GVEA bylaws vote

I have yet to sit down and thoroughly examine the packet GVEA sent us regarding the bylaws, but I did receive an opinion piece from the group GVEA Ratepayers' Alliance. Nancy Kuhn, the author, evaluates GVEA's power generation priorities--and the Healy 2 coal plant should not be among them.

The Golden Valley Electric Association Issues blog recommends voting no on lifting or expanding the debt cap, and I agree. We're in too much debt already. He also gives some information about the subsidy that the Eva Creek wind project would be eligible for, plus a few PowerPoint presentations on the project that GVEA created (but doesn't seem to have on the GVEA website--go figure).

Golden Valley Ratepayers Alliance

Just got a message in my in-box from the Golden Valley Ratepayers' Alliance, which is having a meeting at the Northern Alaska Environmental Center at 5:30 on Wednesday the 14th of April. The GVRA is a watchdog group of Golden Valley Electric Association ratepayers/members. Here's a segment of the e-mail (links added):

There are a couple major issues coming to a head in the next month:

• The GVEA Board of Directors is proposing to completely remove GVEA’s debt ceiling, which sits at a hefty $460 million already. All attending members will vote on this at the annual all-member meeting on April 27th.

• Removing the debt ceiling will allow GVEA to take out enormous loans, and we’re the ones to shoulder the debt. This may allow GVEA to finance the restart of the Healy coal plant 2. That’s right, GVEA still has not come clean about the true costs of Healy 2 and is trying to fool us into refinancing the failed project.

We should not pour more of our money into this black hole. Healy 2 has not once heated our homes or shaved money off our energy bills and it never will! There are smarter ways to power Alaska. Even if this money is not fed into Healy 2, we should have a say what direction our board takes with our money.

The GVEA Member Advisory Committee meeting follows at 6:30 the same day at GVEA.

Also in GVEA news, the annual membership meeting is coming up on April 27, Tuesday, at 7 pm at the Carlson Center (registration beginning at 5:30).

Why coal as an "alternative" fuel is a stupid idea

In a recent bill I received a note about an upcoming monthly member meeting at GVEA--after the meeting had already occurred. Then I got a letter saying how GVEA had decided to go ahead and try to "get control of" the Healy Clean Coal Plant. This thing is a millstone, a big weighty expensive block of polluting cement that GVEA is trying to attach to our feet prior to throwing us into the sea of debt and backward thinking. There is no such thing as "clean" coal, and I think we should bag it and go for something truly clean, like wind, or solar. Amazing things are happening every day in clean and renewable power, like this research at MIT:

Inspired by the photosynthesis performed by plants, Nocera and Matthew Kanan, a postdoctoral fellow in Nocera's lab, have developed an unprecedented process that will allow the sun's energy to be used to split water into hydrogen and oxygen gases. Later, the oxygen and hydrogen may be recombined inside a fuel cell, creating carbon-free electricity to power your house or your electric car, day or night.

Things like this are what we should be looking at, not some hideously expensive, faulty plant that runs off an extremely carbon-heavy fuel.

Tom DeLong tromps the competition

Yessiree, Mr. DeLong got 58% of the vote in a three-way race. Not bad for a guy who was told he couldn't be a candidate. This is a good 18% INCREASE on the margin he had last time. I'd call that a ringing endorsement.

GVEA board elections

The Ester Republic (i.e., me) has officially endorsed Tom DeLong for GVEA board of directors for District 2 (said endorsement to appear in the upcoming May 2008 Republic). I haven't talked with the other candidates, but neither will most of the people voting--they'll look at the information presented in the packet and make their judgement based on that. And based on the practicality of the conservation-encouraging pricing measures he describes there and DeLong's conduct during the G&T episode (among other things), I feel very comfortable supporting him.

Website delay

Although the paper has been out for several days, the Republic's website is still back in February. This is because I don't have internet access at my new office, so I can't upload the new pages and probably won't be able to for some time. So, for those of you who are curious, here's what is in the new issue:

