I cannot understand why so many of my liberal friends are pushing so hard to eliminate, or at the very least severely curtail, Eklutna hydropower? Don’t they recognize that climate change is a huge threat looming over all of us, if we are unwilling to do everything we can to wean ourselves off fossil fuels? I realize that Eklutna hydro supplies only a fraction of Anchorage’s current demand for electricity, but it has a huge impact in balancing diurnal fluctuations in electric demand, as well as in meeting peak demand. Solar and wind can and should ultimately provide a much larger renewable energy component than hydro, but their contribution fluctuates wildly beyond our control. Properly managed hydro is the only renewable that can balance out those fluctuations. In the long run, after solar and wind have grown to become dominant energy contributors, pumped storage of water back up into Eklutna Lake during times of peak solar and wind production could further enhance the environmental benefit of this facility.
Reducing electric demand through efficiency improvements is, of course, the best and easiest way to wean ourselves from fossil fuels, but we seem to lack the political will to make that happen fast enough.
The goal of restoring the entirety of the Eklutna drainage to something approaching its original environmental conditions is laudable, but almost surely won’t happen. The environmental damage is a fait accompli. Let’s strive to figure out a better way to compensate the original people of Eklutna for their undeniable loss.
— Ted Moore
Anchorage
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