Ed. Note: Alaska policymakers are selling out the state’s hydrocarbon abundance for a Green New Deal foisted by special interests that do not have consumers, taxpayers, or prosperity in mind. Trump Administration Officials visiting Alaska in two weeks are warned by energy expert Kassie Andrews in two parts (Part II tomorrow).
“… this isn’t about affordability or ‘sustainability’- it’s about control, green grift, and forcing Alaska into a ‘transition’ nobody voted for.”
The political class in Alaska is trying to sell the public on “cheap” renewables as the centerpiece of the state’s energy policy. We’ve all heard the line: Solar and wind are the cheapest sources of electricity on Earth. It’s the Green New Deal gospel repeated ad nauseam, designed to steamroll dissent and shut down debate. But like most things parroted by lobbyists, bureaucrats, and captured politicians, it falls apart under basic scrutiny.
The Anchorage Daily News op-ed, “Energy Opportunities for Alaska,” is the latest propaganda. It sounds exactly like something written by people who stand to make money off government subsidies, without addressing the inconvenient truths: that solar and wind are only “cheap” after billions in taxpayer subsidies and magical thinking about reliability.
Are Alaskans buying it? Not really, as public testimony on the state’s proposed Renewable Portfolio Standard made clear. People are waking up to the fact that this isn’t about affordability or “sustainability”- it’s about control, green grift, and forcing Alaska into a “transition” nobody voted for.
And now, we’re watching something even more dangerous unfold: elected officials using their official titles to boost political allies running for co-op boards – candidates who back this green charade. That’s not public service—it’s political warfare; it’s being waged against, and paid for by, the very people they claim to represent.
Representative Ky Holland and I have gone back and forth on this issue, but based on the moves I’m seeing, it’s obvious they’ve made their decision. They’re doubling down—regardless of the public’s will, regardless of economic sanity, and most certainly regardless of the damage this agenda will do to our energy security.
Testimony re HB 153
Here is my testimony to the House Energy Committee of the Alaskan Legislature challenging the political grab of the Green New Dealers, aka HB 153. Part II tomorrow will share my subsequent communications with the dark side of Alaska energy policy. I report; you decide.
Members of the House Energy Committee,
I am writing today to strongly urge you to oppose HB 153. This bill would force our cooperatives into unreliable and unstable energy sources like wind and solar. The State of Alaska should not be taking on the liability of mandating these sources, especially given the increasing concerns over grid stability and ratepayer costs.
Over the last few years, we have witnessed a steady erosion of accountability from our co-op boards. HB 153 would seal that erosion into law. It hands the boards yet another excuse to deflect responsibility when rates inevitably rise or when we experience blackouts and brownouts. The response will be simple: “It’s the state’s mandate.”
This is yet another example of government interference undermining the authority and responsibility of our publicly owned cooperatives. Ratepayers are not asking for higher electric bills. Ratepayers are not asking for more reliability problems. Yet that is exactly what this bill invites. If this continues, our co-ops will soon be reduced to nothing more than glorified billing departments.
We don’t have to imagine where this leads — just look to Texas. They implemented a renewable portfolio standard and now operate under ERCOT, their reliability council. During Winter Storm Uri, over 70 people died, and economic damages soared into the hundreds of billions. ERCOT, once claiming immunity, is now facing class action lawsuits. Some cases have been dismissed, but many are on-going.
The legal and financial fallout is far from over. We should be learning from these disasters of centralized planning and mandates — not racing to repeat them here in Alaska.
Furthermore, just days ago, President Trump issued executive orders aimed at restoring energy freedom and specifically pushing back on state mandates like the one proposed in HB 153. In the order titled “Protecting American Energy from State Overreach,” it states:
“State-imposed mandates and restrictions that limit the type, quantity, or method of energy production or delivery within a State or region pose a threat to national energy security, public welfare, and the resilience of the electrical grid.”
