adding 8 gigawatts of solar generation this year and another 12 gigawatts by 2025. This is happening in a state where gas costs about a third of what local gas currently costs in Cook Inlet, but solar is still the cheaper option. Texas isn’t adding all this solar because it’s a bunch of tree-hugging liberals; it’s doing it because it’s cheap and reliable, and solar can be deployed quickly. To store some of that solar energy, Texas is adding 6.5 gigawatts of battery storage this year and another 9 gigawatts by this time next year. Meanwhile, the cost of batteries is plummeting, down more than 50% in the past year, ensuring that the pace of battery deployment will be even faster in the future.

At this point I’m sure I’ll learn that 1) Texas is much sunnier than Alaska, 2) we have long, dark, snowy winters in Alaska, and 3) a lot of gas is used to heat buildings, not generate electricity. This brilliant analysis misses this key point: for the foreseeable future, the sole purpose of solar is to slow the rate at which we burn our precious remaining local gas reserves. It’s the simplest, cheapest, and fastest way to use solar energy. When the sun shines, you feed solar energy into the grid and reduce your gas-fired generation. When the sun stops shining, you increase your gas-fired generation again. The gas you don’t burn on a sunny May afternoon is still available to provide heat and power during the freezing temperatures of next February. Or the February after that.

And even with Alaska’s modest sunshine, solar is still cheaper than the electricity we currently generate from gas. That’s a no-brainer, really. If you want to go a step further, start installing short-term storage, most likely lithium batteries. That storage can store energy for hours or at most a day or two, but it significantly lengthens the window in which renewables can offset gas generation, stretching those local gas reserves even further. In the long run, 10+ years from now, you could install long-term storage that can store energy for weeks and months—or perhaps small modular reactors, fusion, or tidal power will provide our power. I don’t know what energy source will ultimately power Alaska, and neither does anyone else. In the meantime, renewables buy us time and keep the lights on without going bankrupt.

Sam Dennis is an engineer who used to work in the oil and gas sector and now invests in renewable energy sources.

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