Alaskan Capital Cuts Power Consumption By 40%
Fri, May 2, 2008
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There’s a program in the U.S. called Energy Star– it certifies homes and appliances for cutting their energy consumption anywhere from 15 to 40%. I don’t think they expected it, but we may have found the first entire city that qualifies: Juneau, Alaska, cut power consumption by 30-40% this month.
Alaska’s capital city lost its main power transmission lines in a series of avalanches earlier this month, cutting it off from a relatively cheap source of power at a hydroelectric dam, and leaving it to draw from backup generators that cost nearly five times as much. Faced with the tough decision that such a large increase in utility bills can present, the city did what many have speculated the western world is incapable of: they cut back.
With citizens cooking on charcoal grills, refusing to watch TV, and drying their laundry on clotheslines, Alaska Light and Power still projects that they’re three months away from repairing the lines and restoring power that’s not slaved to the price of oil.
To give you some context on how rare this sort of behavior is, the last time that a city was able to cut back anything like that was in 2002.
Image from haydnseek
Brazil, which saw the sort of droughts in 2001 and 2002 that the American south did in 2007, implemented a plan that gave clear rewards to those cutting back heavily, and penalized consumers that did not attempt to conserve. It was a smashing success. Not only did the rate of consumption lower by 20%, but it took four more years for the populace to rise back up to pre-200 levels of power usage. With the lack of economic fallout, and relative permanence of the positive effects, Brazil may have discovered the next major step in energy policies, and Juneau may be proving that Americans are prepared to accept it.
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2 Trackbacks For This Post
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ideonexus.com » Blog Archive » Science Etcetera, Moonday 20080505 Says:
May 5th, 2008 at 9:01 am[...] Proof that we can conserve energy simply by changing our habits: the capital of Alaska cut power-consumption by 40 percent. [...]
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Interesting reading… – The Blogs at HowStuffWorks Says:
January 11th, 2010 at 6:56 pm[...] Alaskan Capital Cuts Power Consumption By 40% – “Alaska’s capital city lost its main power transmission lines in a series of avalanches earlier this month, cutting it off from a relatively cheap source of power at a hydroelectric dam, and leaving it to draw from backup generators that cost nearly five times as much. Faced with the tough decision that such a large increase in utility bills can present, the city did what many have speculated the western world is incapable of: they cut back…” [...]
May 2nd, 2008 at 5:31 pm
“Brazil may have discovered the next major step in energy policies, and Juneau may be proving that Americans are prepared to accept it.”
Great final statement. With comprehensive policies promoting energy efficiency–in addition to renewable energy–we can do a lot to cut emissions and reduce our dependence on fossil fuels.
If you’d like to learn more about the economic and policy factors affecting the renewable energy sector, you should check out the Renewable Energy Finance Forum (), held June 18-19 in New York City. REFF brings together financiers and project developers to share their ideas on the future of the industry. One of the official event sessions will feature representatives from the American Council on Renewable Energy, the Institute for Sustainable Energy Policies, New Energy Finance, the Stella Group, and Lazard Freres & Co in a discussion about the policy and market drivers of renewable energy.
May 3rd, 2008 at 2:53 am
I believe that the only way the majority of U.S. Americans will cut back their energy use in any significant way is by raising the price of energy to the point that they have to cut back. It is the nature of affluent consumerism.
May 3rd, 2008 at 4:00 pm
Cities like Juneau using hydro power should be allowed to consume whatever their wallet affords. The fact that oil prices are now regulating electrical consumption there suggests that the overall energy market is becoming eco-friendly and therefore does not need industry regulations.
