Alaska

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Alaska: Climate-change frontier

Melting glaciers, drier wetlands, warmer winters in Alaska, where global warming is felt most keenly.

Aug. 27, 2003: The Lights Will Stay On in Fairbanks

2003: Fairbanks is connected to the world's largest storage battery, built to provide Alaska's second-biggest city with an uninterrupted power supply. Fairbanks' remote location and sub-Arctic climate makes supplying reliable power to the city of 32,000 difficult. In deep winter, the temperature in Fairbanks is almost constantly subzero, dropping as low as minus 60 degrees Fahrenheit The situation is complicated by the fact that Alaska isn't connected to the power grid that keeps the lower 48 humming. As a result, Fairbanks used to experience a serious, "cascading" blackout every two or three years, along with a number of smaller failures every month. Since the mountain couldn't come to Muhammad, it was necessary to devise another source of reliable local power. The answer turned out to be a massive battery, the largest ever built, that now sits in a warehouse on the outskirts of Fairbanks. According to ABB Communications Services, the power-components specialist that built it, the battery can generate up to 40 megawatts of power -- enough to keep 12,000 people supplied with electricity -- for seven minutes. That's long enough to fire up the city's backup diesel generators and restore the power supply. The battery energy-storage system, or BESS, which cost $35 million to build, contains 13,760 nickel-cadmium cells weighing a total of 1,400 tons and covering more than 10,000 square feet. BESS is controlled by a Pentium PC-based platform programmed to provide all the essential services, including a complicated temperature-control system designed to withstand the rigors of the Alaskan winter. In its first two years of operation, BESS reportedly prevented at least 81 power failures, an average of more than three per month. In a hostile environment like the area around Fairbanks, that can mean the difference between life and death. Source: Various

Alaska Primary On Tuesday To Decide If Sen. Stevens Gets Re-Election Bid (AHN)

(AHN) - Republican voters will hold a party primary on Tuesday to decide if indicted Sen. Ted Stevens gets shot at a seventh term. The state GOP primary will pit Stevens with six contenders. - Tue, 26 Aug 2008 11:50:27 GMT

Polar Bears Found Swimming Miles From Alaskan Coast

An aerial survey by government scientists in Alaska's Chukchi Sea this week found at least nine polar bears swimming in open water -- with one at least 60 miles from shore -- raising concern among wildlife experts about their survival.

Despite Alaska's challenges, new farmers take root

The demise of Matanuska Maid Dairy reflects agriculture's decline here. But some niche farms are prospering.

Warming climate threatens Alaska's vast forests

KENAI NATIONAL WILDLIFE REFUGE, Alaska (Reuters) - Here in a 13,700-year-old peat bog, ecologist Ed Berg reaches into the moss and pulls out more evidence of the drastic changes afoot due to the Earth's warming climate.

Third Aleutian Volcano Erupts Explosively

Kasatochi Volcano in Alaska's Aleutian Islands erupted explosively Aug. 7, sending an ash plume more than 35,000 feet into the air and forcing two biologists from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to evacuate the island.

