By Art Nash, Energy Specialist
With recent stories on news media outlets about the high cost of energy both in the U.S. and abroad, it’s clear that residents are concerned with the current energy crisis. Specifically, most are dependent upon electricity for their commerce, home life, transportation, and in many cases, recreating.
Wildfires or storms that damage power delivery end up disrupting these routines, whether in Texas, California or Alaska. I’ve noticed that this past year many people are interested in learning how to run generators for short term emergencies at their homes, which is a good skill to have in Alaska. The frequency of questions coming in on sizing, buying and operating gasoline, diesel, propane and even solar-powered generators has been increasing.
Good questions and answers are available, depending of course on the ability to procure the fuel needed for these residential scale “gen sets,” cost constraints and room available for batteries (or generators).
Yet what if emergencies and their resulting outages aren’t brief? what if the power at your place couldn’t be back on in a couple of days? Certainly seasonality would have an influence on the impact to both your dwelling and family members. Regardless of access to heat, what effect would such an event have on your water supply (or distribution?) Connected to that, what of sewage transfer? How long would your refrigerator/ freezer be able to maintain internal temperatures of at least 39 degrees for safe foodstuffs?
Would you have a way to charge your cell phone (or even a shortwave radio) for communications to know what services are available nearby? Do you have prescription and over-the-counter medicines that you would run out of? Do you keep cash easily accessible or on hand in case checkout scanners or card swiping isn’t an option due to lack of power?
Obviously not everyone has been without power for more than three days, but a fair amount of folks just outside the Fairbanks area have been without fall power for up to a week in the past couple decades. And the local emergency planning committees around the state suggest having enough supplies to be on your own for a week, at least.
This early fall a Lebanese colleague on a cellphone video call asked about the Extension Blackout Backup workshops I’ve taught, asking what was usually covered. When I described them, she indicated that the info provided wouldn’t be strong enough for residents in Lebanon as they experience daily blackouts (roving at best) and don’t have easy access for fuel to run generators if they had them.
While there are other parts of the world, which even in urban areas don’t expect electricity day in and day out, most Alaskan daily activities are dependent on it! Continual access to reliable, sufficient energy is something that residents of the Interior may take for granted, yet is not the case in other places. Given our extreme temperatures though it is certainly important for home and community vitality.
It isn’t only natural disasters or human-induced unrest that can cause electrical interruptions, though. Earlier this month there had been renewed interest over the integrity of electrical systems worldwide due to the current sunspot activity and coronal mass ejections (CMEs).
There was a marvelous show of northern lights as one ejection ate up the other two (really — the superior one was noted as the”cannibal” ejection.) And an event like this brings up a valid energy concern as historically some ejections have burned up power lines and toasted disabled stations.
Unlike electromagnetic pulse (EMP) diffusion, the CMEs would most likely not affect electronic components in vehicles, power tools or appliances. It’s the infrastructure that can be affected by discharge of significant amounts of sunspot related energy. But it is good to know that with another high intensity CME event that may occur as this cycle of sunspot activity peaks mid-decade, you can think through what ancillary electrical generation or storage items you have, and how you would change activities if there is a prolonged electrical outage in Alaska.
Art Nash is the Extension energy specialist for the University of Alaska Fairbanks Cooperative Extension Service. Contact him at 907-474-6366 or by email at alnashjr@alaska.edu.
