The Biden-Harris Administration’s Department of Energy Tuesday announced it has awarded more than $20 million to Alaskan communities for rural and remote clean energy projects. The six projects selected as part of the Energy Improvement in Rural and Remote Areas (ERA) grant program aim to cut energy costs, enhance climate resiliency, and support local economic development: 

• Tanacross Solar PV and Tok Battery Energy Storace System (Native Villages of Tanacross and Tok, Alaska): $5 million grant to install 1.5MW of solar PV on the grid at the Alaska Power & Telephone power plant paired with a 1.5MHw battery energy storage system that is expected to displace more than 12,500 gallons of expensive diesel fuel each year.
• Big Battery as our Backbone (Kokhanok Village, Alaska): $5 million grant to upgrade the Kokhanok microgrid with a 943kWh battery energy storage system and solar, PV, wind turbine and electric thermal storage heating units, significantly increasing the microgrid’s reliability and resilience.
• New Stuyahok Solar-Battery (New Stuyahok, Alaska): $4.3 million grant to construct a 500kW solar PV array, a 540kWh battery energy storage system, and a microgrid controller – leveraging abundant summer daylight hours to displace nearly a quarter of fuel consumption for rural Yup’ik villages in the remote Dillingham region.
• Decarbonizing the Tongass with Tribally Owned Heat Pumps (Prince of Wales Island, Alaska): $2.5 million grant for a tribally owned project to install air-source heat pumps in up to 240 tribal buildings – powered by existing clean hydroelectric resources – to help reduce residents’ energy reliance on and emissions from fossil fuel use.
• High Penetration Solar-Battery Project (Ambler, Alaska): $2.1 million grant to upgrade an existing power plant to allow for a 400kW solar PV system and a 500kWh battery energy storage system to produce nearly a quarter of the community’s electricity and allowing the village’s diesel generators to be turned off for the first time in more than 40 years.
• Ouzinkie Independent Power Energy Improvement Project (Spruce Island, Alaska): $1.7 million grant to construct a 160kW solar PV and 210kWh battery energy storage system for a new microgrid offering back-up power during severe weather outages and reducing electricity costs by 10% for this community of 128 indigenous residents.

Nineteen projects across 12 states and 13 Tribal nations and communities were selected for this round of ERA grant funding. Further details on the $78 million awarded is in the press release below, and you can find specific project details on the OCED website. 

  Alaska, ambler, awards, clean, kokhanok, newstuyahok, ouzinkie, princeofwales, solar, tanacross

JUNEAU, Alaska (KTUU) – Alaskans on Tuesday reacted to reports from multiple sources that the Biden Administration intends to reclassify regulation of cannabis from Schedule I to Schedule III, altering its categorization to match drugs considered to be less dangerous. Schedule I is the most strict, and includes drugs such as heroin and LSD. Schedule III, where cannabis is expected to soon move, includes Tylenol with codeine and anabolic steroids.

Additionally, Schedule I is a category for drugs considered to have no medical use and a high potential for abuse, whereas Schedule III is classified as having moderate to low potential for dependence, and can be used for medicinal purposes.

Attorney Jana Weltzin – who is a board member with the Alaska Marijuana Industry Association – said the potential move by the federal government would be a huge benefit for businesses, because they would no longer be treated like “drug traffickers.” She also said such a change to reschedule the drug would be a relief for many businesses, in the event that they could deduct business expenses when filing taxes.

“That’s a very helpful thing,” she said. “We go from having all this phantom income, because there are all these expenses that you have to attribute to your net income and pay taxes on. To be able to capture those regular business expenses and be able to deduct them, like a normal business, that really helps. There’s nothing about this rescheduling that hurts so far, nothing that hurts a business.”

Weltzin said reclassifying cannabis from a Schedule I to a Schedule III substance does not necessarily mean marijuana will be legal for medical reasons across the country, and it will not legalize marijuana outright for recreational use, but it does mean the federal government recognizes it has value medically. As far as the move possibly leading to wide-sweeping change by the federal government to legalize marijuana, Weltzin said there could be unintended consequences.

