energy

Does expensive home-heating fuel cause people to move out of rural Alaska communities and into urban areas? Yes, but not as many as anecdotal reports might lead you to expect. Matthew Berman, professor of economics at ISER, found that for each $1 increase in fuel prices, fewer than 40 adults a year moved from rural to urban places. He also found that people's employment status and earnings, and local labor market conditions in general, had much more influence than high fuel prices on their decisions to leave rural places.

This is the first study to use statistical testing to assess whether high fuel prices prompt people to leave rural Alaska communities. The analysis was based on adult Permanent Fund Dividend applications for 2003 through 2015, and was funded by the Alaska Energy Authority.

Download the study, Energy Costs and Rural Alaska Out-Migration (PDF, 137.3KB), by Matthew Berman. If you have questions, get in touch with the author at matthew.berman@uaa.alaska.edu or call 907-786-5426.

Greg Poelzer is a professor in the School of Environment and Sustainability at the University of Saskatchewan, but currently he is a Fulbright Arctic Initiative scholar who has been visiting at ISER. An important part of his research focuses on comparative public policy related to Indigenous-state relations. At ISER he talks about how Saskatchewan is on the forefront of developing renewable energy through partnerships with First Nations and other Indigenous peoples, as it moves toward sharply increasing its use of renewable energy.

The Alaska Energy Statistics final report for 2011, by ISER researchers Ginny Fay and Alejandra Villalobos-Meléndez, is now available. It is the most recent update of annual reports funded by the Alaska Energy Authority. It examines how much electricity individual utilities generated in 2011 (the most recent year for which complete data are available), with what types of fuel, at what electric rates, and with what level of CO2 emissions.

ISER has now launched the Alaska Energy Data Gateway, a new online database with energy data—most of it at the community level—from across Alaska: https://akenergygateway.alaska.edu/  The site provides data from many sources, through a single access point. The data can be downloaded in a variety of file formats. 

A preliminary report, Alaska Energy Statistics 1960-2011, by Ginny Fay and Alejandra Villalobos Melendez of ISER and Corinna West of the Alaska Energy Authority, is now available, together with workbook tables. Final figures will be available in spring 2013. 

Lou Pugliaresi is president of the Energy Policy Research Foundation, a not-for-profit organization in Washington, D.C. that studies and analyzes energy issues. He will talk about how U.S. energy markets—especially those for natural gas and liquefied natural gas—are changing. Before joining the foundation, Mr. Pugliaresi held a number of government posts and was a consultant on domestic and international petroleum issues. Join us to hear his views on the changing energy markets.

Two new publications by Ginny Fay and Alejandra Villalobos Melendez of ISER provide the big picture of electricity around Alaska. Both are based on research done for the Alaska Energy Authority.

A new analysis by Scott Goldsmith and Sohrab Pathan at the Institute of Social and Economic Research and Nathan Wiltse at the Cold Climate Housing Research Center looks at broad effects of the state Home Energy Rebate Program so far. That program rebates homeowners part of what they spend to make their houses more energy-efficient and less expensive to heat. The analysis was done for the Alaska Housing Finance Corporation, which administers the program. 

A new report from the Institute of Social and Economic Research, prepared for the Alaska Energy Authority, looks in detail at electricity in Alaska as of 2008, the most recent year for which federal statistics are available.