THE LINK: OCTOBER 2023 45 those now on military bases. The military would likely absorb these costs, but the new equipment may be uneconomic to install on the privately-owned, and aged, Aurora coal power plant in downtown Fairbanks. This plant also supplies steam heat to buildings in the downtown core business area, however. If the plant cannot afford new pollution control equipment and supply the steam heat it is a huge issue for the community. EPA appears sympathetic to these problems, but the agency’s regulatory tools appear limited, people familiar with the issue say. EPA’s main tools involve controls on emissions from point sources like power plants, or on types of fuel used. The agency is not set up well to deal with several thousand home wood stoves in the community. The borough does have a program to help local residents finance conversions of wood to efficient oil burning stoves, and from oil to clean-burning natural gas through the IGU, and Mayor Ward hopes to see this ramped up from the 300 to 400 conversions per year now done to about 600 to 700 per year. But there’s a lot to do on this. The mayor said there’s really no accurate count of wood burning stoves in the community and people are often reluctant to respond to surveys out of concern about fines. The best estimate is that there could be 3,000 to 4,000 homes in the area heating with wood, he said. Ironically, a solution that creates higher costs by mandating ULS diesel for home heating will just drive more people to wood stoves, worsening the problem, Ward said. Bringing more clean-burning natural gas to the community could be a solution, and the IGU is working on expansion plans as well as a new source of trucked-in LNG given the projected shortages of gas predicted in Cook Inlet, which now serves Southcentral Alaska as well as Fairbanks with trucked LNG. Hilcorp Energy affiliate Harvest Alaska now has plans underway for an LNG plant on the North Slope from which liquefied gas could be sent by truck down the Dalton Highway. This would make large reserves of gas on the slope available to Fairbanks. — Tim Bradner Serving all of Alaska since 1958 TEMSCO Helicopters, Inc PO Box 5057 Ketchikan, Alaska 99901 Phone 907-225-5141 • fax 907-225-2340 • www.TemscoAir.com HELICOPTERS, INC. TIMBER EXPLORATION MINING SURVEY CARGO OPERATIONS TEMSCO
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTcxMjMwNg==