Shameless Political Self-promotion Alex Gimarc and PJ Hill for Chugach Board 2010 Howdy all – One of the things I do on the side is sit on the Board of our local electrical cooperative. We are up for reelection this month and the greens and well-connected leftists have fielded a couple of candidates that will take us to green Utopia. Not. Reelection article follows. Many thanks for your consideration should you be a Chugach ratepayer. Cheers – - AG Alex Gimarc and PJ Hill for Chugach Board 2010 This year, Professor P.J. Hill and I are up for reelection to the Chugach Board. Our opposition is a pair of well-connected left-wing greens. Pro-ratepayer directors currently hold a slim but working majority on the Board. Should either of our two opponents get elected, that majority shifts over to a very green, union friendly, group of leftists that will control your electric utility and will make decisions on the basis of emotional arguments rather than sound economics and science. During the three years on this Board, PJ and I have done everything we promised the Membership and those of you who supported our election that we would do. We voted to stop the lawsuits against the other utilities and a former Board member. We installed a new, more consumer-friendly and forward thinking management team. We cut our accident record nearly in half last year. Our profits (margins) are back into the $5-6 million dollar range yearly. We are building new, more efficient gas-fired generation. We just approved three union contracts that have no increases in wages for the first year and no pension increases for all three years. In those contracts, health care costs are capped and wage increases for the second and third years are tied to fiscal performance of the company. As far as I know, this is a first for any utility union contract in the Railbelt. We are now working with our sister utilities on the future, restructuring to make that transition from a primary reliance on Cook Inlet natural gas to something else. And we have implemented about half of the Blue Ribbon Panel report of 2008. What are the issues this time around? Why is it important that the greens, leftists, union-friendly Begich and Obama supporters not take over this utility? The answer is simple; it's all about money, specifically your money and mine. And decisions made over the next three years will have long-term impact on our electric rates. The current Board majority has embarked on a change in our primary generation. We have resolved to move from primary reliance on Cook Inlet natural gas to primary reliance on something else by 2020. We currently rely on Cook Inlet natural gas for 90% of all current generation. This was a great deal for decades when Cook Inlet natural gas was plentiful and cheap. It is no longer plentiful or cheap. We have a contract in place for half our needs through 2014 and in negotiation for the other half. The soonest a bullet line could be in place would be around 2018, so we have at a minimum a four year gap. Given the creation of a critical habitat in upper Cook Inlet to protect endangered belugas, I am not confident that we will see much more oil or natural gas exploration in Cook Inlet for a long while. To fill that gap, we must immediately get into the business of gas storage in Cook Inlet and start looking at importing liquid natural gas, most likely into the Nikiski natural gas export facility. Otherwise we will face a shortage in natural gas in three years. What will this all cost? Our most recent natural gas contract costs around the mid $5 to mid $7 per million cubic feet (mcf) delivered. Liquid natural gas (LNG) imports into Tokyo are running around $11/mcf today. There are people in the Lower 48 claiming to have $2/mcf available in a few years. The lowest estimate I have seen for natural gas from a bullet line is around $25/mcf. Natural gas prices are highly volatile and will shift a lot over the next decade. But we must start now and be ready to import what we need when the time comes. Our opponents do not agree with this approach, opting instead to conserve and efficiency our way out of an impending shortage of natural gas. This is rank foolishness and does little except create an artificial shortage of natural gas, risk brownouts and rolling blackouts. But it sits very nicely with the doctrinaire greens, as it allows them to get their hot little hands on our thermostats and tell us all how to live our daily lives. They do everything possible to create artificial energy and resource scarcity so that they might control our lives. Do not give them this opportunity. We have been working with our sister utilities for nearly two years toward creating a joint generation and transmission (G&T) corporation – the Greater Railbelt Energy and Transmission Corporation (GRETC). This restructure is necessary because no single utility has the ability to borrow sufficient funds to make that transition in energy sources. Working together and with the State of Alaska at the table as a financial backstop, the combined corporation can bond for the new projects and do it at a more favorable interest rate than we can do so individually. Possible new projects include but are not limited to big hydroelectric projects at Susitna and Chakachamna. There is a geothermal project in process at Mt. Spurr. There are at least three wind projects in process – on the Kenai, near Fairbanks and on Fire Island. All are renewable energy projects. This Board majority has also passed resolutions in support of alternative energy, with the thought that we must consider all possible energy solutions on the same level playing field. These alternative forms of energy production would include but are not limited to nuclear, coal to liquids, gas to liquids, coal gasification, biomass to liquids, and incineration of municipal public waste. We cannot be 100% reliant on renewables, as it is never prudent to place all our eggs in a single basket. Our opponents spoke out against both nuclear and coal at a candidates’ forum at Chugach Electric a week ago, choosing the doctrinaire green opposition at the beginning over sound analysis of all costs and benefits for these power sources. Given that over 50% of all electricity in the Lower 48 is generated from coal-fired plants and nearly 20% by nuclear reactors, I believe they must be fairly considered for future use here in this state. I can live with whatever comes out of the analysis process as long as it is openly and honestly conducted. Choosing winners or losers at the beginning of the process will only serve to artificially skew the process and make the outcome more expensive for all of us here in the Railbelt. Expect our two opponents to run around Anchorage over the next four weeks pretending to be us only a little bit greener; pretending they support everything we are currently doing; pretending to be something they are not. They sat in the candidate’s forum a week ago and gave much the same basic answers as PJ and I did. If they are saying the same things as we are, why change leadership? And if they are saying things in public that they do not privately believe, why trust them with your vote? Also take a look at their backers, the Chugach Reliability Group, long known as a vehicle for laundering union money into past Chugach campaigns, and ask where are they getting their money, who are they getting it from, and what do they expect for that money. Thank you for your support in 2007. You know from my articles in The Alaska Standard and elsewhere what I believe in; what I think; and how I come to decisions. I have not changed and I will not waver. You know how to get hold of me for questions or comments. Please consider supporting us this year. We have a Facebook Group for the campaign that has links to various articles, audio and campaign handouts. Do a search for Alex Gimarc and PJ Hill for Chugach Board 2010. Join our effort to keep your lights on, keep your electrical costs low, and plan for a future of abundant, cheap and reliable energy in Anchorage. Thank you and regards – Alex Gimarc is the Secretary of the Chugach Board of Directors and is up for reelection in April. This email is archived at http://groups.google.com/group/richsrants?hl=en I'M MAD, AND I'M NOT GOING TO TAKE IT ANY MORE http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/bprelutsky/2009/07/05/im-mad-as-hell/ Rich Martin . -- To join RichsRants, send email to: [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/richsrants?hl=en To unsubscribe, reply using "remove me" as the subject.
