Dan White, "Seeking Sustainable Solutions to Energy Needs"
Dan White, Director, Institute of Northern Engineering (INE), University of Alaska Fairbanks
Summary: Mr. White’s presentation discussed how the University of Alaska Fairbanks is partnering with various organizations to seek sustainable solutions to our energy needs. He discussed how the Alaska Center for Energy and Power, the Alaska Sustainable Energy Center , and the Interior Issues Council Cost-of-Energy Task Force were created for this purpose. He discussed various energy issues facing our community and economic opportunities. He presented Iceland as a good example of a country powered by renewable energy, selling power cheaply, attracting new industry and creating economic development.
Mr. White presented on the work of the Institute of Northern Engineering (INE), part of the college of Engineering and Mines at UAF. The focus of the Arctic Energy Technology Development lab was on fossil fuels but is transitioning toward renewable energy research, creating partnerships and providing energy solutions, finding economic opportunities, and building sustainability. They recently created the Alaska Center for Energy and Power (ACEP). The mission of ACEP is to build partnerships that link people looking for energy solutions. This center is housed at UAF within the INE and entails three programs: 1) “Sustainable Energy – Looking for Rural Solutions” 2) “Powering the Economy” and 3) “The Oilfield of the Future.”
“Chena Hot Springs is a good example of a sustainable energy project using geothermal energy. Sustainable solutions in rural communities who depend on diesel generators for power should be a hybrid system that makes use of local resources whether solar, wind or geothermal,” stated Mr. White.
The first program, “Sustainable Energy” led to the development of the Alaska Sustainable Energy Center (ASEC), a partnership between UAF, CCHRC, the Fairbanks North Star Borough (FNSB) and the Fairbanks Economic Development Council (FEDCo) linking government, university, private for-profit, non-profit and the building industry in the endeavor to build partnerships and find energy solutions. The Interior Issues Council (IIC) Cost-of-Energy Task Force is another partnership between UAF, FEDCo, industry, and environmental organizations to study the flow of energy resources and identify key issues that need addressed. IIC work groups are researching different financial models for converting municipal waste, micro-hydro, solar, thermal, wind, geothermal, coal, biomass, gasification technology, Fischer-Tropsch, biomass to liquid fuel and combustion turbines technologies.
The second program, “Powering the Economy” looks for economic opportunities in Alaska and the circumpolar north. Mr. White discussed Iceland as an example of a country using sustainable, renewable energy. Iceland produces electricity with all renewable hydro and geothermal energy and sells it extremely cheap (2 cents per kW). “There isn’t any place in the United States where you can get electricity that cheap. Many companies are relocating to Iceland because of their cheap power (although some will say they are moving because they like Iceland ’s “green concept”.) Alaska needs to find similar solutions that can draw companies here and keep those that are here sustainable,” stated Mr. White. For example, Alaska ’s Red Dog Mine, the richest zinc mine in the world, uses 40,000 gallons of diesel fuel a day to produce electricity. 95% of that is used to run the mill. The zinc is sent to Malaysia for processing which uses even more fossil fuel (natural gas) and that doesn’t count shipping it elsewhere. “A global opportunity exists to use geothermal energy in Fairbanks to process the zinc. We should be like Iceland and make Alaska the leader in renewable energy,” asserted Mr. White.
UAF is exploring the potential economic opportunities presented by the opening of the polar ice cap that could allow the arctic to become a major shipping lane between the west coast and Europe . As resource materials pass through, we could provide green power to become a major processing center.
The third program, “Oil Field of the Future”, researches renewable energy such as biomass. “Biomass is okay for small decentralized solutions but what about large solutions? Biomass couldn’t provide enough power for Alaskan rail-belt grid communities which require hundreds of megawatts of power,” opined Mr. White. The program researches energy alternatives such as methane hydrates, the development of a natural gas pipeline, development of heavy oil, coal, CO2 sequestration, etc. It is better to utilize methane and burn it than allow it to escape into the atmosphere. Burning methane converts it to CO2 which is a lot less greenhouse reactive than methane.
Mr. White returned to the subject of building partnerships. “UAF and the ACEP program would love to partner with the talented participants here at the Forum,” concluded Mr. White.