• a cool cover photo of bubbles trapped in ice, by Doug Yates
• "Bobblehead Leadership at our Swell University," an opinion piece by Richard Seifert
• "An Alternative Thought," an editorial by yours truly, on media consolidation, alternative newspapers and 'zines, and the copyleft movement
• a cartoon by Jamie Smith on the Obama campaign
• miscellaneous letters to the editor from an emperor and a few of the rabble-rousers around here
• a cartoon by Dan Darrow on Tom DeLong and GVEA
• a cartoon by Jolene Schafer-Howell on walrus and ice
• a cartoon by Jeanne Mars Armstrong on teacher conferences
• a book review by David A. James on Driving with the Devil: Southern Moonshine, Detroit Wheels, and the Birth of NASCAR
• library news update (lallapalooza coming up soon!)
• the Publisher's Picks
• an outsourced Thought Posse Report
• poems by Shanna Karella, Sarah Sarai, Gregory Shipman, and Frank Keim
• "How I See It," by jean lester
• part 2 in the self-reliance series by Phil Loring, "The Farmer-Pirate and Other Cautionary Tales"
• an error correction from the Yes Men
• "Iron Prices, Inflation, and Mining Consolidation," by Stephen Hannaford
• "Singletrack Trails Proposal for Ester Dome," by Geoff Orth and Joel Buth
• The Long View by Ross Coen, "Fire and Skiing at the Lodge"
• "The Emma Creek West Fiasco," an opinion by Hans Mölders on the borough/Ester meeting at the fire hall on March 12
• "The Missionary Position on Lyrics," by Neal Matson
• "Women's Day--Iraq: Surviving Somehow Behind a Concrete Purdah," by Dahr Jamail
• "Dose of Reality: Alaska Health Care Lobbying" by Neil Davis
• "A Conspiracy of Ravens," by Richard Seifert
• a cool photo of Dave Hyland on his mom's old Polaris snowmachine

Available for sale at a coffeeshop near you! or at least, one in College. I'm working on finding one nearer downtown.

Run-off election expense at GVEA

One of the concerns of the nomination committee, as cited in the article in the News-Miner today, was "the cost of a run-off election". This was apparently why they narrowed the field down to two candidates.

Well, the utility could always institute Instant Run-Off Voting, you know. Lots of organizations do it. I wrote about this issue in an editorial on the Fairbanks city mayoral election, and here it comes up again in a different place. Looks like GVEA could do with IRVing, too.

Not once in 62 years

...until now, it seems: I heard the news on KUAC this morning (good for them!) featuring an interview with Tom DeLong about the GVEA board candidate nominating rumpus. Apparently, not once in GVEA's 62-year history has an incumbent to the board NOT been included on the election ballot. You'd think in all that time there would have been at least one instance where a former board member running for re-election would have been deemed unfit, but apparently GVEA's run a tight ship, and developed into a Good Old Boys' Club. Except, of course, when the would-be board member was only grudgingly let in the door in the first place. Damn voters.

The latest poop at GVEA

and it DO need to be scooped! Elections are coming up for GVEA board members, and the nominating committee has selected two people from a field of eight for us to vote on. And guess what? Tom DeLong, incumbent (who has never missed a meeting and was voted in with a whopping 40% of the voting membership of District 2), IS NOT ONE OF THEM.

It's delightful that they had so many candidates, but did the nominating committee really need to narrow the field so much that our district's current board member can't even be considered? Why couldn't we have had three or four, say, to choose from, instead of two only?

Tom's only choice now is to petition to get on the ballot. He needs something like 200 members of district 2 to request that he be placed on the ballot, and he needs them by 5 pm Monday next. I will be carting around a copy of the petition.

This whole thing stinks mightily of a concerted attempt to get our board member off the board. He must be too dang representative of us greenie libertarian types. (And no, that's not a contradiction in terms, folks.) Tom DeLong, you will remember, was the only board member who voted against the G&T fiasco, and then could only explain his reasoning when specifically asked, in public, at a meeting, because the rest of the GVEA board and staff weren't going to tell us about any possible downsides to that little number. When the G&T went down in flames, they couldn't even admit that there was any problem with it, it was just that they didn't present it properly to us poor little numbskulls.

This is getting annoying.

Back to barking mad

The office refrigerator, for those of you who like to follow Adventures with Appliances, is still barking, but not a constant yap. Just an occasional yip and burble, so I suppose that whatever air bubble was the possible culprit has dissolved somewhat. But I still suspect that the fridge is on its last days.

Back at home, our new Kenmore is making a noticeable difference already in our electric bill: the bill (and usage) actually went DOWN last month (by about $4). Amazing, given that we've plugged the car in a few times, and that Hans has been using power tools at home. Also amazing, given that it's dark outside these days and so our lights are on more.

Conservation is a wonderful thing.

