Alaska energy infrastructure and engineering.

• Author: Stricker, Julie
• Position: SPECIAL SECTION: Engineers & Architects

It's the dead of winter, but steam is rising from a remote valley on Alaska's Seward Peninsula. A large frame building and a few outbuildings are clustered on the valley floor, surrounded by cottonwood trees-a rare sight in the mostly treeless landscape of western Alaska.

The trees grow there because of an unusual isolated geothermal resource that keeps the surrounding area warmer than its surroundings: Pilgrim Hot Springs. The site of a former Catholic orphanage listed on the National Register of Historic Places, the springs have a long history of local use. They also may hold the key to a reliable energy source for the community of Nome, sixty road miles away.

But developing Pilgrim Hot Springs and getting the energy to Nome won't be easy. It's an example of some of the hurdles facing Alaska, a top energy producer whose residents pay some of the highest energy costs in the country.

'Islanded System'

"One of the major challenges of remote communities everywhere is that they were originally settled due to being prime locations for transportation/ trade or access to food resources, not energy resources," says Gwen Holdmann, director, Alaska Center for Energy and Power (ACEP). "Where there is an intersection of good resources and population density, it is often a happy accident." Because of this, Alaska's energy infrastructure is fragmented, according to Michael Rovito, director of member and public relations for the Alaska Power Association. Unlike the Lower 48 states, which are criss-crossed by grids of interconnected interties, most of Alaska's communities stand alone.

"Alaska's infrastructure is known as an islanded system because of that lack of an intertie," Rovito says. "Another issue is the cost of goods and materials up here as well. If you're going to build any sort of infrastructure in Alaska, it's typically more costly than the Lower 48."

The logistics of getting materials and crews to remote locations can be a challenge, Rovito says. Materials have to be ordered months in advance for delivery within a narrow window, with the weather playing a huge role. Hundreds of Alaska villages rely on diesel-powered generators for energy. Most are only accessible by air, boat, or snow-machine, depending on the season.

That isolation can have ripple effects.

"In most places in the Lower 48, it's really easy to assemble linemen and get them out to those places without power," Rovito says, noting that within hours of Superstorm Sandy's landfall...