No need to panic about Cook Inlet gas situation
One of my loyal readers, a guy who often disagrees with me, highlighted the work of Erin McKittrick and Alan Mitchell on Alaska energy issues.
I agree that their work deserves far more public attention. Here is a link to their blog, which they began in September.
Regarding the Cook Inlet natural gas situation, they suggest that conserving natural gas with more efficient use of natural gas would be simple and effective. Increased home efficiency and renewable projects that can be built quickly could help offset production declines.
“Known near-term renewable projects and heating efficiency can make a substantial difference. Not enough to avoid imports entirely, but enough to give us time to set them up,” they write.
They provide this clearheaded bit of analysis about what to do now:
“Over the longer term, gas consumption can continue to ramp down. And if we avoid locking ourselves into long term contracts or expensive subsidized fossil fuel infrastructure, imports will allow us the flexibility and time to develop local renewable energy for both electricity and heat.”
Unfortunately, panic is usually the Alaska default mode.
McKittrick recently took on the legislative proposal to define coal as “clean” energy.
“If someone writes a clean energy standard bill to define clean energy in a sensible way and attempt to drive it forward with meaningful incentives, it would be interesting to have that conversation. In the meantime, I’m stuck talking about how much of a mess things are,” she wrote.
McKittrick is a writer who has been following Alaska energy issues since 2019, while Mitchell is an energy analyst and software developer.
