Perhaps Senator Kaufman missed the draft Energy Security Taskforce report when he wrote hi ps commentary Navigating Alaska’s sustainable energy without the Jenga effect in todays paper.

Comments were due a couple days ago, but in typical AEA fashion the deadline and draft were hard to find and a surprise revision released 10/20 got by many trying to get comments turned it by the 24th. See my earlier comments and links.

The draft “master plan” is not a bad frame work, it you like business as usual, and can’t away from the song stuck in too many Alaskan politician’s heads, but not in any customers, called “Stars Aligned”. However it’s not the Master Plan the Govenor charged the group to develop, and in a framing the Senator suggested of “balancing progress with caution”, we have decades of misguided bias to cautiously protect existing interests and not make any progress.

Missing from the plan are practical goals and strategies to reduce the cost of energy, transition to renewables, eliminate diesel from remote villages, reduce green house gas emissions, or notably address the cook inlet gas supply including potential demand for Donlin gas from the Cook Inlet. 

We need bolder vision and a plan for change management and smart small risks leading to a future energy infrastructure. AEA guiding the plan has biased it to protect AEA by recommending new staff and buying out transmission infrastructure for AEA to manage.

Imagine if we had used some of the gas-line’s billion dollars to fund an energy transition rather than egos, politics, and dreams. I hope the legislature will support the proposed renewable energy portfolio bill, SB101, perhaps the only effort that’s actually going to make a real difference and not just play games or play tired songs.

Ky

Updates

11/23/23 Asian Gas Market Gets Relief as Buyers Look to Resell Supply.Bloomberg

11/29 There’s lots of gas in Cook Inlet. Here’s why some companies aren’t drilling. NATHANIEL HERZ