Your Questions About Wind Generators Alaska

Lisa asks…

If I lived in a cabin, 50+ miles from the closest electrical pole, how would I get electricity?

I am considering purchasing land in Alaska, a cabin off in the middle of the woods and was wondering how the tar would I get electricity, water and gas if needed to the land? Google was no help. Thanks!!

admin answers:

Electricity:

gas generator, solar power, wind power.

(gas gen and solar mix is my best bet)
Water- get a well dung)

gas- you buy a huge tank- a truck comes and fills it up a couple times a year, (lots of farmers do this)

Farmers usually have private wells and large natural gas tanks.. HOWEVER they still live on “The grid”

your electricity problem will most likely be solved by gas generator and solar power.

Good luck

Sandra asks…

How many kilowatt hours would I need to power a town of 1000 people plus businesses and a mine?

If i had a remote alaskan town of 1000 residents, how much power would I need to generate to run the whole town. Would a diesel generator work?

admin answers:

You didn’t give enough info.

1000 people and business plus mine isn’t specific.
What kind of people? Treehuggers? Hippies? Or the typical super-wasteful American stereotype?

What kind of business? Small things like the mom-n-pop stores? Small-town restaurants? Or a giant general motors automobile plant? Or what about a server farm (which requires lots and lots of power)?

For a mine, again, it depends of what kind of mine. How big is the operation? How updated is its facilities? Is it a pit/strip mine? A tunnel mine into the side of a mountain? Or a deep mine that goes way into the earth?

Then you have the climate. Alaska narrows it down some. Its cold there. But you forgot to say how is the town heated. Oil? Gas? Electric? Solar? Geo-thermal?

No matter the answer, I can tell you unless the town has tiny mom-n-pop businesses, tree huggers and hippies and an obsolete open pit mine, you’ll need a lot more than a diesel generator. You can try something green- like geo thermal, wind, tidal power. If you embrace the power of the future, nuclear power is the way to go. You can have an oil-fired or coal fired plant. It can run on natural gas or methane from composting waste. You can even have one burning trash to make power.

How much kW of power?
If each house had 4 people, then it would be about 250 households. Each household would consume about 15 kW a day of electricity.
So for homes you have 15×250 = 3,750 kW
business, say you got small ones and one Costco store.
Say 10kW electricity for 12 small businesses and 40kW for the Costco (they have lots of lights and fridges).
So business you have 12×10+40 = 160 kW
say you got the average open strip mine. A small operation that employs 350 people. Its not high-tech. It processes gypsum (different types of mines uses different amounts of electricity) for another plant in nearby Anchorage. That stuff is shipped by rail. I’d estimate 2000kW energy.

So subtotal:
homes: 3,750 kW
Stores: 160 kW
mine: 2000 kW
you need to generate at least 5,910 kW a day or you’ll have power issues. If all the homes are electric heated and not gas or oil, add another 1000kW a day.
In all, you needs at least 6,910 kW a day, but not more than 9,000 kW. The 2,000 kW a day difference allows some flex and deals with expansion of the town or unexpected high power consumption.

Remote Alaskan towns should not rely on diesel, or anything that needs to be shipped in. If the shipment is late or not coming, everyone could freeze to death. You’d want something that comes out of the earth reliably. Like geothermal. The earth won’t die for a very long time. If you place the plant near a volcano or place with thermal activity, you’ll get good, reliable high power output for the next couple thousand years or so.

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