Limbaugh: "Nature cleaned up itself" after Exxon Valdez oil spill

On the August 5 broadcast of his nationally syndicated radio show, Rush Limbaugh said of the effects of the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill in Prince William Sound, Alaska: "The sea eats oil alive. That place up there, nature cleaned it up faster than we ever could." But recent reports have found the effects of the oil spill remain. In November 2006, the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Trustee Council, a division of the Alaska Department of Fish and Game jointly established and staffed by state and federal agencies, issued a report titled "Update on Injured Resources and Services." The report found that the ecosystems in the area of Prince William Sound had yet to fully recover from the incident: Seventeen years after oil spill, we are again evaluating the status of injured resources and services and providing a synopsis of the most current information available in the updated [Injured Resources and Services] List. In 2006, the Trustee Council funded Restoration Project #060783 which provided a comprehensive synthesis of information for resources and services that had been considered not recovered, recovering or unknown in the 2002 Update. [...] Several species have been moved into the recovered category: common loons, cormorants, Dolly Varden and harbor seals. Harlequin ducks are improving and moved into the recovering category. Black oystercatchers have been down listed from recovered to recovering, and the recovery status of marbled murrelets has changed from recovering to unknown. Ten resources are considered fully recovered; nine resources and all four human services are still recovering; five resources remain unknown and two resources have not recovered. [...] The Restoration Plan defines ecosystem recovery as follows: Full ecological recovery will have been achieved when the population of flora and fauna are again present at former or prespill abundances, healthy and productive, and there is a full complement of age classes at the level that would have been present had the spill not occurred. A recovered ecosystem provides the same functions and services as would have been provided had the spill not occurred. Although significant progress has been made, using this definition of recovery, the coastal and marine ecosystems in the oil spill region have not fully recovered at this time from the effects of the oil spill. For example, harlequin ducks still show signs of oil exposure and may be negatively affected by such exposure. A number of other species and communities are showing signs of recovery, but are still not fully recovered from the effects of the oil spill. Although full ecological recovery has not been achieved, the spill area ecosystem is making progress towards recovery 17 years after the Exxon Valdez oil spill. A January 31, 2007, article in USA Today covering this report quoted a government scientist saying that "very little of the oil actually disappeared": Seventeen years ago, scientists predicted that the oil would be long gone by now. "We expected the natural decay rate was 25% a year. But very little of the oil actually disappeared," says Jeffrey Short, a NOAA [National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration] research chemist. "What's left is going to be there a long time." Instead, the researchers estimate, the oil is "weathering" away at a rate of 3% to 4% a year. "It will be readily detectable for decades," Short says. Jennifer Culbertson, a marine ecologist at Boston University, is among the surprised. "The theory has been that on a rocky shore, it's not going to stay for that long, that waves will wash it away," she says. Says Michael Baffrey of the Trustee Council: "We made a lot of assumptions about what would happen to the oil. A lot of those didn't play out." In addition, a study published in the December 19, 2003, edition of Science magazine found that impacts of the spill were still evident in the ecosystem of Prince William Sound and predicted lingering effects on wildlife: The ecosystem response to the 1989 spill of oil from the Exxon Valdez into Prince William Sound, Alaska, shows that current practices for assessing ecological risks of oil in the oceans and, by extension, other toxic sources should be changed. Previously, it was assumed that impacts to populations derive almost exclusively from acute mortality. However, in the Alaskan coastal ecosystem, unexpected persistence of toxic subsurface oil and chronic exposures, even at sublethal levels, have continued to affect wildlife. Delayed population reductions and cascades of indirect effects postponed recovery. Development of ecosystem-based toxicology is required to understand and ultimately predict chronic, delayed, and indirect long-term risks and impacts. From the August 5 edition of Premiere Radio Networks' The Rush Limbaugh Show: LIMBAUGH: What is the damage? How has oil destroyed America? How has it destroyed people's lives? It's done just the opposite. Where does this come from? What in the world is the political calculation these people have to construct a presidential campaign based on the hatred of oil, as though oil itself is a conservative Republican? They're treating oil as if it were no different than Bush. They hate Bush, they hate oil. And both are irrational. And our buddies, our buddies at CNN. They're preparing a retrospective special, ladies and gentlemen, on the disaster that was the oil spill at Prince William Sound and the Exxon Valdez. What they will not tell you is if you go up there today, you won't find any evidence of it other than the stupid memorials that human beings -- this is where oil was on the rock, this is where the otter got eaten by the shark, we threw it back in there -- the sea lion, whatever, ate the otter. Nature cleaned up itself so damn fast. It was such a laughable thing to watch people with dish towels and Dawn dishwasher detergent wiping oil off of the rocks at Prince William Sound. Now, it was an unpleasant sight, of course. The birds got oil on their wings, and it was not pleasant to look at. But, it's an accident. The skipper of the Exxon Valdez did not say, "I want to destroy America, I want to destroy Alaska," and then let this stuff go. But anyway, the sea eats oil. The sea eats oil alive. That place up there, nature cleaned it up faster than we ever could. But why in the world this abject hatred for a commodity? I mean, I can understand if you're a little kid and you don't like peas or broccoli. But an entire political party and an ideological movement has now targeted oil as -- as big a threat to this country as conservative Republicans are. It's hard to get your arms around it.

Lakeside chalet south central alaska (Alaska)

Interested in a swap for mid September (just a few days for us, but you could stay here for a week) or for a longer time in January or February. Our home is on two lakes, fall is beautiful, hiking, white water rafting, sight seeing. Winter is magical, as the trees grow frost and the snow powlers the mountains, leaving white blankets. Close to snow boarding, cross country skiing and snow machining. Ice fishing too.

Alaska Fights Polar Bear Protection

"Land of Midnight Sun" sues to remove bears from threatened species list.