Community Perspective
Power plant can help clear the air
Published Monday, May 12, 2008
From time to time, I see photos in the paper showing downtown Fairbanks, usually with articles regarding downtown air quality. Back in late January, with the temperature around 40 below, an article appeared with the headline “air pollution at an unhealthy level,” accompanied by a photo of downtown at the time.
The photo was a panoramic view, showing the haze over town with the Aurora Energy Power Plant stack front and center with the tall, plume rising over the city. I remember when I saw that photo and article, I cringed because I thought many people would see that as an implication that our power plant is a major cause of the “pollution” noted in that article.
However, the more I thought about it, that photo is a great example of how our power plant is in reality a part of the solution to the pollution problem — not the cause of it. The sixth paragraph of that article stated, “the pollution problem comes when calm weather traps fine particles of matter, emitted from cars and heating systems, relatively close to the ground. The low temperatures also contribute to increased vehicle idling and heating demands, making matters worse, the borough said in a news release.”
As photographs like the one back then show, the power plant stack is quite tall, (actually about 120 feet above the surrounding area). The photo shows the velocity of the emission from the plant pushes the plume, mainly water vapor, through and well above the inversion layer.
The Aurora Energy Power Plant sells all the electricity it makes to GVEA and is probably the most economical and reliable source of power GVEA has. Also, most of the heat for the buildings in downtown Fairbanks comes from the Aurora plant, eliminating the need for hundreds of additional furnaces and boilers that would emit even more fine particles under the inversion layer, which would make the pollution far worse. And, imagine the impact on ice fog. The ice fog we have in the winter would be quite a bit worse with the addition of 100 or more individual stacks in downtown Fairbanks 10 feet to 20 feet off the ground, rather than one stack 120 feet in the air. Think of the benefit to everyone if more homes and businesses could be connected to the downtown district heat system, thereby eliminating more individual furnaces and boilers in the core area.
The power plant has the capacity to provide more heat in the core area. Each summer, we add a few more buildings to the system. The new Morris Thompson Center and the new Mt. McKinley Bank building were added last summer. The Faribanks North Star Borough School District’s new central kitchen will be connected to the system this summer.
Each time a home or business in the core area connects to the downtown district heat system, one more source of potentially harmful emissions is eliminated.
The Aurora Energy Power Plant runs on coal brought in by rail from the Usibelli Coal Mine in Healy. Burning coal produces emissions containing particulates just as a furnace or boiler burning oil or natural gas does. However, in the case of the power plant, those particulates are captured in a process that acts like a giant air filter to capture the ash particulate that is a product of coal combustion. The plume you see coming from the power plant stack is primarily water vapor and is visible because of the cold weather. When the coal plant is at full load on a warm, clear day, there is no visible plume at all.
The days now are longer and warmer. But just because we can’t see what’s coming out of the small stacks around town does not mean that the problem is solved. Out of sight should not mean out of mind.
Buki Wright is president of Aurora Energy LLC.
Community Discussion
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I am pretty sure it was Buki Wright who made the infamous comment some years back, while he was in a big guy position at the Mapco refinery,:
"We charge what the market will bear."
Jeff Cook has said the same thing many times.
750 words by Mr. Wright and none of the words were "lead", "mercury", or "radioactive isotopes".
Don't worry, be happy. All those particulates are released 120 feet up in the air. Gravity would never cause them to fall back to earth, right?
Uh huh.
One would have thought that by 2008 we would not still be dumping poison in the air- poisons that give kids lower IQs, mental retardation and cancer- like the coal fired power plants do.
And didn't the owners of the power plant work to kill the Susitna hydroelectric project 20 years ago? A project that would have provide clean, renewable energy and reduced our reliance on dirty coal?
Yep, the corporate sociopaths are alive and well. Money before human lives is their motto.
Really. And within a stone's throw of the schools...
Coal is going to get more and more popular because it is by far the cheapest energy around.
Coal and wood were the mainstay of Fairbanks heating until the piepeline and refinery were built. I've gone back to wood to heat my home and I know many people who are looking into coal stoves and furnaces.
