WIND ENERGY

CIRI is investing in innovation, technology and a diverse portfolio of clean, dependable and economic energy options, including wind power.

FIRE ISLAND

A photo simulation demonstrates a possible wind farm on Fire Island. Image courtesy of Chugach Electric Association.

CIRI is developing Alaska's first commercial-scale wind energy project on company land on Fire Island, in Cook Inlet just west of Anchorage.

Southcentral Alaska uses natural gas to generate more than 90 percent of its electricity. However, Cook Inlet gas reserves are running out. Clean, renewable wind energy could diversify Railbelt power resources, which would increase reliability and decrease ratepayers' vulnerability to gas shortages and price increases.

The project is expected to include 36 turbines capable of producing 54 megawatts of electricity, enough to power more than 19,000 homes.

Site preparation on Fire Island is underway, with infrastructure work to commence in 2010.

The location was initially selected by Chugach Electric Association as a site that could provide commercial quantities of electric power to key load centers on the Railbelt grid.

WHY WIND?

- Wind energy is renewable, so it won't run out
- The long-term cost of wind-generated electricity is cheaper and more predictable than fossil-fuel powered sources
- Wind power reduces greenhouse gas emissions and other environmental impacts
- Wind power could offset the need to burn natural gas, so that Cook Inlet oil and gas reserves would last longer
- Using wind energy locally could let the state take full advantage of escalating petroleum prices by selling more Alaska oil and gas to the rest of the world
- Alaska wind energy resources would be built and operated in-state by Alaskans

http://www.ciri.com/content/company/FireIsland.aspx

Hiking the Mudflats to Fire Island

About 20 members from the Anchorage Adventurers Meetup Group and a handful of adventurers left the beach below Kincaid Park Friday to embark on a hike to and from Fire Island. Most hikers crossed the mud barefoot; a couple brought rope and life preservers, and one latecomer carried snowshoes. The group appeared to near Fire Island in just over an hour, still before low tide, and returned just before 6 p.m. on the same tide cycle. Plans for the trip raised concerns after two teenagers were rescued from rising tidal waters off Kincaid Park on June 9. Dangerous mud and extreme tides also claimed the life of a woman trapped in the shoreline of Turnagain Arm near Hope in 1989. The combination of extreme tidal range and glacial silt in the mud, make for dangerous and uncertain conditions in the Cook Inlet.

More Photos here:
http://registration.adn.com/photos/story/845261.html?/1521/gallery/845262-a845254-t3.html

Anchorage GIS

Link to GIS on Anchorage, AK:

CLICK HERE

(must use Internet Explorer to view)

Hearings on Inlet belugas start Feb. 3

Leo mentioned that the bizarre sheet pile formations were to protect the Beluga whales, and that there was testing being done during construction to see that the vibrations (also from the sheet piles) were not scaring them off. This is why.


Anchorage Daily News / adn.com

(01/26/10 21:36:38)

Federal officials have scheduled four public hearings between Feb. 3 and Feb. 12 in Southcentral communities on the proposed designation of more than 3,000 square miles of Cook Inlet as critical habitat for beluga whales. All will take place between 6 and 9 p.m.

Scientists estimate that about 1,300 belugas lived in Cook Inlet in 1979, but the numbers dropped sharply during the 1990s and by 1998, their population was put at about 350.

The plunge was largely attributed to subsistence hunting, but hunters curtailed their harvest to one or two animals a year starting in the late 1990s, and biologists expected the population to rebound. That hasn't happened; last year's estimate was about 320.

The National Marine Fisheries Service and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration listed Cook Inlet belugas as endangered in 2008. The proposed critical habitat areas identified on Dec. 1, 2009, would comprise all of upper Cook Inlet, the coastal areas of western Cook Inlet and most of Kachemak Bay.

Uh-oh!

2 more cruise ships to be pulled from Alaska waters in 2011

With Alaska already facing big cuts in cruise-ship visits next summer, the state's two largest operators announced plans Wednesday to remove even more ships in 2011.

Holland America Lines and Princess Cruises said that they will redeploy one ship each from Alaska to Europe in 2011.

The two operators are among six cruise lines that plan to either cancel or reroute ships to Alaska next year, reducing the number of cruise visitors by more than 100,000.

The owner of the two lines, Carnival Corp., has been one of the harshest critics of the increased taxation and regulation of the cruise industry approved by Alaska voters in 2006.

During a Carnival investor meeting last spring, the company's chief executive, Micky Arison, railed against the voter-approved law, which created a passenger levy and other taxes, blaming it for the lack of growth in Alaska's cruise industry in the past two years and for turning away budget-conscious travelers during this year's recession...

READ MORE

Anchorageans(?) for a healthier community

Highway designer, urban planner, Lynn Peterson, talks the walk

http://www.adn.com/money/story/1123581.html


Her 2009 video presentation can be found here:

http://www.clackamas.us/bcc/peterson/alaska.htm

Anchorage Museum by David Chipperfield

Here's an article on the Anchorage Museum that we tried to visit (what a let down!) from DeZeen.

David Chipperfield Architects">Anchorage Museum Expansion by
David Chipperfield Architects

May 28th, 2009

An extension to the Anchorage Museum designed by David Chipperfield Architects opens to the public in Anchorage, Alaska, this weekend.

The glass facade of the four-storey building is fritted with mirror in stripes, reflecting the surroundings and affording views into and out of the museum.

The extension will house the Smithsonian Arctic Studies Center, exhibiting native Alaskan ethnographic artefacts, as well as a new entrance hall, circulation atrium and cafe.

Images copyright David Chipperfield Architects except photograph below by Christian Richters.

Here are some more details from David Chipperfield Architects:

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David Chipperfield Architects’ Anchorage Museum Expansion to Open

David Chipperfield Architects’ new 8,000 m2 Anchorage Museum Expansion will open to the public on 30 May 2009.

The organisation of the new building is based on five linear volumes of varying length and height arranged along the western face of the existing building. This arrangement forms a new facade and entrance facing downtown Anchorage. The new building offers windows through which the activity of the museum is observed. The visitor, from within, is re-oriented to the city context and its extraordinary natural setting beyond. The glass facade of the new four-storey building is fritted with a striped mirror pattern, providing views out of and into the museum and reflecting the sky and surrounding mountainous environment.

The interior design concept exposes the concrete structure as part of the character of the internal spaces. Walls are constructed between columns to establish a series of rooms within the new building. The main public spaces – the entrance lobby, circulation atrium, cafe, and exhibition spaces – use different colours and materials to give each its own identity. Windows have been positioned in all non-exhibition spaces and some exhibition spaces.

The Anchorage Museum Expansion will also house the Smithsonian Arctic Studies Center, exhibiting 600 Alaska Native ethnographic artefacts from the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History and National Museum of the American Indian. The new Common created in front of the museum will provide a new public space for downtown Anchorage.