Anchorage Daily News

Wind power is no stranger in Alaska, but Anchorage hasn't been in on the harvest. That could change very soon if Gov. Sarah Palin backs a plan to catch the wind just off the city's shores.

The state capital budget includes $25 million for transmission lines for a wind power project on Fire Island.

Palin vetoed a similar item last year, for good reasons. This year, a much-improved proposal deserves her support.

• A state agency, the Alaska Energy Authority, would control the money and build the transmission lines from the island to the Anchorage Bowl. Those lines would then be a publicly owned asset.

• That $25 million would leverage from $100 million to $125 million in private money to build the wind farm -- about two dozen turbines generating about 50 megawatts a year. That's enough to offset the natural gas demands of about 18,000 Alaska homes, according to Jim Jager, spokesman for Cook Inlet Region Inc. The Native corporation and enXco, one of the largest renewable energy companies in North America, are partners in the project.

• The state's money is well-protected -- not a dime will be spent until there are power sales agreements with utilities.

• If the project starts this year, turbines could be up and running by 2009 and no later than 2010, Jager said. The sooner the better; wind isn't as reliable on a day-to-day basis as natural gas, but when it blows, utilities can save on natural gas.

That extends the life of our Cook Inlet gas reserves, now expected to run out in eight years, giving us more time to tap both more natural gas sources and more cleaner, renewable energy sources. Unless we find more -- and preferably diverse -- sources of energy, recent painful rate hikes will pale against what's to come.

• The $25 million to support Fire Island wind power is a wise way make high oil prices work for Alaska consumers. Use some of the state surplus to build a project that has no fuel costs and cuts future electricity prices.

• The wind energy plan includes training facilities for other wind projects in rural Alaska, making remote wind projects more affordable.

Palin said last year that she vetoed some energy projects because they were premature. She wanted to wait for a study on a possible Railbelt Electrical Grid Authority before signing off on individual projects. The final draft of that study is due in late May.

Given Fire Island's promise and the careful terms of the appropriation, it's hard to see how an Anchorage wind power project wouldn't fit into an overall strategy for the Railbelt. If utilities decide they have better alternatives, they don't sign to buy power and the state money never gets spent. But if utilities do sign on, the state can jump-start a project to make wind power -- clean and inexhaustible -- available up and down the Railbelt.

BOTTOM LINE: $25 million to help farm Fire Island wind is money well-spent.

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