Alaska Beyond Oil Revenue
Theoretical Future News (a hypothetical look at what our future might look like)
June 20, 2033
“Alaskans are used to facing challenges to make a better tomorrow for our communities and ourselves. The global climate crisis is the latest challenge to face our great state, and the time has come for us to become world leaders in making a better tomorrow. The North Star on our flag represents a guiding light, we have a chance to become a guiding light not only for our state, but the global community. With the right plan, Alaskan grit and innovation are sufficient to create the solutions to create a more sustainable world. Anchorage serves as the hub for so many communities in this great state and we can be the guiding light to a more sustainable future. Anchorage must commit to following a bold and challenging path to show others that it can be done. We can have a future where our city cleans the air, provides for our energy needs, the City of Anchorage can do this and we must. If we are bold in ten years Anchorage will be a net zero city, mitigating our carbon emissions and making all of our energy needs locally. Great things can be done in the land of the midnight sun, if those who toil for oil and gold are bold, the northern lights will see even greater sites.” (Former - Mayor Forrest Dunbar June 20th, 2024.)
When Mayor Dunbar outlined a bold new vision for Anchorage’s future, many pundits balked. They complained that the plan did not provide sufficient details. Others said they worried that the economic slump from COVID-19 was not receiving sufficient attention from the city’s mayor. Over the last 9 years those pundits have worked hard to re-write their place in Anchorage’s transformation. Anchorage is part of a growing number of communities that have exceeded sustainability goals. We are the largest municipality by area that has been certified as a carbon-negative city. Our success…
Back to the present.
First and foremost, yes Forrest is a real person, no I have not managed to convince him to actually outline a net-zero emissions plan for the city of Anchorage, but when a dude you used to play Magic the Gathering with is running for office of the largest city in your home state it gets tempting to imagine what you hope they will do with their political power(full disclosure my wife and I have donated money to his campaign, I mean I do like the guy, I just don’t presume to speak for him on policy or anything for that matter)
This post is inspired by conversations I’ve had with friends about the future of Alaska. Alaska is a wonderful place that I am forever grateful to, unfortunately, the state faces some real challenges in fighting the climate crisis. Humans are well past the point where we can simply stop extracting buried carbon to burn. We will need to actively remove carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases from our atmosphere if we want glaciers.
Here are some of the potential solutions I see for Alaska (I’m not including exact numbers as that is beyond what I can confidently estimate, that being said I will try to include sources that help explain why I think the suggestion I am making is a good idea)
As I learn more, come up with additional ideas I will try to update this post and flag when I make those changes, the goal for this particular post is to be more of a living document than something static.
In bullet-point format
Green the electric grid
Maximize the energy captured by a green energy grid
Produce fuel resources more locally
Make biochar
Ocean Ranching
Deep Sea Mining
Filtering minerals out of sea water
Creating a deeper culture of Recycling and Upcycling
1) Green the electric grid
The really low hanging fruit for a state like Alaska is mitigating the state’s use of traditional fuel combustion to produce electricity. Diesel fuel is expensive to import to many of the state’s rural communities. Fortunately, wind, solar, and batteries are getting a lot cheaper.
Practically speaking there will be communities/locations where more traditional wind, solar, solutions might not work. For those locations burning fuel might still be necessary, in an ideal world the fuel used to provide energy for those more remote locations would come from more local sources. One approach would be to store energy surpluses in the form of methanol, which can burn in a diesel engine. Alternatively, biofuel could also be used to heat a boiler.
2) Eliminate curtailment in the green grid
A green electrical grid is great and all, but there is a challenge with many renewables, their intermittency. There are times when the wind isn’t blowing and the sun isn’t shining. Many advocates of other energy sources (nuclear and fossil fuels) claim this makes it impossible to have a sustainable grid. While there are certainly edge cases, batteries are fast approaching a price point where you can help to smooth the power output when your sustainable sources might not be available. All you need to do is have enough storage and you can be over 95% wind and solar, with the remainder of your grid coming from other sources.
