Wind power

by Merritt R. Helfferich, Fairbanks

Letter to the Editor

June 29, 2010

To the editor:

Read more: Fairbanks Daily News-Miner – Wind power

I have been a member of Golden Valley Electric Association for 46 years. I was a surveyor on the Healy-to-Fairbanks power line in the 1960s, fighting mosquitoes who got their energy from me. So do I like GVEA? I do. I like to turn on the lights.

Still, for the past two years I have been working to improve the insulation of my home, changing windows, chinking logs, replacing doors, adding compact fluorescent lamps and changing the furnace for more high efficiency. Soon I will insulate under portions of the house and replace the roof insulation. Not because I hate GVEA, but because I think my level of personal consumption of energy is appalling.

Plus, my electricity will cost even more in the future, given the additional $95 million the Healy Clean Coal Plant will take to license and the expenditure of vast amount of additional energy to make the changes required. The old design Healy Clean Coal Plant has been very, very clean for many years, in that it hasn’t worked.

Clean coal is an oxymoron. And I think, with apologies to the Usibellis, that the plant should now serve as a great monument to the end of the construction of coal plants and visited by lots of green tourists (not the Martians). In this mode it will contribute to the economy of Healy, which could use some help — have you ever directed anyone to Healy as a great tourist site? Now you will have the chance!

So I, but unfortunately apparently not GVEA, will continue to reduce consumption of energy in whichever way I can become more responsible. I hope GVEA can become more responsible, too. Think wind power!