Letter to the Editor
Subsistence energy?
Published Saturday, April 12, 2008
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Stumble It!April 11, 2008 To the editor:
The quality of life in highway-accessible portions of the Interior is unraveling due to the cost of heating oil. We have already seen this in the Bush, where $5-plus per gallon heating oil can be found. No. 2 heating oil is selling for $3.75 per gallon, (as of April 10, 2008, in Fairbanks). This doesn’t include a 26-cent road tax. With unleaded gas at $3.45 to $3.54, it’s cheaper to live in one’s vehicle than in their own home.
Everyone, whether of the green, red or blue persuasion will welcome affordable natural gas in the Interior when a pipeline is finished. The problem is Fairbanks can’t wait another 10 plus years!
Article 8, sec. 2 of the Alaska Constitution provides:
The Legislature shall provide for the utilization, development and conservation of all natural resources … for the maximum benefit of its people.
This provision has been used to manage fisheries, and other resources. It is available to help now while the AGIA drama continues to unfold. The state is receiving 12.5 percent minimum royalty on leases paying in excess of $105 per barrel. The state is also racking up nice surpluses now for use on a “rainy” day. Well, it’s raining! The state has the resources and tools right now to subsidize heating oil solely for domestic purposes, either statewide or regionally. Surely no one this side of the Alaska Range will suggest that affordable heat is not a high priority. Sarah — are you listening?
Community Discussion
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Believe #2 heating oil is going for over $4.00 a gallon unless you buy over 500 gallons. Agree with you that we need help now.
Also agree with your comment "The Legislature shall provide for the utilization, development and conservation of all natural resources … for the maximum benefit of its people." Maybe if we all file a lawsuit to get the same advantage the Anchorage area gets from their cheap gas providing them with affordable heating costs - gas which we all own since it's a State resource - equal treatment per btu between oil and natural gas, Anchorage legislators might start speaking up about the high cost of heating their homes.
As for those who complain daily that we are whiners and want the government to provide us with everything and that our dividends pay for our property taxes and should pay for our heating oil, I'm a single widow with no dependents and don't have 5-7 kids to get a total of $12,000 in dividends which would pay for my property taxes and heating oil.
Yea I think the government should GIVE us heating oil, gas, housing, retirement,, just like CUBA....
Nice try Bugger, You like many other Alaskans have forgotten who owns these resources. The oil, gas, timber etc belong to the Alaskan people. We have been reduced to begging our government for something we already own.
Maybe it's time for a class action lawsuit to redefine 'the maximum benefit.' I've brought this very issue to our local delegation with no support. If this is something that we want then it's going to have to come from the citizens. The legislature does not concede power or money without a fight.
Flint Hills is paying the State of Alaska over $150,000,000.00 dollars a month for our royalty oil. Alaska crude has been over $110 a barrel for a week now. The Department of Energy predicts that crude will be over $100 a barrel for 2008. Something needs to be done if Fairbanks is going to remain a prosperous town.
Take the poll at www.fairbanksgas.com and see how many people are already planning on leaving this year. So far 20% of the respondents are planning on leaving this year.
While having the PFD provide subsidies to the People of Alaska would reduce some of the burden for now, it's a VERY short-term solution.
And even when the gas line comes through, assuming that it actually comes through, what reason, pray tell, do people have to believe that the producers will cut ANY slack at all to the same folks they're currently bilking for fuel, as they accumulate their record profits?
There's -NO- reason to believe that the producers will grow a warm and fuzzy spot in their hearts for the fact that they're pricing folks olut of the Interior and other cold regions in Alaska. None. Conoco Phillips and BP suddenly sympathetic to the economic crunch experienced by average Alaskans? In your dreams!!
The -ONLY- plan that I've seen recently that makes any long-term sense at all is two-fold; make the energy supply a 'public utility,' and plan for alternate sources of RENEWABLE opr RECYCLABLE energy sometime very soon; like -YESTERDAY-. Alternative sources that DON'T come from or through the current thieves, who are busily stacking those record quarterly profits.
Call it that evil 'S' or 'C' word if you like, but I've got news for you; the schools, highways, etc., are already funded through cooperative taxes, because they are deemed to be shared, publicly-owned 'life needs.'
Now, tell me, who here doesn't believe that heat and cooking at -30 to -50 fahrenheit aren't some serious life needs, now that it's costing those in poorly-built homes their retirements to provide heat, and our elderly are having to choose between being warm, and being fed..
Throw the bums out, and turn the pipelines -ALL- into public utilities. Or kiss your retirements good-bye as they continue upping the price in obscene increments.
