AIDEA’s wrong-minded decision to spend $35 million for the Ambler Road defies any reasonable logic when Alaska is facing a threefold economic disaster. Namely, the coronavirus and associated forced unemployment costs; the decrease in Alaska’s oil income; and the last domino to fall is Alaska’s tourism industry, which is projected to experience a near-total collapse if the coronavirus is not stopped.
The mission statement of the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority includes the statement “… to promote economic growth and diversity … this includes energy facilities.” Homer Electric Association just announced a rate increase, again. How about AIDEA spending $35 million on tidal power generation that would benefit all Railbelt electric consumers? It would certainly serve a much larger number of Alaskans than the Ambler Road project and for much longer than the 12 years that Trilogy Metals has projected for the life of their mine. Tidal hydro power generation in Nova Scotia is projected to be larger than solar or wind turbine generation, (refer to Smithsonian magazine’s article “Hydropower in Nova Scotia,” April 2020).
Alaska’s greater good would be better served by rescinding G20-11 and spending that money on a project that serves Alaskans, not a foreign corporation.
— Mike McCarthy
Homer
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