“You get interstate commerce,” she said. “State of Alaska excise tax as it currently stands could be completely out the window. And then the state is out roughly $2 million a month in marijuana excise tax. And so, we have to be careful and artful about how we think about federal legalization, and really engage with the stakeholders.

“It really should be more of a state rights approach,” she continued, “rather than just a sweeping federal change, because a lot of the businesses that are built specifically under the state programs could not survive a federal landscape if it’s not done correctly.”

Several state lawmakers who were asked on Tuesday if the potential move by the federal government could disrupt any legislation in the works this session declined to comment.

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The need for mental health resources, education funding, addressing the opioid crisis and amplifying the youth’s voices: Those were only some of the issues students discussed during a statewide conference in April.

Over 200 students attended the four-day-long Alaska Association of Student Government Spring Conference in Utqiagvik. Students debated resolutions, explored the town, went sledding and participated in cultural workshops making caribou soup, beading, sewing and Inupiaq drumming and dancing, said Magdelina Stringer, president of Barrow High School Student Government who helped put together the event.

“It was an amazing time and by the end of the conference, everyone really didn’t want to leave,” Stringer said.

The annual conference — which took place in Utqiagvik for the first time in over 20 years — brought together students from various regions, from the North Slope to Southeast Alaska.

Robyn Burke, president of the North Slope Borough School District Board of Education, gave a speech during the opening ceremony, thanking the delegates “for providing a rural voice because there hadn’t been a whole lot of rural participation before,” she said.

In previous years, Stringer said that many students from rural districts couldn’t attend the conference. When they did have a chance to come, they sometimes did not feel confident enough to participate in debates, she said. To address the issue, Stringer talked to the executive board and hosting committee to find ways to make the conference more inclusive and to encourage more rural representation. The North Slope Borough School District offered to pay for the registration fees for some of the rural districts.

“We should be able to represent not only urban students but also rural students,” she said. “For this conference, we had … almost every single school represented, which is something that we hadn’t ever seen before.”

Participation also grew, she said, with students from across the state willing to express their perspectives.

“It’s honestly kind of emotional to see that finally,” she said. “It felt like our voices are being heard.”

Students passed 16 resolutions during the conference that called for Naloxone training in health classes, inflation proofing the base student allocation and supporting student rights. Barrow High School freshman Qilaavsuk Vadiveloo won the Resolution of the Conference award for her resolution, accessing funding for mental health resources in rural Alaska schools.

“All over America, high school students struggle with mental health issues, and I just think it’s very important to get those people care that they need, especially in rural areas, where there might not be as much support,” Vadiveloo said.

Stringer agreed: “We can’t really thrive in academia, or we can’t really thrive in general if our well-being is not up to par. And we don’t really have that many resources here in rural Alaska and in the North Slope for mental and behavioral health.”

In Utqiagvik, doctors and nurses often come up on a rotation, Vadiveloo said, and one idea she had was to invite mental health professionals to the schools on a rotation basis. Training students to talk to their peers would also be useful, she said.

Burke said that she often hears about the need for mental health resources during youth leadership events.

“Every single time the students have an opportunity to speak about issues that are impacting them across the state of Alaska, I feel like it always surrounds mental health and medical supports or mental health education,” Burke said.

Overall, participating in the conference and student government in general often inspire students to get involved and find their voices in leadership, Burke said.

Vadiveloo said she is considering pursuing an education in law or politics, something where she can make a difference in rural communities. For now, she is happy to be on the student council.

“It was nice being around other people who want to see change,” Vadiveloo said about the conference. “That’s why we’re there — to make our schools, and our communities, and our state better.”

For senior Stringer, the experience in student government led her to choose to major in political science in college and to apply to intern for Sen. Lisa Murkowski in June.

“I’m really passionate about advocacy and social justice and fighting for positive change, and I think all of that is because of my experience in AASG and student government,” she said. “It really helped me shape what I want to do.”