Community Perspective = Special Interest Propaganda
Would be nice if the news-minus would cut some of the BS and tell it like it is rather than being a conduit to feed us misinformation.
Hey 5050,
Seems your memory is short. 20 years ago YOU owned the Fairbanks Municipal Utilities System. Electricity was .08 cents a kw, water and sewer were cheap, and you controlled your future with your vote, Hi Mr."Corporate Sociopath" shake hands with yourself.
Susitna, (over 30 years ago), in hind sight, seems like a great idea, but the problems then were the same as they are now. Enormous cost of construction, and intense resistance because of environmental and recreational concerns that would have resulted in years of litigation. To my recall this is what stopped Susitna.
I agree that power generated by coal and oil are not the cleanest, but it is much cleaner now than in the past. But, to be proactive go ahead, close your acct. with GVEA, junk your car(musn't sell the dirty thing so someone else can pollute with it)and spend you $$ on solar cells and wind generators.
Hmmm. reading your letter makes me wonder if you were born near the "poisonous" power plant? If you feel your "IQ" has been affected, feel free to sue the City of Fairbanks, I think they still have a little of the "Permenent Fund" from the sale of the utilities left.
Hey Buki, Could I suggest a few interesting and artful mods to your chimney and the make-up air for the generator?
.....(;-P)
To 50/50
Your comments are so distorted its hard to say where to start. Although all of the misinformation and disinformation you imparted is something I would like to address with you in person, I will limit my comment to the one regarding Susitna. The entire Alaska Coal Association and its member companies went to Juneau and testified in support of the Susuitna dam when it was first proposed. We told joint committees in both the House and Senate that Alaska would always need and energy mix that included everything from nuclear to hydro. To back up your biased comments - it would be great to see the backup for the ill wind you're blowing.
As I understand it, the folks at that power plant, your neighbors, have been working to clean up the emissions from that plant. Now ALL of the exhaust from all of the boilers goes through a filter to take out the particles.
The idea for the plant was always to make both heat and electrical energy from the fuel it consumes. In doing so, Fairbanks gets the most recovery from the (Coal) resource possible, far more that simply burning fuel on-site to get heat and then burning fuel somewhere else to get electricity. As a kicker they also provide low grade heat to the water plant to improve reliability in the water distribution system.
GVEA and others made enormous efforts to kill the Aurora plant. Their original assessment of the place during the sale was that it wasn't worth taking and operating. After the sale they worked very hard to restrict the amount of revenue that Aurora could get for its electricity. I think at that time there was a huge gas surplus, and oil was cheap.
I think the community should be proud of Aurora's accomplishments and its contribution to the community.
I remember Susitna like it was yesterday. Another factor at the time was the estimated cost of energy. It was outrageous at the time. Six cents a kilowatt! Sounds pretty good right now, eh?
Oh yeah, also, I remember almost everyone - except for the Alaska Center for the Environment and its supporting groups, being in favor of Susitna.
At the time Susitna was just it was too darned expensive and it would have been at the start. Still, the ravages of inflation keep lowering the cost of all the state hydro boondoggles. Because once those investments are made, the cost of energy production doesn't rise much at all.
Remember, Bradley Lake, Swan Lake, Green Lake, Blue Lake, Tyee Lake, Snettisham, Crystal Lake, Goat Lake, Blackbear Lake, Terror Lake - these (according to naysayers and enviros) were all going to be boondoggles. These "boondoggles" are all money in the bank for many Alaskan communities today.
Had they been developed with a public-private effort, they'd likely have started paying out dividends much sooner. Yet even as expensive as they were, they are monuments to good policy decisions.
Oh yeah, we had an Alaska Energy Authority at the time we got all this done. Well we need something comparable now. How about an Alaska Renewable Energy Authority? At least we'd have some policy plan for this state. Right now we have nothing but whistling in the wind.
I still remember learning the drill rig I was working on at Watana was owned by Arliss Sturgelewski's
drilling company. A small step in my loss of innocence about the mindboggling conflicts of interest that
have gone on in our fair state.
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