Short-term subsidies WILL drain the Permanent Fund, and when it's empty, the same folks who are currently eating caviar on your dimes, while you scrape the bottom of the proverbial barrel, will still be eating caviar on your dime while you scrape that same barrel.
The producers do play a role in in-state energy costs. Flint Hills gets all of it's oil directly from the State royalty sale. You can look at a copy of the invoice at http://fairbanksgas.com/INV_FHR102007fin...
That being said, the State could sell royalty oil at the cost required to balance the budget or even at 10% profit above the break even point. The rate needed to balance the budget has soared upwards to $73 a barrel, but this is still much less than the $110 that they are charging today. This would not be a subsidy, but merely redefining the Alaska constitution's definition of maximum benefit of the resources.
I would certainly argue that most of the pork barrel spending that the legislature has just passed does not meet the definition of maximum benefit to the people.
Fairbanksgas,
Watching the legislature 'in action' with their drooling all over the windfall we currently have, has been akin to watching my youngest two kids receive a $20.00 bill to share between them; no awareness of investment or savings, just, "I want that piece of candy; tomorrow be damned!!" and "I want what I want, because I want it. Now give it to me!!" And an ensuing tug-of-war until the thing's torn in two as often as not.
It's like watching a bunch of kids in a candy store. Enough to make one wish it were election time already.
But that;'s what this government of ours has evolved ito; seeking re-election votes via pork-barreling as a mechanism of bribing the public; "But look at all that I've done for you." With the reference of,'all that I've done for you' being in the form of little economic trinkets that lose their luster very quickly, all the while stripping 200+ year-old rights, and apparently forgetting that protecting those rights was -why- they were brought into being as a government body in the first place!!
From Don and Ted, on down to the State legislature and local governments; it's a rampant modus operendi..
And America, and Alaska, seems to fall for these transparent shenanigans. Shameful, and shameless, all at the same time.
Here are some numbers.
Total fuel oil consumption in Alaska for residential and commercial heating uses is roughly 2.6 million barrels per year. This accounts for the heating needs of 36% of Alaska households. If the State sold royalty shares at the cost needed to balance the budget, the reduction to the budget SURPLUS would be $96 million dollars. (2,600,000 x ($110-$73))
This would give Alaskans heating oil at a price of $2.50 a gallon. Another way of looking at it is we could have reasonably priced heating oil by reducing the budget SURPLUS 1.2%.
Please someone, tell me why this would not work!!
Or make the gas on the slope a State utility, build gas-driven turbines producing electricity on the N. Slope, sufficient to withstand line-loss, in terms of out-put, for the bulk of the State, and erect transformers and relays down the existing right-of-way of the current oil pipeline.
Sell to the in-state public at whatever the cost is, plus 'X' percent to feed the Permanent Fund.
Cheaper and safer than a pipe, and, with the exception of assertions of cancers that may be related to high voltage out-put, pretty darned environmentally unobtrusive.
And it'd likely be completed in a quarter of the time of a gas line, in terms of a projected completion date.
I say, "Do IT!!"
My ex and I survived through the 80s when things went bust, and my girlfriend and I are set up where we will survive through this downturn, hopefully. I have been here almost 30 years, have many friends, some assets, but trust me, we are struggling!! We are fortunate that I have a very good job, and my girlfriend has a very good job, albeit very part time. I truly believe that it is a short matter of time before we start seeing that mass exidous just like we saw in 85/86/87. It is not totally a bad thing, there will be bargins to be had in housing for those that survive, but many families, good families, good people, are not going to make it. We have a fantastic Governor, she has a fantastic administration, so please Sarah, help out these folks in Fairbanks with these horrible energy prices. Its heating oil...not gas, we can curtail driving. Its heating oil! I hope she is reading these comments from people from all walks of life, they are a unamimous voice screaming out for relief.
Well, I suppose none of you would be here reading today if you didn't have a computer.
Those of us who are still alive after surviving another long winter can look forward to a fanatical preoccupation all summer preparing for the next winter, and all the following winters too.
There's some local Fairbanks folks who have been focused on alternative energy.. if you know these people, offer to volunteer some time helping them out.. even just do some simple chores for them. [run some errands, wash the windows,etc.]
The folks behind this website live in Fairbanks..
http://www.silveradogreenfuel.com/
..give them a hand if you're handy.
Still blowing my horn about the smartgass-line-network..
honk, honk!!!
Today the majority of economists all agree that the break-up of Ma-Bell into the baby-bells was the single most influential reason for the big-boom in telecommunications...
