A new study sheds light on the benefits and implications of the use of electric vehicles in rural Alaska.
Electric vehicles, or EVs, are widely thought to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Many rural communities in Alaska are not connected to larger electric grids. They use diesel fuels to generate most of their electricity and face extremely cold conditions not experienced elsewhere.
Would those communities benefit from EVs?
Residents of Cordova and Tanana describe how renewable energy systems, including hydropower and solar power, are impacting their access to food, energy, and water, in two new videos produced by a research team including ISER’s Jennifer Schmidt.
The Alaska Energy Data Gateway is an online database that UAF's Alaska Center for Energy and Power, ISER, and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory established several years ago, to give communities across Alaska a broad range of data they can use as they develop and improve their energy systems.
Now, the gateway has had a major upgrade. Users can search by Alaska community for information to help them determine whether specific communities have the financial and technical capacities—and the skilled people—they need to develop sustainable energy systems. A new interactive search tool also makes it easier to find information from across the state. To learn more, check out the press release (PDF, 1MB) or visit the gateway at https://akenergygateway.alaska.edu/.
Alaska households on average use more energy—and spend more for it—than households nationwide. But making houses more energy-efficient can reduce both how much energy Alaskans use and how much they spend for it. Also, making houses more energy-efficient may increase their sales price, if the energy savings are capitalized into the value of the houses.
Dominique Pride, a postdoctoral fellow at UAF's Alaska Center for Energy and Power, will talk about the results of two studies investigating the relationship between energy efficiency and single-family home prices in the Anchorage real estate market.
We apologize that Dominique Pride's lunchtime talk did not live-stream as we had planned. A similar presentation she did, discussing her research on valuing energy-efficiency in the Anchorage residential market, is available in its place.
The Municipality of Anchorage asked UAF's Alaska Center for Energy and Power (ACEP) to develop a climate action plan and an inventory of greenhouse gas emissions for Anchorage. Those documents will be included in a broad resilience initiative the city is currently working on. ACEP—in partnership with ISER and The Nature Conservancy—hired Jacob Shercliffe as a summer intern, to draft the two documents.
Jacob Shercliffe is an economics student at UAA. The staffs of ACEP, ISER, and The Nature Conservancy advised him as he drafted the action plan and the emissions inventory. Now he is ready to deliver the draft documents to the city, which will release them for public comment in October. In his lunchtime talk, Jacob will describe how he created the two documents and the progress he made. He'll also talk about how Anchorage residents can get involved in determining how the city deals with climate change.
When: Friday, August 18, 12 to 1 p.m.
Where: ISER Conference Room, Third Floor, 1901 Bragaw Street, Suite 301
Note: This talk will not be live streamed or recorded.