Rural energy crisis: viable, sustainable solutions don't exist yet.

• Author: Bohi, Heidi
• Position: ENERGY

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

There was a time when Alaska had more than 200 villages in rural areas all across the land. Alaska Natives had lived there for generations and many of these tiny communities were occupied for thousands of years. The environment and each tribe's culture were reflected in the people's spirituality, ancient customs and traditions, including subsistence hunting, art and oral traditions. Although no one lives in these communities today, there are several companies that offer tours of these abandoned villages.

This depiction of rural Alaska is fictional, though if the state's village energy crisis is not resolved, business leaders say this scenario--as maudlin as it may sound--is in fact a certainty.

High fuel costs in Bush Alaska are not new. To varying degrees, over the past 15 years, thousands of villagers have faced each winter not knowing whether they will be able to afford to heat their homes during some of the longest, harshest winter seasons on the planet. In 2007, when fuel prices first spiked well beyond what was already considered unmanageable, the energy crisis became unlike any hardship these communities have ever had to face.

Alaskans in rural areas on average spend 40 percent of their annual income on energy during winter months, compared to 4 percent for the average urban Alaska household, according to a University of Alaska Anchorage study. In some villages today, the cost of fuel is as high as $10 per gallon. On the conservative side, a modest home can easily require five 55-gallon drums of oil to generate enough heat, amounting to about $2,000 a month--the same cost as the average mortgage payment in the United States. At the same time, gasoline prices are more than $7.50 per gallon, preventing villagers from being able to harvest next winter's food.

DIRE STRAITS

This grim scenario is expected to only get worse. Tribal leaders say something needs to be done. Immediately. Although Alaska Native leaders, elected officials and energy authorities shifted into a crisis management mode, so far they haven't come up with viable long-term solutions and even short-term ideas have turned out to be nothing more than a temporary fix. In the meantime, exorbitant energy bills threaten villagers' subsistence lifestyle because they cannot afford to run their boats to fish camp, fill up four wheelers to go berry picking and gas up snow machines for hunts if they also expect to heat their homes. As a result, many people are...