Dunleavy wants his energy task force to believe that Alaska electric prices will be cut to 10 cents per kWh by 2030

When Gov. Mike Dunleavy launched his energy task force last spring, he said he wanted to see plans by the end of this year to cut electricity prices in Alaska to 10 cents per kilowatt hour by 2030.

“Now some people will say that’s incredibly optimistic, we can’t do that, etc., etc., etc. But I’ve gotta remind you of a couple of things done in history here in the not-too-distant past. 1961, John F. Kennedy said we’re gonna go to the moon by the end of the decade,” Dunleavy told his task force.

“People laughed at him, nobody can go the moon. That’s impossible. It can’t be done.”

“We went to the moon,” said Dunleavy.

“When I was a kid in the 1960s, we would never have dreamed of things like cell phones or breaking up AT&T, from Ma Bell into different phone utilities. We would have never thought about being able to speak simultaneously with somebody in North America, in Asia, in Australia. There are a lot of things we never thought could happen, but because people believed. And I’m going to underline that, believed that it could, we did,” he said.

“You guys have been selected due in large part to the belief on my side of things that you guys can make things happen,” he said at the first task force meeting, repeating the 10-cent goal.

He asked the task force members to believe in 10-cent power and figure out how to pull off a moonshot.

Dream the impossible dream if you must. I’m not sure we’re going to make it to the Valley of the Moon, let alone the moon.

In Fairbanks right now, the cost of power is 25 cents a kilowatt hour. In Anchorage it’s 18 cents to 21 cents.

The cost is not going to be cut by more than 50 or 60 percent in the next seven years without multiple political miracles. Believing or saying you believe isn’t enough.

With that said, it’s hard to know what to make of the draft sections of the “Statewide Energy Master Plan” released Tuesday by the task force. There is no plan for 10-cent power, that much is clear.

The number is mentioned only once, on page 7. You can read the 130-page draft document here. There is to be a public hearing on the draft Oct. 10 from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. in Anchorage at the Alaska Energy Authority board room.

The draft claims that one way we might get to cheaper power is to increase the demand for electricity by finding industrial customers to use more power, which would “drive down prices for all consumers and spur economic development overall.”

This is the “build it and they will come approach.” The electric “Field of Dreams” vision is reminiscent of the logic used to promote the Rampart Dam on the Yukon River many decades ago.

The industrial customers, which would get a guaranteed low price, “could include ore processing of locally resourced materials as well as new fuel generation production facilities for the transportation industry (air carriers, shipping, etc.) among others.”

The expected result: “The Railbelt will significantly increase its load to drive down prices for all consumers and spur economic development overall.”

The 130-page draft mentions a mind-numbing catalog of options and ideas and possibilities about what the energy future looks like for Alaska: Develop 3,000 more miles of transmission corridors; promote the use of heat pumps; resume planning the in-state gas pipeline because while “imports of LNG may occur in the short term, doing so over the long term would be regrettable, would do little to boost our local economy.”; put more money into modernizing the Regulatory Commission of Alaska; review planning for Susitna and other hydro projects; unify all existing transmission assets along the Railbelt with a state entity or a new nonprofit; diversify power generation.

“The ability of the state to achieve a moonshot goal requires a coordinated effort across agencies and through all programs that intersect with the goal,” the task force says on page 57.

There is a lot to consider in the draft, which is supposed to be turned into a final report for Dunleavy by Dec. 1, with the models showing how to get 10-cent power.

But there has been discussion that since the 10-cent “moonshot goal” is not included in the Dunleavy administrative order establishing the task force, the dream to shoot the moon may just be abandoned by the task force.

Your contributions help support independent analysis and political commentary by Alaska reporter and author Dermot Cole. Thank you for reading and for your support. Either click here to use PayPal or send checks to: Dermot Cole, Box 10673, Fairbanks, AK 99710-0673.