he Railbelt has no redundancy.

“If we have a power problem in Anchorage and the line to Fairbanks goes down, we don’t have a Plan B,” says Curtis W. Thayer, executive director of the Alaska Energy Authority (AEA).

In the past, natural disasters have forced parts of the electricity transmission grid from the Kenai Peninsula to Fairbanks, a 700-mile corridor known as the Railbelt, to close.

In 2019, a wildfire near Cooper Landing shut down part of the Sterling to Quartz Creek transmission line for four months in the summer. Not only were Chugach Electric Association (CEA) and Matanuska Electric Association (MEA) cut off from the Bradley Lake Hydroelectric Project near Homer, forcing them to purchase more natural gas, but the water level at the dam overflowed, wasting energy. The ordeal cost Alaskan ratepayers more than $10 million.

ucked into a corner of the Cordova Electric Cooperative’s Humpback Creek Hydroelectric facility are two metal cabinets, each about 2 feet by 2 feet by 6 feet in size, that could contain the future of cloud computing.

The cabinets house a virtual mountain of data and computing capability. A few years ago, the amount of data housed in the two cabinets would have taken forty server racks, all humming loudly and putting off considerable heat. The small but mighty data center represents the next step in cloud computing in two ways: a combination of advances in technology—the ever-present drive to shrink the space needed for computing capacity—and the symbiotic location with the hydroelectric facility, which not only provides power to run the data center’s logic circuits but also cools the processors via fingers of copper pipe circulating water and glycol, keeping the electronics at an ideal temperature.

arlier this summer, the Southeast community of Angoon came together to celebrate the arrival of new jobs, clean power, stable electricity rates, and a government award of $26.9 million.

The “Thayer Celebration” was an opportunity to recognize the considerable efforts that led to the 850 kW Thayer Creek Hydroelectric Project, now slated for construction on Admiralty Island.

Attendees included representatives from US Senator Lisa Murkowski’s office and the US Forest Service, among other influential parties involved in the project’s conception.

“The community has rallied around this project,” says Jon Wunrow, project manager for Angoon’s village corporation, Kootznoowoo. “It’s a great example of a federally recognized tribe, a rural Alaska community, a village corporation, and the federal government working really well together.”

he Seward Heat Loop Project is a unique alternative energy system firmly rooted in geothermal science, a concept that may sound like something out of science fiction. This innovative project, which has been in development for nearly a decade, combines tidal energy, gravel deposits, and thermal gradients to heat entire buildings. If successful, this demonstration project has the potential to revolutionize energy systems in other communities with similar natural resources.

eothermal energy exploration is picking up steam in Alaska—literally. In the last three years, the Alaska Department of Natural Resources (DNR) has issued several geothermal exploration permits for use in the Aleutian Arc. One of these applies to the previously untapped Augustine Volcano in Lower Cook Inlet. Meanwhile, the Makushin Geothermal Project near the city of Unalaska is restructuring.

Neither the DNR exploration permits nor the Makushin project are new endeavors; lease sales have been held in the Aleutian Arc, particularly on the stratovolcano Mount Spurr, since 1983, and the Makushin project has been in the works since 2020. However, there’s reason to believe that these more recent developments are better poised for success.

utting the role of solar energy into terms Alaskans can understand, Chris Rose draws an analogy. “It’s like fishing in the summer or hunting in the spring and fall,” says Rose. “While you can’t do these things year-round, you harvest what you can when you can so that you have it available when you need it.”

Rose, founder and executive director of Renewable Energy Alaska Project, notes that half of the state’s electricity comes from natural gas, which is becoming a problem. Communities in Cook Inlet are already paying three times more than residents in the Lower 48 are paying for natural gas, and that amount is about to go up. Due to dwindling supplies, Alaska utilities are looking at importing liquified natural gas from Outside, which is expected to raise costs by 50 percent or more in the next five years.

he Alaska aviation system is the largest of its kind in North America. The Federal Aviation Administration counts 82 percent of communities and recognized landing areas that are inaccessible by road; that’s 251 communities exclusively accessed by air, according to the Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities (DOT&PF). Regional air carriers serve an important function in the state.

The State of Alaska owns and operates 237 airports. In addition to the transcontinental hubs at Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport and Fairbanks International Airport, 235 rural airports fall under the federal definition set forth in the Taxpayer Relief Act of 1997. The Internal Revenue Service defines a rural airport as one with fewer than 100,000 commercial passengers, more than 75 miles from one with more than 100,000 commercial passengers, not connected by paved roads to another airport, and receiving federal Essential Air Service subsidies.

ecent updates in the financial services sector address the important issue of inclusion. These adjustments aim to reduce discrimination, promote racial equity, and enhance access to banking services.

Financial inclusion broadly refers to individuals and businesses having access to useful and affordable financial products and services in a responsible and sustainable way. Also called inclusive finance, financial inclusion may focus on geographic regions, consumers of a specific gender, individuals of specific age, or other marginalized groups. It involves removing obstacles that prevent people from participating in the financial sector and improving their economic well-being. This often involves transparent and consumer-friendly offerings to reach unbanked and underbanked individuals, who typically face higher fees and limited savings opportunities.

ggravated assault is one of the most common types of crime committed in Alaska. About 4,000 times each year, someone with a deadly weapon is harming someone else, somewhere in the Great Land. That’s an assault roughly every two hours, every day of the year.

According to U.S. News & World Report, Alaska is one of the most dangerous states in the country, with the highest combined violent crime and property crime rates of any state. Alaska’s overall crime rate was 32.14 per 1,000 people in 2022; its rate of violent crimes was 758.9 per 100,000 while the US rate is 380.7, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s crime data explorer.

yrus Aldeman could hate me: twenty-five years ago, his family sought my help during a dispute with a business rival, and I sided against them. He has every right to be angry.

But he isn’t. “I’m just a happy-go-lucky person,” Aldeman says. “Everything leads up to what it needs to be.”

Alderman v. Iditarod Properties was a lawsuit (filed under an alternate spelling of the family name) involving the Fourth Avenue Theatre and the use of its name. Iditarod Properties, owned by supermarket heir Robert Gottstein, renovated the historic building into a meeting space in the ‘90s.

While Aldeman was barely in kindergarten, his parents ran trolley tours from the theater. Then their business arrangement with Gottstein dissolved. The “Trolley Wars,” as local media called the fracas, culminated with a trial in 1999.

o operate a business as effectively as possible, finding a lawyer could be an integral part of a management plan. When is the right time to begin looking for a lawyer, and how does anyone go about it?

In the United States, as of January 1, 2023, the number of active attorneys totaled 1,331,290, according to the American Bar Association National Lawyer Population Survey. That’s approximately equal to the number of active-duty US military personnel.

The number of active lawyers counted by the survey inched up slightly by more than 4,000 from 2022. In the previous decade, the number of lawyers increased about 5 percent each year. Three places—Florida, the District of Columbia, and Ohio—represented the bulk of the increase.

he loss control consultant from the insurance company wants to inspect our business this month. What should I expect?”

The short answer: nothing scary. Longer answer: a helpful survey into ways the insurance company and its client can both avoid paying for losses.

Commercial insurance carriers often rely on loss control consultants to provide information to underwriters to help assess the risks that the insured brings to the table. While some of these consultants work for the insurance company, there are also third-party companies who are contracted to complete risk assessments on behalf of the insurer.

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