The flip side of the renewable grid conundrum comes from when your system is making too much power. Let’s imagine that we have several days of really sunny, windy weather that means at some point your batteries are all topped off and there is all of this power just going to “waste”, energy producers might need to reduce how many wind turbines are spinning or change the angle of their solar power to curtail production. I believe it will be important to develop industries/infrastructure solutions that are able to take advantage of the energy that otherwise could not be used at the time of production. Surplus energy could be used to produce things like hydrogen, methanol as a much longer time frame energy store. Alternatively, surplus electricity could be used in the form of active carbon capture.
One thing to keep in mind that my opinion on energy curtailment is just an opinion. Basically we keep getting more cost effective at making energy from renewable energy sources, and while minimizing curtailment feels good in my gut, it honestly might end up that the extra stuff needed to effectively absorb curtailed energy just isn’t worthwhile. On the flip side, we humans are pretty clever and I think so long as your curtailment periods are relatively predictable and the cost offset by not needing larger “traditional” battery packs, in tandem with the value add of products made by almost free energy, makes anti-curtailment tools worthwhile. (wiser individuals and data will answer this question)
3) Produce Fuel products locally
Alaska is in a weird situation where the state produces tremendous amounts of crude oil, but all refining happens out of state, this leads to a frustrating situation for many communities where fuel prices are higher than the national average. Technologies like biodiesel or electrically derived synthetic fuels could potentially turn things around. Small plants throughout the state could readily turn organic waste into fuel products. Another technology getting some attention is direct air capture where machines use electricity, carbon dioxide, and water to create useful hydrocarbons.
For direct air capture, there is a pretty cool potential opportunity for seasonal fishing communities. During the summer months materials rich in carbon are stockpiled and during the winter season, electricity from wind turbines is used to turn those carbon-rich materials into useful fuel. The win for the communities would be more stable employment in the area, while at the same time keeping fuel money in the community.
4) Make BioChar
Biochar is a type of charcoal that can be produced by the careful burning of old organic waste like plant clippings. This carbon rich substance can be added to soil to increase its overall productivity.
Alaska could use biochar to improve the state’s available farm land or to help rebuild forests damaged during seasonal wildfires.
5) Ocean ranching
Alaska has some of the richest waters in the world, it might be possible to sustainably increase the productivity of waters around the state beyond what current resource management allows. The increased productivity might be used for more food products, medicine, and biofuel.
6) Deep sea mining
Undersea robots being used to harvest materials from the sea floor. I know the least about this so I’ll leave it general.
7) Filter mining
Either biology or technology being used to filter out mineral and metals from open water, or silty glacier water
8) Create a culture of upcycling and recycling
Alaskans are pretty great at recycling materials, ex. making cabinets from old boat holds, and ship’s windows. What could help the state is developing tools and standards to be even more proactive in extending the life of products, especially those that have a detrimental impact on the environment.
It seems reasonable that the state could invest in the tools and infrastructure to convert waste into more useful base chemical components.
What I outline is just what I think might be helpful in transitioning Alaska’s future economy. A big trend that I believe (well more like hope but you know) will start to come to the forefront over the next 10-20 years is the ability to use microbes and cheap electricity to produce a range of base components that we currently build in much larger centralized facilities.
Food, fuel, plastics, and even refined metals might come from a network of bioreactors. Why mine for metals when you can turn a swarm of microbes loose on a former landfill packed with copper and gold from old electronics. Why grow sugar cane when a microbe can make you the sugars you want? The same for fuel and plastics, leave the ancient forests underground, use the carbon we already have in the air. With this possible future on the horizon economies based on resource extraction will have an even more difficult time competing. The small economies that survive will be the ones that understand they must adapt how they sell the resources that are still marketable and create new industries around what is plentiful.
If you are selling lumber you are likely to be competing against vat grown materials that are more consistent in properties than what a normal tree can do. You will need to sell on something else, the shape/character/traditional lifestyle that buying your more traditional product allows.
Some tangentially associated links I cant’ quite place yet, but you know feel free to read
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/09/science/space-station-wildlife.html
https://www.greenbiz.com/article/heres-how-design-communities-give-back-much-energy-they-take