...some top economists today say that you probably wouldn't be carrying a cell-phone if the Ma-Bell monopoly hadn't been broken up.
The road network in Alaska is fairly sparse, and hopefully it will stay that way...
but when Alaska freezes-up for winter, then all of Alaska is accessible on the ground by snowmobile...
but how do you get affordable and environmentally friendly LPG-propane sno-go-fuel distributed everywhere in the boondocks??? -->
--> with a smart gasline network.
A smart gasline network will create an "Alaska Style" statewide transportation system... "Roadless Roads".
Now, all states own and operate their own highway system, right?
Well, this will be the expanded part of the Alaska Highway System..
..and much cheaper to build than roads too!!
Compare $5 per foot for rtp-gasline to $500 per foot for a single lane gravel road built like a big gravel dike over tundra.
...flash/rumble
Letter sent to Sarah Palin:
The residents of Alaska without access to Cook Inlet natural gas are facing an energy crisis! Heating oil prices have nearly tripled and electricity prices have nearly doubled in Interior Alaska. I have a simple idea that would solve this problem immediately for less than $100 million dollars. This idea could bridge the gap until long-term energy solutions are developed.
Total fuel oil consumption in Alaska for residential and commercial heating uses is roughly 2.6 million barrels per year. This accounts for the heating needs of 36% of Alaska households. If the State sold royalty shares at the cost needed to balance the budget, the reduction to the budget SURPLUS would be $96 million dollars. (2,600,000 x ($110-$73))
This would give Alaskans heating oil at a price of $2.50 a gallon. Another way of looking at it is we could have reasonably priced heating oil by reducing the budget SURPLUS 1.2%.
Please someone, tell me why this would not work!!
The only argument that I have heard so far is that it would not be equitable to all Alaskans. My response is simple, how much of the pork in the proposed budget DOES benefit all Alaskans?
FbksGas, thank you for your continued service to interior Alaskans by doing all this research in helping us meet this energy crisis!! Hopefully, Sarah Palin will read your comment as well as your letter. She (or a staffer) seem to read these comments and hopefully she will read these and do something to help interior Alaskans. Again, thanks for your efforts.
"Please someone, tell me why this would not work!!"
Yaaaa...ya got got me totally stumped on that one Fairbanksgas.
...now, I consider myself a prettyfartsmeller, and I can't even get close to telling you why it won't work.
Pork&Beancounters can't pass gas...
...must be a medical problem.
Maybe a bowel obstruction?.....(;-P)
I'd support that for now, fbksgas.
YukonJohn, the exodus in the mid-80s that resulted in a negative population growth up here was the product of a mere recession. The sign painted in Glenallen back then that read, "Would the last person out please turn the lights off." was good humor in times of crisis.
Certainly there were those who departed like the infamous 'Dust-bowl Refugees,' with mattresses strapped atop cars, house keys dropped in the middle of the night at the mortgage-owning bank, and left for parts unknown.
But if the economic reports that I've read are accurate, that period of time is going to look like a cake walk, compared to what we're headed into..
We're already entering into hyper-inflation as a result of the fact that fuel is involved in the manufacture, distribution, and marketing of nearly EVERYTHING that we use. And as the volume of goods shipped to Alaska dwindles with the population decline, freight for those items will go UP, UP, and AWAY!! It costs substantially more per quart of strawberries to ship 200 quarts, than it does to ship 2,000 quarts in the same container. Most/many shippers calculate charges based on area volume these days, rather than simple actual weight. And that connex container doesn't care if it has 200 quarts or 2,000 quarts of berries. The bill for the container is the same.
No, we're currently headed for a more serious DEPRESSION than occurred in 1929. And even those lucky enough to have jobs that allow for an annual 3% COLA, can't pretend to keep up with the 35% increases in fuel products, and other directly-related increases to life-needs/goods that are happening annually now.
I live in a 5-star+, super-insulated home that's almost cheap to heat, compared to many others' experiences. But I'm paying almost five times the amount to heat it as I did about 5 years ago.
And I've stood in the homes of older Fairbanksans; some of them were single elderly women, with no one to really rely on, who have had to make tough choices that NONE of our seniors should ever have to make. They put their time in, they built a town for us here. Many of them working their fingers to the bone for decades.. It seriously torques me to witness the plight that some of these folks are in. Seriously.
While we ALASKANS here in Fairbanks are debating the alternatives, HAVE THE "PUBLIC SERVANTS" IN JUNEAU HEARD A SINGLE WORD WE HAVE SAID?