This is exactly what HB 153 represents. It limits energy choices, it undermines grid reliability, and it puts both ratepayers and taxpayers on the hook for an unreliable, high-risk experiment. The federal government has recognized the danger in these state-level mandates — and so should we.
The responsibility for affordable, reliable power belongs with our co-op boards. If these technologies were truly viable, the boards already have the authority to adopt them voluntarily. But they haven’t, because they know the liability and risk.
Instead, they are looking for the state to hand them a mandate, giving them someone else to blame when — not if, but when — the consequences arrive.
For all of these reasons, I respectfully urge you: do not advance HB 153.
Thank you for your consideration. Kassie Andrews
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Alaska has to be the worse habitable environment for wind and solar power.
There is only one better place where the sun doesn’t shine that they can stick their solar panels.
Kassie is right! State mandates to force unreliable energy to priority at the expense of dispatchable, reliable sources is – InSaNe!!! INSANE
I’m in WA state home of Terra Watt hours of Hydroelectric (Grand Coulee) along with several other Federal/State/Regional facilities that keeps our system humming. Still the Green Blob are infiltrating via State & Federal mandates that unreliable Wind and Solar should get first priority when conditions are “right”
They should not exist at all!! We had/have a historically proven reliable and expandable power supply already, Thank you very much, to our ancestors!!
Sponsors should have a skin in the game. Maybe a 10% of their wealth?
This bill is a looming disaster.
Article 11A. Renewable Portfolio Standard.
Sec. 42.05.900. Renewable portfolio standard. The portfolio of a load-serving entity that is subject to the standards of an electric reliability organization under AS 42.05.760 must include megawatt hours of electricity generated from renewable energy resources, adjusted according to AS 42.05.905, in the following percentages:
(1) 40 percent by December 31, 2030;
(2) 55 percent by December 31, 2035
So much stupidity in one paragraph. How did they arrive at 40% and 55%? What economic studies did they use to validate that wind and solar are even feasible for more than a small fraction of power generation in the state that has the lowest average sunlight hours in the U.S. (2 to 3 hours)? What did those (non- existent) studies say about the impact to customers from the intermittent and unreliable wind and solar sources? When Ky Holland blows smoke about wind and solar being the “cheapest” electricity, did he include the massive cost of backup batteries and fossil-fuel plants to carry the load when wind and solar aren’t generating, which is most of the time?
Wind and solar are inexpensive energy only if one considers marginal cost of one more kW of generation and ignores the problems of overbuild to reach resource adequacy, the intermittent nature of both wind and solar, the complications they introduce in operating with thermal plants in same grid, the expense of higher capacity transmission lines or batteries or maintaining thermal plants for purposes of balancing, and finally the poor capacity factor of all these appurtenances which in financial terms means poor utilization of capital.
You left out supply chain costs, human suffering in foreign mines, and real pollution that results from mineral extraction of copper (arsenic) and rare earths. Not to mention the enormous energy costs of extracting, refining, and fabrication of those obscenities.
I am always forgetting something, SN4.
In my (non-expert) opinion, Alaska is the poster child for … nuclear small module reactors (SMRs).
Size them to the existing demand on a given grid plus expected demand growth during the design life.
Move over to the next discontinuous grid in Alaska and build another one.
Transmission lines in remote locations are VERY expensive to build! Construct a SMR for each population center and connect as many remote people as is economically feasible.
Yes, it’s pertinent that Canada’s official Military Defence Plan has specified SMRs installations as soon as available for all of its NORAD Arctic circle defence outposts, and also the far north indigenous communities.
Diesel generators work ok, but they do require constant refueling, plus shipping & storing all those drums.
Many years ago, I recall seeing on the TV clips showing very large piles of empty fuel drums.
Physics is your enemy. Nuclear needs at least a “critical amount” of fuel to work.
like a submarine?
And your point is?
SV needs a critical amount of sunshine to work.
WTG needs a critical amount of wind to work.
The nuclear fuel needs are relatively small.
Physics is our friend if we allow it.
But the technology is experimental and highly uneconomic. Just require a turnkey project with a AAA corporation.
