Background Articles

An $11 million study, funded by a U.S. Department of Energy grant, will investigate the feasibility of a new coal power plant in Alaska with carbon capture and storage technology.

ConocoPhillips has officially sanctioned the development of the Willow oil project in Alaska, expected to produce 600 million barrels over its lifetime and create thousands of jobs.

The Norwegian Electricity Authority reports faults in approximately 75% of solar panels, raising concerns about potential fires as inexperienced installers need more safety training.

Alaska Airlines is promoting Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) as an eco-friendly alternative to traditional mileage runs, though its effectiveness depends on production methods and it's not yet widely adopted or cost-competitive.

Norway faces criticism for allowing companies to conduct their own environmental impact assessments for offshore wind projects, with calls for stricter regulations and better use of existing marine research to protect nature.

A snowstorm in Southcentral Alaska causes power outages and leads to the cancellation of a Veterans Day ceremony, while crews work to clear roads and restore electricity.

The U.S. Department of the Interior released a 1,200-page supplemental environmental impact study (EIS) on the proposed Ambler Access Road in Alaska, which reveals potentially greater social and environmental impacts than previously thought, including concerns about disrupting traditional hunting and fishing lifestyles and causing permafrost thaw.

Melting permafrost will increase the maintenance costs for critical infrastructure by $15.5 billion by mid-century but unable to prevent some $21.6 billion in damages. Nearly 70% of current infrastructure located on permafrost is at risk, including major oil and gas fields, pipelines, and mines.

Electric heat pumps help homeowners swap fossil fuel for renewable energy. To spread heat pumps across the region, Allen Marine is collecting small donations from thousands of visitors that pass through Juneau, Sitka and Ketchikan on their whale watching and glacier tours each year.

Graphite One is developing a plan for an open-pit graphite mine and is still in its exploration phase.

The state’s rural areas lead the world in renewably powered microgrids. So if the grid of the future is being incubated in rural Alaska, can urban Alaska, like the Railbelt, benefit from some of these strategies and lessons learned?

Hurtigruten Norway says the first zero-emission coastal cruise vessels will be sailing in 2030.

The bill, which got unanimous approval, seeks to help Alaska earn money by allowing its tree-covered tracts to continue absorbing carbon dioxide.

A rule unveiled by the Environmental Protection Agency could force power plants to capture smokestack emissions using a technology that has long been promised but is not in widespread use in the U.S.

As of today, China controls 98 percent of the rare earths that Europe needs for the green shift. Høgre writes that the Fens field has "the greatest potential to break the Chinese dependence"

Since the first big winter storms, snow on the western Kenai Peninsula has collapsed roofs, broken gas meters and raised backcountry avalanche risk. “I think we can safely say that this was the most snow in any winter for the northwest Kenai Peninsula since the winter of 2011, 2012,” said Rick Thoman.

Today, they can look out over spruce forests and fields. But where the forest stands, there can be a solar power plant the size of 80 football fields.

“We’re not going to say we’re not going to use gas and oil. That’s not reality,″ Interior Secretary Deb Haaland said Friday.

Historically of all stationary energy produced in Iceland, some 70% is hydroelectric and 30% is geothermal. In figures recently released on 2021 energy usage in Iceland, it has come to light that 63% of energy used in Iceland was produced by fossil fuel, 24% by nuclear power, and only 13% by renewable energy sources.

The government of Nunavut has once again flipped its position on resource development on caribou calving grounds, now supporting a "prohibition of development within calving grounds and key access corridors, with seasonal restrictions on activities in post-calving grounds."