May 3rd, 2008 at 4:49 pm
I live in Juneau. I don’t know if the entire US would want to do this for very long even if electric prices went up to $0.525/KwH. Stores are dark, work is dark, home is dark, oh and did I mention cold? Luckily it’s light out until 10:00pm-ish now (and getting lighter). Most city street lights are off, Businesses are closing early or for entire days to save money. Business promotions and freebies are over. The tourists arrive confused :) (cruise ships aren’t going to get their cheap dockside power this year and will keep their diesel engines on when in port this year, adding A LOT to airborne pollution) We are all kinda looking forward to running the dryer and dishwasher again (people are starting to smell also). This will be over soon for us, but many of the smaller villages in Alaska pay this rate all the time (well there is electrical cost adjusts provided by the state which helps a little)
May 3rd, 2008 at 5:29 pm
KG, first, go back and read the story again–conservation was necessary because they were *cut off from the hydro power.*
Maybe you’ve been missing what’s been happening in parts of the United States, but hydro is most definitely not (NOT!) always-on, always-available energy. It’s been said of Atlanta’s water supply, “Every time someone turns on a light, it’s like turning on a faucet.” And because of (necessary) environmental regulations, it’s not possible to just shut off the dam in the event of a drought. Las Vegas, despite heavy conservation efforts, will likely run out of water anyway, the Hoover Dam will break someday, and due to hydro all up and down the Colorado, it no longer reaches the ocean.
In theory, it should be whatever a person can afford, but in practice, it’s not that simple.
May 3rd, 2008 at 5:56 pm
Of course they cut back on consumption, it’s simple economics. When the price of a good or service rises, consumption of the good or service decreases. The amount of this decrease depends on the elasticity of demand for the good/service. If it is highly inelastic (ie gasoline and oil in general), then consumption will not decrease as much as it would for an elastic good. I do not understand why when these types of stories are published, people are amazed.
May 3rd, 2008 at 6:14 pm
“Cities … using hydro power should be allowed to consume whatever their wallet affords”
That is silly; feed all generated power into the grid, conserve as much power as possible, create a better future.
Consuming as much as you can afford is regressive and shortsighted
May 3rd, 2008 at 6:22 pm
You’re an idjit. That’s right, you don’t even qualify for the correct spelling of the word; you get the redneck version instead!
The reason why Juno’s price of electricity is being dictated by oil is because their transmission lines to the hydro power have been destroyed. Did you even READ the article?
May 3rd, 2008 at 6:51 pm
I live in Juneau also and it doesn’t say that we are burning something like 56,000 gallons of diesel a day to turn the back up generators. You can see the exhaust from this in the air.
May 3rd, 2008 at 7:36 pm
I live in Juneau, and we’re currently down to 54,361 gal. of diesel per day, down from 84,174 as shown on the city’s energy webpage. We’re all doing the best we can, some of us learning new things–or just trying a little bit harder than usual. But look, it my normal $50-$75 monthly light bill wasn’t going to be $250-$400 for at least the next three months, I doubt I’d be trying as hard as I am now. And I pretty much count myself as a typical consumer.
But there’s also a spirit of “we’re all in this” togetherness in the air, and it’s very noticeable. Yeah, we griped a whole lot about it at first, but we’ve pretty much figured out we’re screwed if we don’t.
regards to all, especially Juneauites.
-dc
May 3rd, 2008 at 7:37 pm
I don’t mean to be a d**k but I just can’t help myself…
Article says:
[...]Not only did the rate of consumption lower by 20%, but it took four more years for the populous to rise back up to[...]
POPULOUS is an adjective
POPULACE is a noun
I’m guessing you meant the second?
But all in all this is awesome news =^D
(Except maybe the hassle of lighting up charcoal everytime to cook. Plus I hope they’re doing it outside *cough* must suck to breathe in the smoke day in day out inside the house.)
May 3rd, 2008 at 8:34 pm
Thanks Mikee, I have corrected the error – it slipped through my editing net! Take care and have a good day.
Chris
May 3rd, 2008 at 10:54 pm
I live in Juneau. Everybody is doing a great job of conserving energy but one of the main reasons that we have been able to reduce our consumption is because the temperature is warming up. A lot of Juneau houses are heated by electricity. If this had happened in December, we would have not seen as dramatic a savings.
May 4th, 2008 at 6:25 am
With all due respect to the folks in Juneau, and appreciation of what you have achieved:
Live in Vermont.
Heat with wood off my land, recycling carbon, cut and split with hand tools. Keep warm with wood stoves.
