Energy

If built, the project would inject stored energy into the Railbelt grid when solar and wind power sag.

Enstar wants to take over the project last estimated to cost $10 billion. But its own chief executive acknowledges that the pipeline isn’t viable without multibillion-dollar subsidies from the state.

The fossil fuel industry and its supporters have criticized the Biden EV vision, but in Alaska, where use and infrastructure is expanding, the vehicles are winning fans.

The administration will also add protections for 13 million acres in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska.

Electric vehicle owners say traveling has gotten easier, but the rollout of the Alaska-led network has been bumpy.

In documents filed in Anchorage, international oil company ConocoPhillips said an ongoing federal court case is likely to make or break Alaska’s largest planned oil development in decades.

For each direct oil and gas company job, industry activity supported 15 other jobs, and each dollar in oil and gas industry wages supported $4 in other Alaska wages, according to a new report.

An increasing number of residential solar installations are also boosting supply in Matanuska Electric Association’s service area, and across Southcentral as well.

Alaskans in the renewable energy industry say the law is beginning to jump-start development in the state.

U.S. District Court Judge Sharon Gleason said the temporary suspension of the leasing program in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge followed the law while a supplemental review is conducted.

The Alaska Division of Oil and Gas is preparing to hold a lease sale offering rights to explore for geothermal energy resources of Mount Spurr, a snow-capped volcano about 80 miles northwest of Anchorage.

The state this week released more details on a death that occurred on April 15 in Deadhorse. A separate investigation at the Hilcorp-operated Northstar oil field involves a death that occurred on June 30.

The penalty is one of the largest assessed by the commission. ConocoPhillips, which did not appeal the findings issued last month, has 10 days to pay the total.

Oil and gas drillers would have to commit more than 10 times as much money to guarantee their wells won’t pollute under an Interior Department proposal announced Thursday, the first such update to the program in more than a half-century.

Railbelt utilities say options are set to be picked for further development by the end of the year, with a natural gas shortfall expected to start in 2027.

The Megapacks are expected to increase operational efficiency, saving an estimated $121 million over 15 years.

ConocoPhillips won a lawsuit against the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission seeking to keep Willow oil well data private.

Chugach Electric Association says the increase is needed to cover rising costs and falling demand.

The oil company has an opportunity to challenge the findings.

The attorney for the city argued that the public needs access to weigh the oil company’s ability to respond to a spill. Attorneys for the state and oil company said Valdez did not follow proper procedures before turning to the courts.

The city wants the oil company to release information it was allowed to keep secret when it acquired BP’s Alaska assets for $5.6 billion in 2020.

The company acquired the project in 2019 from Caelus, which had done some of the work to prepare the field.

The fine is the second-largest issued by the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission in the last decade, according to agency records.