Going solar: The problem with the SNAP program

In researching the possibilities for GVEA's SNAP program, the overwhelming issue for the Republic is one of initial setup costs. This is considerable, but GVEA's financial incentive doesn't come in the setup, only after everything's paid for. Elsewhere in the country, they aren't doing it this way:

Net metering essentially allows people to become mini-power producers. Programs vary state to state, but they are typically coupled with financial incentives that make it easier to invest thousands of dollars for photovoltaic panels, windmills or fuel cells. Since sun and wind are intermittent, customers still rely on the grid for steady service. The meter runs backward when more energy is produced than a customer consumes.

GVEA's program requires a separate meter, rather than net metering. Small producers can't expect the SNAP program to make it worth their while. But larger ones can, and so a few people are starting to supply GVEA with electricity. This is a good thing, but to get to their 20% renewable goal by 2014 (which is, I'm sorry to say, probably way too slow and too small a proportion), GVEA will have to get a larger, decentralized production from far more people. Still, GVEA is advertising the heck out of it, which sometimes isn't the case in other states or with other utilities.

They just aren't getting it

An article in today's News-Miner about the GVEA vote by Stefan Milkowski is headlined, "GVEA: Plan to restructure wasn't explained well", and shows clearly that the folks at GVEA just aren't getting the message:

[GVEA board chairman Bill] Nordmark suggested the plan failed because it wasn’t sold well, not because it was a bad idea. He said the bylaws for the new cooperative were probably too complex...

GVEA President Steven Haagenson…said it seemed like people who voted against it fell into three main groups. One group was generally skeptical of the plan and just didn’t think it was smart, he said. Another was perfectly happy with how things were going and didn’t want GVEA to change. And a third didn’t like what happened when the city of Fairbanks sold its utility assets it the 1990s and associated this proposal with that action.

The problem was that they kept trying to SELL it to the membership, not EXPLAIN it; they used numbers that didn't make any sense; and they used language in the ballot information and the presentation that was downright deceptive. I STILL haven't heard from anybody how they justified that $30 million figure, although GVEA board member Dan Osborne has offered to sit me down and "explain how utilities work," so that hopefully I'll "understand GVEA better". I'm hoping he can help me track down what's going on with this figure; Tom DeLong wasn't able to.

Beck may have come up with the savings figure for GVEA, but it's based on something that doesn't seem to make sense (i.e., the 1.75 ratio for margins), and no one's been able to explain this to me yet. Perhaps Osborne can help me out here.

An ethical board member

A letter to the editor in the News-Miner yesterday said a couple of interesting things about the GVEA proposal. The writer has served on the Member Advisory Council, and supports the G&T proposal, basically because she trusts the board and staff and their integrity. Ordinarily, I would also, but for some niggling details that just don't add up properly. This isn't so much a matter of the intentions of the board or staff, but of whether a) the members have access to the full information, and b) whether we wish to give up our control.

There was one aspect of what Ms. Felcyn wrote, however, that made me wonder if the writer understood the principles of a cooperative:

Others who say it is not right have no background or expertise to speak from and the one board member who dissents has served for less than two years.

I was very surprised to hear him acknowledge that he was the dissenter when he spoke at the town meeting on Nov. 15. I always thought an ethical board member would present his position within the boardroom and once a vote was taken would support the majority decision.

Tom DeLong represents my district. As a member of that district, I wanted to know what his reasons were for voting as he did; it might have been important to how I chose to vote on the issue. So I asked him, and, as appropriate for a representative of my district, he informed me as to his reasons. This is perfectly ethical. Why? because the board is composed of representatives, one, and two, they are the board of a cooperative, not a profit-driven corporation that has as its primary duty making money for its investors. Board members MUST be answerable to their constituents. In GVEA's case, the constituency is the membership. DeLong doesn't represent the board, he represents me, and everyone else in his district, as well as the membership at large.

DeLong may not be as experienced at being a board member as the rest of them, but he's also therefore not as likely to assume that he can make decisions of this magnitude on behalf of the membership. I think his being new is a good thing; the others have been on the board for perhaps too long.

GVEA Insider lists the seven cooperative principles under which our electric utility is supposed to be operating:

1. Voluntary and open membership
2. Democratic member control
3. Members' economic participation
4. Autonomy and Independence
5. Education, Training and Information
6. Cooperation among cooperatives
7. Concern for community

So, what DeLong did by revealing his reasons was perfectly in keeping with the cooperative spirit: he was allowing for members' control and participation by INFORMING the public. This has been the major problem with the approach taken by the board and the upper management of GVEA--they just haven't been as informative as they should be, and instead have embarked upon a spin campaign. I certainly don't object to promoting what they think is a good idea, but I do find that promoting it to the exclusion of providing us with any information to the contrary or references to their source material is very poor education indeed.

