Alaska a world leader? No reason we can't be if we power using renewable energy.

• Author: Bohi, Heidi
• Position: ENERGY

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Remember when the country was all a buzz about petroleum emerging as the newest, hippest alternative energy form to whale oil?

Of course you don't. That was 1859 and as whale stocks were depleting, the cost of whale oil skyrocketed and for the first time Americans had to consider an alternative, more economical source of fuel for lighting their household lamps. The first source of cheap petroleum was found in Pennsylvania that year, resulting in the birth of the modern oil industry. And there's been no looking back.

Until now.

Just as petroleum was an alternative solution to whale oil, coal was the alternative fuel to save society from over use of wood, ethanol alcohol was introduced as an alternative to fossil fuels, and coal gasification as an alternative to expensive imported oil. Today, the United States is taking this a step further by investing in renewable energy as an alternative to non-renewable energy. And Alaska is in the perfect position to show the rest of the country how it's done.

ALASKA ON SHOW

"We've got the resources and we've got the need," says Chris Rose, founder and executive director of the Renewable Energy Alaska Project (REAP) . In terms of resources, in both the alternative and renewable energy fields, Alaska has so many options because of its rivers, tidal and wave action in the ocean, geothermal possibilities, wind, and even sun. Alaska has 90 percent of the country's tidal energy, 50 percent of wave energy potential, geothermal, world-class hydropower conditions and unlimited wind and geothermal potential.

On the other side of the equation, Alaska is also in the lead for having the greatest need to find new energy supplies that are renewable. According to the Institute of Social and Economic Research (ISER), Alaska households pay about 70 percent more for home energy and gasoline now than in 2006 and 180 percent more than in 2000, based on the assumption that the energy consumption is the same. Considering variations in home energy costs, it was also found that the poorest remote-rural households pay nearly twice what the wealthiest Anchorage households pay for home energy. Anchorage has access to natural gas, while most remote places rely on diesel--which on an energy-equivalent basis is much more expensive.

The price of conventional diesel fuel, as high at $9 a gallon in some outlying Alaska communities, is one incentive to beat the price of electricity where the kilowatt-hour charge can be three to five times higher--about 70 cents per kilowatt--than the charge in more urban areas of the state. This is especially true in the Fairbanks area, which has...