News-Miner Editorial
Studying Susitna
Shelved hydroelectric project deserves renewed interest
Published Friday, November 21, 2008
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Stumble It!The Susitna Dam proposal has been receiving some well-deserved attention from state energy planners. The old blueprints, abandoned in the early 1980s because of cost concerns, are looking much more attractive for a variety of reasons.
High petroleum prices, combined with a growing consensus about the need to cap carbon emissions, seem to have created a bright future for hydroelectric projects such as Susitna.
Plenty of uncertainty remains, and that uncertainty has been increased by the recent meteoric drop in oil prices. Despite those uncertainties, the state should continue to aggressively investigate Susitna’s potential.
When the global economy recovers, oil prices will rise again. If the federal government imposes a cap on carbon emissions, prices will rise even more. The Susitna Dam could protect Alaskans from these economic and environmental forces far into the future.
Cost questions will never disappear entirely, because the Susitna dams are so huge. Finding a source of financing in the face of uncertainty about both the price of the alternatives and the demand could be difficult without some sort of public backing. There will need to be a public debate about the wisdom of such investment.
The Susitna project also will receive no free pass on environmental issues, despite the promise of decades’ worth of zero-emission gigawatt hours. That’s due, again, to the scale of the thing.
Susitna is no Rampart Dam, a proposal from the 1950s that would have blocked the Yukon River and flooded most of the Yukon Flats. Nevertheless, maps of the several potential Susitna dams show that most of the canyon through the Talkeetna Mountains could become a lake. Such a large-scale modification of the landscape obviously is environmentally disruptive and bound to draw some opposition.
Other concerns will arise as well. No significant numbers of salmon push their way through Devil’s Canyon, but reducing the silt flow in the Susitna River could create some ecological changes in the lower river and Cook Inlet. We need to understand the likely effects.
Had the project been started in the 1980s, many of the environmental concerns could have been weighed and resolved by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission at its own discretion. Subsequent laws, however, have given other governmental agencies the ability to set conditions upon the project. Those conditions could make the dams more difficult to complete cost-effectively; at the least, they provide another avenue for environmental groups to apply the brakes.
It’s indisputable, though, that Susitna power would be cleaner than that from existing sources on a similar scale. Renewable power is hard to beat on the environmental scorecard.
The Alaska Energy Authority has been reviewing these issues for the Legislature. The resulting reports should be required reading in Juneau during the coming session.
Community Discussion
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Bravo. One of the best editorials in a long time. This piece is forward thinking and it is this sort of thinking that Alaska desperately needs.
Who wrote this?
Q: If there is so much silt in the Susitna River that damming the river would cause significant downstream changes in the silt load of the river and into Cook Inlet, then how long will it be before the reservoir behind the dam completely fills up with silt? What is the plan to address this sort of thing?
A: ?
A. YES Those millions spent on "studys" have even looked at the spoted owls, that dont even live there, but just in case they move in. Rampart was stoped because it would have "drowned the ducks". I cant help but wonder what will stop this one, Arab oil ?
What will stop it is the projection of low cost oil for the next year. All markets are below $50 a barrel. The other is the fact that the world is in a major global recession. Unlike people who have money to spend in stores and take advantage of sale prices brought on by the economy, major projects like this may just cost more than if they were done in healthier economic times.
Don't ever forget the elephant in the Alaska legislative floor, low oil prices, limited income and a State funded pension system that has grown to the point it will eat up all State savings accounts if oil fails to produce the needed income and the federal money to the State is radically reduced. Alaska's government is beginning to look like the big three auto makers. At least Palin got rid of the jet.
We should have never taken our eye off the ball in the 80's and this project would have been on line today, providing low cost, reliable, long term clean energy for 90% of Alaaska's citizens. Sustina was to be the trade off for the Hydro electric facilities in Southeastern. Any one remember the "rail belt energy fund"...
We have the resourse, we have the need, we have the money to complet the project, and lack only political will to respond.
The positive need and effect of this project so far out weighs the few small negative concerns, the legislature should be left with a clear path to get the job done...The entire State will bloom as a result.
Mike, stop thinking. Repeat after me, "There is no silt in the Suisitna River, There are no major earthquakes in the region."
Everything will be fine if they build a large damn on a glacial fed river with huge earthquakes occurring often. Have some more coolaide...ignore all the natural gas in the Nenana/Tanana Basin, and focus on your northslope pipe and dam dreams....
I think the COE built a dam on the Colorado River a few years ago that allowed the silt to bypass the dam. As for the earthquakes...I don't know if they have a solution for a major one. Obviously a few down powerlines and a stack or two collapsing would be more tollerable than a catastrophic dam collapse. If they can build it to withstand an 8.0, then I say go for it.
I assume the quantity of silt coming out of the glacier fed Susitna River is for greater than what was dealt with by the COE. But I am assuming-would be cool to compare the numbers. On earthquakes:Well, there was recently a 7.9 (Nov. 2002) in the region, so a dam should be able to with stand far more than that.
Well, the earthquakes go without saying...
In fact, while I was musing earlier about the silt I was also thinking "the further north they build it, the closer to the Denali Fault... and there was that big 7.9 earthquake a few years ago... and the further south they build it the closer to the Pacific Subduction Zone that caused the Good Friday earthquake... and then there's the Castle Mountain Fault which they're expecting to produce up to a magnitude 8 earthquake at a time that goddess only knows when... and what other faults are criss-crossing that region?"
Fortunately, there is practically no development in the downstream area, but that could change rapidly if that Bridge to Nowhere is ever turned into the Bridge to Now Here.
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