ADN’s editorial board is right to sound the alarm bells, but missed the story on Cook Inlet gas.
According to your editorial, “we will be paying up to twice as much to heat and power our homes and businesses in the next five years.” This is bad math. Gas is a fraction of our utility bills, and much is already under contract. If gas prices double, heat bills would go up by about 38% and electricity prices by about 15%.
This bad math leads to a misguided fear of gas imports when it’s critical we begin developing that capacity as soon as possible. Also, solar and wind projects are the only things that could be built quickly enough to reduce gas demand in the next five years. While the editorial board castigated utilities for focusing on renewable projects, the utilities have not actually committed to any of them.
Renewables won’t eliminate the need for gas imports, but could potentially delay the shortfall long enough for an import facility to be built. The Legislature cannot fix this. The utilities can. We need solar, wind and a gas import facility.
— Erin McKittrick
Seldovia
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