the feds bet on alaska coal

and their opening bet is eighty-nine million dollars.

There's a plan on the table for a coal power plant way out on the far west side of the Valley, past where the roads end. It's called the Terra Energy Center, and it's sized at twelve hundred fifty megawatts, with modern carbon capture built in.

The federal government picked it for an eighty-nine million dollar grant to study whether it can actually be built. The company behind it is based in Anchorage and is matching that money with its own. Thirteen million in earlier state and federal study money already went into this idea.

That capture system is the twist. The plan pipes the carbon sixty miles to Beluga and pumps it underground into an old natural gas field.

Now for the reality check. There's no final design yet, no permitted mine, and no power buyers signed up. The site would also need a brand new road, over sixty miles of it, just to get there.

Supporters say it could mean firm, homegrown power while our gas supply wobbles. Critics see private interests chasing public dollars, and they're worried about the wild river country out there.

We've been asking all summer where the Valley's power future comes from, in the comments, at the assembly, around kitchen tables. This project wants to be the answer, and the fight over it is just getting started.