Their are preoccupied with: 1.) "exporting" ALASKAN GAS for the energy needs of people and industries in other places, 2.) Multi-National Corporation profits, and 3.) a bloated "piggy bank" where the vast majority of benefits goes to benefit BIG BANKS and Stock Market speculators.
ALASKA GAS FOR ALASKA FIRST
Thank you Mr Connors,
The only thing you failed to mention in your letter was not only is it a rainy day, but it is freezing rain.
We need to overhaul something here if state government can't get its collective mind wrapped around the fact people are freezing in the dark and living stressed-out lives because of many legislator's well fed and well heated lifestyles.
They just don't get it.
Wages are not going up to account for these exorbitant energy cost increases and not everyone is blessed with capabilities to adjust their lives around
changing circumstances as drastic as these.
These are good, hardworking people who are essentially being told this is just the way it is in our great society, get in there and rape and pillage for your cut of the pie or feel less than worthy because you don't feel that is the best way to make use of your gift of life.
The end game of raw capitalism is becoming readily apparent as the world's resources are being locked up in corporations and increasing numbers of common, good folk are being starved out of existence world-wide.
Only the strong are meant to survive, say the well to do.
Sounds like something out of Nazi Germany to me.
Corporate welfare has taken much more than helping people up ever has.
So now that Alaskans are experiencing the pain of not even just getting by,watching as our one time resources are being carted out of here, has the State of Alaska just become one more corporation that only hears the voices of a select few shareholders?
It would appear we must begin the initiative process to at least force the legislature into some form of sharing a cut of "their" miserly hoard as a stop-gap measure on the way to building natural gas infrastructure instate.
I'm sitting her watching Gavel to Gavel as each one steps up and condemns the Budget they then proceed to vote for.
So they are gridlocked in vote trading for each and every piddly project from their individual constituencies.
All I can say is reapportionment in 2010 is going to be very interesting with perhaps a third of the state's current residents having participated in an Exodus.
Starved out of the wealthiest state per capita in the U.S..
Distant Thunder's posts on thermoplastic lines in use world-wide bring the cost of a pipeline for instate use down to very manageable levels, even a state financed (Our Money) one.
It would appear we must take action on our own or they will continue to let us sink without even throwing out a life-line.
So I suggest we sharpen our pens now, rather than our swords as the desperation increases.
An initiative appears to be our only recourse.
I think this sentiment has legs state-wide, I'm writing from the coast.
Copper_River_Red-
I think I love you...!!
For that at least!
Thank you Fairbanksgas. Sent emails to our Interior delegation copying your message and also sent it to Tom Irwin & Gov. Palin. Let's everyone send messages to our legislators as it worked with the Real I.D. Act and they passed a bill rejecting the national driver's license act that was being shoved down our throats by D.C. Just go to the State of Alaska website to access their email addresses.
I would like to share this letter from Representative Therriault. The second to last paragraph illustrates the mindset of our legislature.
Thank you for contacting my office regarding your desire for the State of Alaska to use its surplus oil revenue to help alleviate the financial burden many Alaskans are facing due to rising energy costs.
I understand your frustration that the current Legislature appears unable or unwilling to provide immediate finance assistance. However, I want to assure you the Senate Republican Minority (of which I am a member) is actively challenging our fellow colleagues to heed the call for help from Alaskans like yourself.
On January 16 of this year, Senator Tom Wagoner and I introduced legislation that would share some of the surplus petroleum revenue back to Alaskans in the form of an energy rebate. The initial idea was to have a dollar amount per individual or household. Due to the opposition to that concept, Senator Wagoner reworked the bill so a direct subsidy would be paid to the electric company for each residential hookup. Wagoner also thought that by paying the utility directly, the funds would not be subject to federal taxation. The legislation was referred to the Senate Finance Committee where the Chairman refused to hold a single hearing.
Instead of passing any direct energy assistance, the Senate Majority steered a substantial amount of money into the existing low-income weatherization program and another program which encourages people to improve the energy rating of their home. While a fine long-term effort, it does not help individuals with the high energy costs right now. For this reason, we as the Senate Minority continue to call for passage of assistance.
After prodding, cajoling and nagging for months to no avail, Senators Wagoner, Wilken and I decided to stage a mini filibuster on the Senate floor on April 4, 2008 to try to embarrass the majority into responding to the needs of the citizens. The response from the Co-Chair of Senate Finance was the “winter is over”. You may think I am kidding but that is what he said: “winter is over” as if the price of gasoline, electricity and heating oil somehow came down at the beginning of the month. As those words came out of his mouth, I noticed a number of his majority colleagues cringed.
It