So, Alaska might be one of those places where coal makes sense:
- Poor sunlight, unpredictable wind.
- Transmission lines from elsewhere extremely difficult.
- no hydro.
- no nuke.
- transportation networks unreliable over long distance.
If you have a big pile of coal nearby then I understand why it would be used.
These unique situations are not the issue, it’s building or maintaining dirty power when alternatives exist that are better.
no hydro
I don’t think thats true. Hydro already accounts for about 25% of Alaska’s energy (source). Here’s a list of the hydro plants noaa tracks, including a 20MW dam under construction.
There’s also this massive dam that could power 2/3rds of alaskas energy usage, it gets proposed whenever oil prices rise and then abandoned as soon as oil prices drop again. I’m not entirely sure of practicality of this one but it’s interesting for sure.
Oh neat I wasn’t aware.
I mean, it’s still pretty dumb, coal is incredibly inefficient, a natural gas plant would make sense though. I bet offshore tidal and wind would make sense in areas too.
Plus if it’s co-generating steam for heating it’ll be even more efficient.
Alaska’s a place where firewood is still a major primary heating source. Things are different there.
No nuke is a political problem.
And it would provide much extra heat too
More than they could use? It’s completely unviable for the foreseeable future. It’s cost would simply not be recouped.
I’m all for building nuclear power plants. …where it makes economic sense to do so. This would make no sense.
Nuclear power plants have never broken even without massive subsidies.
Dude, Alaska has issues we don’t have.
