So, that was a bit of a downer. I suppose I should be the one to get the ball rolling again then, as well.
Electricity, a luxury most folks take for granted on a daily basis with perhaps the exception of a few, boldly paranoid souls. As a general concept, it’s pretty cool. When electricity is generated, all sorts of nutty things happen to wires, conductors, magnets, and so on.
In the Juneau area, electric generation is tucked away in all sorts of little hidey-holes. Some folks are under the impression that there are no power stations in Juneau, period. This is not too far from the truth. Primarily, current is generated at the Snettisham hydro project, which is located on the lowest elevation of the outflow for Long Lake, just south of Juneau. This station generates 47.2MW. This sounds like more than enough to satisfy the local cravings for heat, lights, and a certain amount of clacking away at a certain keyboard. However, this covers only about ~80% of local demand. Where does the other 20% come from?
Always sympathetic to the localist diatribe, a little poking around in the available literature (read: internet) came up with some interesting and easily digestible factoids one wouldn’t be too mistaken to think that I was working for the benefit of the ‘tourons’. Juneau actually has several generator sites. It is true, most were semi-retired once Snettisham went online, but are still utilized as emergency backups in case of an outage (only the Auke Bay fossil site).
Salmon Creek Reservoir generates 1/3 of the power to satisfy the remaining demand. Additionally, the Annex Ck hydro project covers a 10% of the total demand. Power is currently generated seasonally at the Gold Ck hydro project. Former sites include Sheep and Nugget Creeks, as well as the Treadwell Ditch. Offline fossil plants include Auke Bay, Lemon Ck, and Gold Creek. The Alaska-Juneau mine used to have a steam plant that shut down in the early 70s. Most of these were associated with the mining boom in the early 20th century, but weren’t shut down until Snettisham came online in 1973.
A power outage at Snettisham is not entirely unreasonable scenario. The 44-mile line running between the dam & Juneau crosses several avalanche paths, runs for over two miles under Taku Inlet, and through some extremely dense forest. However, construction was designed to give the plant a 100-year working life with an expandable capacity. Expansion has already been undertaken once in the early 90′s, tapping water from nearby Crater Lake through a tunnel to a new set of generators constructed adjacent to Snettisham. The dam was constructed in a watershed without a salmon run, but water from the dam supports a fish hatchery located at the same site.
It seems like our electric needs locally are well covered, and done in a fairly sustainable manner. Keep in mind that we have tons of highly productive salmon streams, and more water than you can shake a nalgene at. There is even talk (mostly heresay) of farming out electricity to y’all down south from us here on the panhandle (this is likely to be cost prohibative, so don’t get too riled up).
Gimme the juice, baby!
-P
ps, if you are interested in reading about the economics of power in AK, here is a fairly biased, but interesting article on the privatization of electric utility, as well as the reasoning behind federal support of that action.
pps, another interesting local tidbit: helicopters, having weight limits, are forced to charge for an extra seat much like the airlines when people of a larger girth go out of a tour. Many folks attempt to lie about their weight, a rather critical factor in how a heli is loaded, which has a significant impact on how a bird will fly. Thus, many lying, overweight tourists are forced to chose between stepping on a scale, or forfeiting their ride & $$$ all together. Harsh, huh?
