1.  Last Friday, Chairman Mary Ann Pease (NGP Photo-r) conducted a Commonwealth North Energy Action Coalition meeting to hear a thorough briefing by the Alaska Village Electric Cooperative’s (AVEC) Meera Kohler (NGP Photo-l).  The briefing occurred at the offices of the Alaska Natural Gas Development Authority (ANGDA).  

AVEC serves 7,500 facilities with 78 employees and 95 village technicians in 53 villages covering a population of 22,000 comprising what would be Alaska’s 4th largest city after Anchorage, Fairbanks and Juneau.  The AVEC customers comprise 44% of Alaska’s village citizens.  Contributing to the complication of AVEC’s mission is dealing with the extreme variation in served populations.  The average village served has 420 souls compared to Anchorage’s almost 285,000 citizens.  

Kohler emphasized the goal of achieving efficiency and diversifying the sources of electric power, saying that rates among her cooperative members had increased from $1.29 Kwh in 2002 to $4.55 Kwh last year.  She said AVEC’s Board of Directors has set forth goals to include the reduction of diesel use by 25% and elimination of half of AVEC’s power plants over the next 10 years, along with a reduction of non-fuel costs by 10% over the same period.  Kohler seemed confident in meeting the goal, outlining AVEC’s ambitious plans for grouping nearby villages to share power generation facilities and expanding the use of wind energy.  (More meeting photos will appear below.  -dh)

2.  Agency Briefing to the ANGDA Board of Directors B2F Pipeline Project.  ANGDA’s Project Purpose: “The B2F pipeline will deliver Cook Inlet natural gas to the Copper Valley, Delta Junction and Fairbanks, and will provide gas storage for Southcentral use.”

 

3.  CIRI Wind, ADN by Elizabeth Bluemink (NGP Photo).  Citing mismatched business goals as the reason for the split, the Anchorage Native corporation said that it and California-based EnXco, agreed to part ways in October. Until then, EnXco had been the developer of the 54-megawatt wind farm and CIRI’s equity partner in the project.  CIRI said it hopes to sign a deal with another well-known wind farm developer in early December. CIRI can fund the project without an equity partner, if need be, said Ethan Schutt (NGP Photo), a CIRI vice president for land and energy.  The parting with EnXco has not caused the project’s timeline to slip, CIRI spokesman Jim Jager said.  (See our original story.)

 

4.  DOI Decides to Schedule Lease Sales.  The Department of the Interior has scheduled 38 oil and natural gas lease sales for U.S. public lands in 2010, including a sale in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar (NGP Photo) announced today.  “During the past year we have held 32 onshore lease sales, offering more than 2.7 million acres in the West and generating more than $126 million in revenue for American taxpayers,” Secretary Salazar said. “Next year will be just as busy with 37 quarterly sales for Western public lands and the first sale in nearly two years for tracks in the northern reaches of the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska. Our nation needs a balanced and appropriate use of our conventional and renewable energy resources. That means oil, gas and coal will continue to play an important role in our energy mix, as we develop and expand the use of wind, solar, geothermal and other renewable sources.”   The Bureau of Land Management’s 37 quarterly oil and natural gas lease sales scheduled for 2010 will offer thousands of parcels in a dozen states, most in the West. The BLM’s Alaska State Office oil and gas lease sale will offer available tracts in the Northeast and a portion of the Northwest areas of the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska. The sale is scheduled for August 11 in Anchorage, Alaska.  The last sale for the Reserve was held September 24, 2008.   BLM conducts its quarterly lease sales based on nominations received from industry.  These are evaluated to determine eligibility and availability for leasing before being delineated into individual parcels.  A preliminary parcel list is sent to sister agencies, such as the National Park Service and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, for review and recommendations on which parcels to offer.   Since January of this year, the Bureau of Land Management has held 32 onshore lease sales that offered 2,346 parcels, covering 2.7 million acres, and sold 1,212 of those for $126 million.  BLM will hold four more lease sales this year, for a total of 36 for 2009.  Oil and gas leasing in the NPR-A is authorized under the Naval Petroleum Reserves Production Act of 1976, as amended.  Integrated Activity Plan/Environmental Impact Statements have been prepared for both the Northeast and Northwest planning areas. 

 

…From the CWN meeting Friday at the ANGDA offices: