While getting North Slope natural gas isn’t really within the purview of the Anchorage Assembly, ensuring our community has sufficient gas for heating homes and keeping the lights on is important to all of us. In that spirit I offer a guest commentary, in the form of a letter to the president of the newly-created Alaska Gasline Development Corporation, Dan Fauske, from local financial consultant David Gottstein:
Clark Yerrington, a Mountain View resident and activist with a blog of his own, sent me a thoughtful list of questions to answer for posting on his site. You’re welcome to review them there or here:
The previously mentioned proposal for ML&P and CEA to jointly build a 200+ megawatt, natural gas-fired power plant near Minnesota and International won approval Tuesday night, but it was not a unanimous decision. The local paper had a brief article on the subject Thursday.
As I wrote previously, the Assembly is considering a proposal for Municipal Light & Power and Chugach Electric Association to jointly construct a new gas-fired power plant near International Airport Road and Minnesota Boulevard. That ordinance was before us last night (Tuesday, August 12) and action was delayed a week when questions from local developer Marc Marlow surfaced in the days leading up to the meeting. More specifically, he sent his list to all Assembly members on Monday, August 11, and apparently spoke with some of my colleagues on Saturday and Sunday.
An ADN editorial about the transit resolution I sponsored, which asked the legislature to consider using surplus revenues to boost transit resources thereby reducing energy consumption, marked the first of what I expect to multiple forays into energy-related topics during my tenure on the Assembly. The next one relates to how we generate electricity for Anchorage in the most cost-effective manner.
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