Essay 2-Proposal:Natural gas, brown outs, and wood stoves

With the price of gasoline and diesel what they are today, energy is a huge concern for everyone, including Alaskans. Alaska has found a way to use natural gas as an energy source. This allows Anchorage and other cities to pay a fraction of the cost they would pay if the power companies had to use diesel or other crude oil. However, it has been found that there are storages of natural gas in the Cook Inlet reserves that could create power shortages and/or drive the cost of energy up. This affects the people of Fairbanks and Golden Valley Electric Association (GVEA) because GVEA buys a portion of their energy from Anchorage’s Chugach Electric. With Chugach Electric in short supply of energy, they won’t be selling as much for as low of a price to GVEA. Therefore Fairbanks and other Golden Valley Electric Association patrons should conserve energy by partaking in “brownouts” and using alternative energy sources in an attempt to lower gas usage, prevent an increase in power costs, and stay warm during this winter’s energy crisis.

The first thing residents can do is conserve electricity. Turning off lights when they’re unneeded and purchasing energy efficient light bulbs are both great ways to conserve energy. Turn off and unplug electronics when you’re not using them. Even if electronic devices are turned off, they still use power when plugged into the wall. Once the temperature drops and vehicles have to be plugged in, buy a timer for your car plug in. Cars only need a few hours to warm up. So set the timer to turn the outlet on a few hours before you have to leave for work in the morning.

As a long-time Alaskan, I know that the winters in Fairbanks are particularly harsh. When the temperature drops below 0 degrees, no one wants to come home to a cold house. An alternative to having heat on all of the time would be to buy a wood stove. The money you’d save on heating, you could use to purchase, install and feed a wood stove to keep your house nice and toasty. There are stoves available with types of filters as to not contribute to Fairbanks’ poor air quality.

Participating in brown outs is another good way to conserve. Brown outs are a voluntary nonuse of electronics and energy consumptive devices in your home for a designated period of time on a designated day. Experimental brown outs are being conducted to see how much usage will drop. It only takes a small effort to conserve large amounts of energy. Flipping a light switch and stoking a fire can save energy and prolong our usage of a limited supply of natural gas.

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