So I suppose it boils down to this: yes, basically I trust the staff and the board. But that doesn't mean I'm willing to trust them unquestioningly, and when they ask that of me, that's when something's wrong.

Letter to the editor on GVEA

I posted this as a comment on gvea.blogspot, my verbatim submission to the News-Miner:

I attended the presentation by GVEA staff at Noel Wien Library Nov. 15 about the proposed G&T. We were told that, as GVEA was currently set up, we had to keep $750 on hand for every $1000 loaned to us, but that the G&T would only need to keep $100 on hand, a considerable savings in margins. This is where that $30 million figure comes from. This was stated in Ruralite and in the ballot information (“[GVEA] must collect an additional $750 to satisfy lenders.”) But this isn’t the minimum required, it’s the amount desired: “GVEA chief financial officer John Grubich did say that banks require only $250, but he said GVEA maintains the higher buffer, or margin, to obtain a lower interest rate on debts” (FDNM, Nov. 23). Fine, but this isn’t what GVEA staff told us. They said we MUST have this margin, not that we SHOULD have it. The staff have lied by omission to GVEA’s members.

When members asked why only three public meetings, the staff protested that there had been 12. I wondered why I hadn’t heard anything about them, and the next week asked where they were. It turns out that 7 of the 12 meetings had been for staff, not the public, and the other three apparently for specific groups. This isn’t the same as a public meeting: once again, GVEA was not honest with us.

The final disturbing tactic was the use of emotional arguments: the example of the single mom who couldn’t pay her electric bill, or the framing of the question as whether we trusted the GVEA board. The issue is one of structure, and member control. It is not about our personal relationship with the board. We give thousands in scholarships from unclaimed capital credits every year; surely we could take some of that and provide emergency funds for people who need help with their GVEA bill?

If this was as good a deal as the staff has made out, I don’t think they’d feel the need to twist the facts. I’ve voted no on the G&T.

What is worse is that it was Tom Irwin who presented this information to us, the same Tom Irwin who resigned from Murkowski's administration over an issue of ethics, who resigned because he felt that he could not support unethical behavior. I am disappointed.

So who's counting the ballots?

Well, apparently it's the GVEA MAC members, three per district with another three alternates for each district. And who are they? Well, my stepfather called to find out about this today, and evidently it's been difficult to get people to serve on the MAC committee. So mostly, when there is a vacancy, the board members will suggest someone they know. I don't recognize any of the names listed for District 2. Right now there are vacancies in the groups for districts 4, 5, 6, and 7. To volunteer for the MAC, contact GVEA at ccw@gvea.com. The meetings are open to the membership.

Evidently, they can use some help with counting the ballots. So if you'd like to help count and verify the ballots on the G&T vote, or just observe, contact GVEA. The ballots will be counted on the 11th of December after the deadline (5 pm, I think, although it doesn't say a time on the website).

And the MAC meeting for October was cancelled--maybe. Dunno about the Nov. 8 meeting--there are apparently no minutes kept, or at least, none posted. The page about this group doesn't list any topics that the MAC reviewed in 2005, although there's a list for 2004. Wonder if they got a look at the G&T proposal?

GVEA's other meetings

At the public meeting at Noel Wien Library on the 15th, people asked why there had been so little notice about the G&T proposal and only three meetings. The staff protested, saying they'd been working on this since 2005 and that there had been twelve meetings. Today I asked Roger Asbury of GVEA what those other meetings were (I didn't have a chance to on the 15th). It turns out that seven of them were meetings for the staff: three in Fairbanks, and one each in Healy, North Pole, Delta, and Nenana. Two others were held in the Salcha Senior Center and the North Pole Senior Center. I'm not sure if those were public meetings or only for the residents there.

Roger also said that three more meetings are planned, again not exactly public (unless the full public is invited): for the IBEW/International Builders Association, the Chamber of Commerce Transportation Committee, and the Fairbanks Rotary. Seems to me that it's a bit silly of GVEA staff to expect that the public would have heard about these meetings when they weren't public nor advertised. I'm not seeing anything on the GVEA website about 'em, at least not as of this writing...

GVEA ballots

arrived in the mail yesterday. No one at the post office or the Eagle later seemed to think that voting for this G&T proposal was a good idea.

It's really amazing to think that 5% plus one of the GVEA membership can determine the outcome of something of this magnitude. That such a tiny minority can determine the direction of the cooperative doesn't seem right.

And where the heck are the minutes to the pertinent meetings?