Run a pretty up to date systems consulting and web development company, all on locally produced power, a mix of wind and solar cells.
The big downer for me: Transportation. It just doesn’t work in rural areas, sometimes you have to visit clients.
One of my major concerns is the effects of global warming. It’s a plague visited upon our planet by just one species, All of US!
If we do nothing to change our ways we destroy our planet and ourselves. But some of us will make a lot of money doing it.
Eight more months!!
May 4th, 2008 at 7:50 am
Did they have pre-200 power in Brazil? ;)
May 4th, 2008 at 9:46 am
This is the first I’ve heard of this and I read a ton of news.
Have any outsiders offered help? Are there any quick-to-install easy cleaner alternatives for getting power besides diesel?
It’s an interesting problem and I admire the Alaskan spirit that’s shining through.
Good luck and take notes. What you learn will probably be needed in the lower 48 sometime soon…. unfortunately.
May 4th, 2008 at 10:19 am
hello, another juneau-ite here. my wife works for delta western…the fuel barges are on the way, diesel is going up a little bit but not enough to justify our electric bill to jump 5x’s. we’ve been on the diesel generators all winter already. so why would they jump the price up so much now? i’m convinced this is a sneeky way to get another damn built. and did you guys hear that our beloved govenor declined to call this a disaster….so we won’t be getting any of that money. anyway, my wife and i are reading our meters ourselves to help self regulate. our bill is already over 400 bucks. another thing i heard was that when this is all over, they’re going to lower the kilowatt per hour charge to only around 40 cents or some crap like that….and that’s still way over what we were paying. i think the feds need to get involved and investigate AEL&P for gouging.
May 4th, 2008 at 3:11 pm
Interesting this was touted as “Juneau’s cutting it’s electric consumption” like it’s a green effort, when actually it’s a survival effort. I came here to see how and why. The diesel fumes have got to be killing y’all! ;)
I hope you get your power transmission towers up soon, and can get back to using your hydro. Keep up the conservation habits you’ve fostered, too! Good luck! :)
May 4th, 2008 at 8:30 pm
I wonder if energy star plans on branching out to other cities.
May 5th, 2008 at 4:59 pm
You been living in a hole the past 7 years? Latest reports show that earth’s temperature has been cooling for this time period. REAL scientists at NASA are now worried about a long term cooling as the sunspot activity is minimal (average of 1 spot per day lasting a couple of hours). Since these spots affect our ionosphere and cloud cover, we may be in for a bad period unless the sun fires up some more of them. Read about something called the Maunder minimum and you’ll know some facts about what we are currently facing unless more sunspots start appearing in this cycle.
I and everyone I know agree that conservation is best, if only to lessen my asthma and allergies, but get off this fake warming crap. your god al gore has been proven to be a fake, shooting scenes from his movie in a studio and using all you warmers to line his pockets by making you buy into the carbon credit scam and purchase credits from one of the many carbon credit companies he owns stock in while not doing a dang thing to reduce his own pollution.
Also, can all of you warmer cultists please take a look at archaelogical history? When the earth has been at it’s warmest, there is a greater diversity of species. When earth cools, species die off in great numbers.
I REFUSE to take responsibility for something that the SUN has been doing for billions of years!
May 5th, 2008 at 6:42 pm
EdS—right on the money!!! Al Gore is a false prophet and global warming is a cult! When is the next plane to Guyana?
Conservation is the ideal method, if only for your own wallet!!!
May 6th, 2008 at 3:09 am
Hydro power down the Colorado is not using all the water. Power is generated by allowing the water to flow through the dam. There is no water wasted generating power from water. If the Colorado dose not make the ocean it is from farming and cities water usage.
May 6th, 2008 at 2:10 pm
People cut back on gas due to higher prices so why not energy. Money seems to be the only thing Americans understand – not this fancy air of which you speak!
May 24th, 2008 at 10:00 pm
I was in a bookstore in downtown Juneau today that still was using rows of high power tungsten lights, when a trip to costco would provide compact fluorescent lamps that use about 1/3 the electrical power.