The technology is beyond experimentation and is now in the demonstration/feasibility phase.
There are ongoing projects to verify the technology as we speak.
Highly uneconomic? Only if you rely on biased propaganda. Total cost of ownership, nuclear is clean.
Ayup, lots of sun in December in the far north. /sarc
(I ask how much hydro-electric generation there is in AK.
Some tribal settlements are waiting for mini-nuke plants to be proven out – one is planned for a military base – to replace diesel which is costly. (Probably hope state and federal taxpayers will fund it, tribes envision one plant covering settlements in region.).
The Peace River area of NE BC is windy but there’s huge hydro-electric generation in the area.)
Like the new Site C dam which cost $CDN16 billion and took 10 years to build and will supply an additional 8% electrical power to the grid.. BC does not wind turbine for electrical power. BC Hydro should build thermal plants using CCGT since BC has large amounts of nat. gas.
BTW: Check out the You Tube video on the Site C dam. It is the largest earthen-filled dam in the world.
Even dams have lifespans and maintenance costs.
Even if you buy into the fallacy of CO2 caused warming.
Why would anyone sane in Alaska be worried about any slight warming ??
And solar will work so well in Alaska… NOT
Wind doesn’t work when covered in snow and ice, either.
And does anyone think they are going to allow dams to be built for hydro ?
This is one of the most ludicrous and INSANE pieces of climate virtue-seeking I have ever seen !
One has to be blind to believe solar can exist in those conditions for 25 years without constant maintenance, refurbishment, and replacements. I will have to revisit to verify, but I believe cold affects SV in the negative, much like cold affects batteries (for different reasons).
One also has to wonder how the WTG lubricants perform in sub-zero temperatures.
I believe offshore wind farms operate reliably for about 2 years but then start to deteriorate. The more modern larger turbines seem to deteriorate faster than earlier smaller versions and after 15 years it is not worth maintaining the wind farm.
I imagine much of the environment in Alaska must be harsher than the North Sea?
solar in AK? maybe i can get the .GOV to put up powerlines to transmit my 880 watt array’s output to them.
cha ching. bora bora is back on the menu
My understanding is that nearly forty percent of Alaska government revenue comes from the federal government. Federal dollars should not be used to prop up wind, solar and storage. If Alaska chooses to waste their money on useless renewables that’s fine but not with my money. If the state chooses to waste their money on worthless renewables they must be better off than we thought and their federal dollars should be cut by the same amount as they are wasting propping up renewables.
+10
Was this legislation put forth by Joe’s rogue auto-pen?
I would have thought anyone who voluntarily lives and survives in Alaska overwinter would be too smart to have elected fools like these.
Urban population centers have the greatest number of voters.
Is someone actually proposing solar as a viable power source in Alaska? Alaska?
The good news is that the solar angle is so low that the solar panels must be mounted almost vertically and will self shed any snow that accumulates on them.
Perhaps. But then they will suffer badly when the high winter winds whip up.
“…will self shed any snow….” and make a pile at the base that will eventually turn into a snow drift and quickly become a block of ice.
Solar? In Alaska in December? They must be joking.
Above the Arctic Circle gets sunshine for what 6 months out of the year and less the further north you go.
I suppose they should include the UK effort to block the sun while they are pursuing this insanity.
Re: the above article’s reference to the “Green New Deal”, more properly characterized as the Green Raw Deal, one need look no further than this old adage:
“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
—mostly attributed to Spanish philosopher George Santayana
The recent past being these events attributed to dependence on “renewable energy” sources:
— the April 28, 2025, grid crashes in Spain, Portugal and parts of France
— the February13, 2024, grid crash in Victoria, Australia, where more than 500,000 homes and businesses lost power. Some were left in the hot dark for days, during summer’s peak; others waited weeks for power to be restored.
— the February 2021 grid crash in Texas, USA, devastating residents with state-wide, week-long power outages. An estimated 700 people died as a result because many were without electricity for heat and water for days.