More on GVEA interest expense

Per Dermot Cole's column today, the figures of $750 per every $1000 for margins required for GVEA as it currently is constituted (per the bank) came from the consulting firm R.W. Beck. The regulations linked to by Ed Davis and www.savegvea.com indicate that only $250 per every $1000 is required. There may be other factors that raise this amount, but apparently GVEA is only making $300 per $1000 anyway, so we're not achieving the ideal.

However, if the $100 is the minimum for a G&T, shouldn't the minimum for a D&G&T like GVEA be the fair comparison? I suppose now we'll need to take a look at R.W. Beck's report to GVEA to find out where this number came from.

That, or just vote no for right now and clear all this up later.

Apples and oranges and GVEA

The News-Miner's article today, while illuminating a couple of additional issues with the GVEA proposal to transfer assets to a generation & transmission co-op, was, unfortunately, not a good example of examining the validity of claims made. Rather, it was a he-said, they-said sort of thing...

The utility estimates that the switch will save members about $30 million over the next five years, although electric bills will likely continue to increase because of rising fuel prices and other factors.

This claim remains unexamined by the News-Miner. Alas, it looks like the GVEA staff presentation was downright deceptive; I'll be calling them on Monday to see what they have to say for themselves about this.
Here's a rundown (PDF) of the problems with the figure provided of a $30 million savings:

􀂃 The Ruralite mistakenly implies that GVEA currently collects 75% of the interest expense for loans on capital projects.
􀂃 The minimum amount that a distribution cooperative like GVEA is required to collect is 25% of the interest expense.
􀂃 The minimum amount that a generation and transmission cooperative like GVEA G&T would be required to collect is 10% of the interest expense.
􀂃 To minimize interest costs, GVEA would have to collect more than these minimum amounts, regardless of whether the current structure is maintained or the GVEA G&T structure is adopted.
􀂃 A more accurate (i.e., apples and apples) comparison of the savings on a loan with $1,000 of interest expense would compare the minimal amounts that must be collected. This would show a savings of $150 (i.e., 25% minus 10% of a loan with $1,000 in interest costs), rather than the claimed savings of $650 from the Ruralite.
􀂃 GVEA is currently collecting about 30% of the interest expense. Using the actual figures greatly reduces the potential savings.
􀂃 The “savings” claimed by GVEA are from “capital credits” that are ultimately refunded to GVEA Members once the loan has been repaid. This further reduces the potential savings claimed by GVEA.
􀂃 Reference(PDF)

This is from a point-by-point examination of the Ruralite article's claims. More useful source material is available at Common Sense and Comity, Gary Newman's blog, and there will soon be a website just on this issue at www.savegvea.com (should be up by Tuesday, from what I hear).

Somebody wants power

Doing a Google search on "GVEA" netted me this interesting little blog article on NovaGold Resources and Barrick Gold, and a mine on Donlin Creek. These two companies have been working together, and are now embroiled in a hostile takeover struggle. Donlin Creek has one of the largest gold deposits on the continent.

Through its Placer Dome takeover, ABX [Barrick Gold] became a 30% partner and the operator. Barrick has “earn-in” rights to another 40% by meeting certain criteria. Barrick is required to expend $32MM, complete a Bankable Feasibility Study and make a positive decision to construct a mine by November 2007. Barrick has already spent the $32MM drilling the property. Novagold contends that Barrick will not be able to meet its other obligations by the deadline.

The mine that the partners are attempting to build will require 140 megawatts of power, and the nearest utility is GVEA--350 miles away. NovaGold is talking about using wind power, diesel generators, and a giant line to GVEA's grid so they can operate the mine at the capacity they are hoping to get. The article is seriously doubtful that all this is possible:

The current plan calls for a 350 mile 230kV power line to be constructed through the Alaskan wilderness, at a current cost of over $400MM. The power line would take at least 7 years to construct, the first 4 years in permitting alone....The problem is GVEA does not have the extra 140MW of capacity...

While it certainly seems, per this article, that GVEA would be unlikely to have the capacity to handle a monster project like this, it does indicate that there are big companies out there with a serious interest in GVEA's power generation equipment and capacity. Here's the information on Donlin Creek from the Northern Environmental Center. Definitely worth a read: the intertie would connect in near Nenana.

So perhaps this G&T thing isn't only about saving the membership money, but about directing power to those with the financial backing to buy it, or build more power generators, or to simply buy our generators from the G&T. After all, the G&T board of directors would be obligated to consider any transaction that might make financial sense.