Anchorage Daily News

PALMER -- The played-out gold mines of Hatcher Pass could still yield something just as valuable -- energy.

George Sikat, president of a new Wasilla-based company called Mat-Su Energy, offered the idea at a brainstorming session Monday in Palmer called by the Alaska Energy Authority.

The authority, under director Steven Haagenson, the new state energy coordinator, wants to reduce what consumers around the state are paying to heat and illuminate their homes and offices.

"I'm looking at techniques that I can deploy to get the cost of energy down. We're trying to put together an energy picture for the whole state of Alaska," Haagenson said.

Sikat proposed sealing off abandoned mines and using a renewable source of energy, such as hydroelectric or burning biomass, to fill the mines with compressed air. The air would then be released to drive a ramjet to generate electrical power.

Haagenson called Sikat's idea the best he'd heard that night and promised to put it before the authority number crunchers to see whether it has merit.

"We need to find the cost of putting the power to the grid," Haagenson said.

The concept has been tested elsewhere. In McIntosh, Ala., a compressed-air power plant has been operating since 1991. According to Popular Mechanics magazine, India carmaker Tata Motors plans this year to release a five-passenger car that runs on compressed air.

Haagenson said the compressed-air plan makes use of an unexpected resource, abandoned mines. The Alaska Division of Mining, Land and Water has catalogued more than 770 abandoned mines in the state.

"My biggest concern has to do with economy," Haagenson told the gathering of about 50 people. "If you're buying not-local fuel ... the money is going outside your community. What if that money stayed in your community? What would that do to your economy?"

FINDING LOCAL POWER

Haagenson and representatives of the Alaska Industrial Export and Development Authority kicked off a statewide round of public meetings in Palmer, hoping to gather information from Alaskans about local power sources.

"I talked to one person who said, 'When I hunt in the winter time, there's never any snow in this one part of the hill,' " Haagenson said. "I talked to another person from Atka who said, 'We have a 15-knot current.' "

The conspicuous lack of snow might indicate enough geothermal heat to build a power plant, he said. In Atka, maybe the current could be harnessed to generate power.

Both large-scale and small projects are on the radar. In Palmer, Haagenson gathered suggestions on weatherization and conservation, as well as wind turbines, solar panels, tidal generators and other small energy producers for Mat-Su.

He said his team would evaluate bigger projects too, such as using hydroelectric power on the Susitna River or at Lake Chakachamna, west of Anchorage, or using geothermal power from Mount Spurr to power homes in Southcentral Alaska.

The group will be back in communities later this year to say which ideas might work locally. Each community can pick the proposals that work for them, and then the state group will look for partners to make the projects happen.

"The answer still rests on, what does your community want," he said. "It's your call, not mine."

Find Daily News reporter Rindi White online at www.adn.com/contact/rwhite or call 352-6709.

• FIND OUT when the Alaska Energy Authority will be in your community by logging on to www.aidea.org/aea/index.html.

• SHARE INFORMATION about potential power sources by sending an e-mail to energycoordinator@aidea.org. Comments can be mailed to Alaska Energy Authority, Attn: Steven Haagenson, 813 W. Northern Lights Blvd., Anchorage 99503. Get involved

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