A group of extreme climate alarmists is pulling out all stops to get the Golden Valley Electric Association (GVEA) to finally shutter Alaska’s largest clean coal fired powerplant – Healy 2.
Last year, the GVEA board voted to decommission the plant by the end of 2024, and to redirect its efforts into unproven wind and solar energy generation.
News of the plant’s pending closure was initially praised by a radical left-wing social activist group, the Fairbanks Climate Action Coalition (FCAC), which took credit for the decision, saying it was the result of more than five years of targeted activism.
Now, however, the climate activists are upset because the electric company is not acting quickly enough to dismantle the powerplant.
The FCAC believes that rejecting fossil fuels will help expand and strengthen leftist goals like widening abortion access, fighting colonialism and addressing systemic inequities across Alaska.
The GVEA cooperative was formed nearly 80 years ago, when locals were looking for ways to provide reasonably priced electricity to rural parts of Interior Alaska. Today, GVEA serves nearly 100,000 residents in Fairbanks and Interior regions.
Climate activists, however, want Alaska to completely transition away from all fossil fuels – including low-cost coal and even natural gas – a move that will likely mean much higher electricity bills.
“It’s clear GVEA has heard our concerns and ideas, yet they’ve been slow to act on implementing any new renewable projects,” the Fairbanks Climate Action Coalition stated in a recent call to action. “GVEA has made many commitments, including: to close down Healy Unit 2 coal plant and develop a large-scale wind farm, 2 pieces of their 5 part Strategic Generation Plan (SGP); to implement a tariffed on-bill financing program; and to create a community solar project.”
Climate activists aim to flood the July 25 GVEA board meeting to pressure them into rejecting carbon energy and moving forward with plans to shutter the Healy 2 plant.
The meeting begins at 6:30 p.m. People may attend and testify in-person at 758 Illinois Street or remotely. Those interested in commenting must sign up by 6:45pm on 7/25 by emailing skredlin@gvea.com or texting (907) 978-0547.
Formed in November 2015, FCAC whole heartedly ascribes to the controversial notion that man-made climate change is destroying the earth, and that the main culprit is human dependence on fossil fuels. They are also staunch defenders of abortion. The FCAC’s website describes itself as a “growing group of concerned citizens motivated by the moral, spiritual, and scientific duty to take action” for “the earth, and all living beings.”
FCAC claims that abortion and climate change are related. Last year, the group stated that “the people on the frontlines of climate change are also on the frontlines of reproductive justice, folks who hold multiple marginalized identities cannot choose between which crisis to solve, our movements and our organizing are on the frontlines of both of these intersecting movements.”
The group’s website states that moving away from fossil fuels will help expand and strengthen leftist goals like widening abortion access, fighting colonialism and addressing systemic inequities across Alaska.
Ultimately the FCAC group seeks to pressure energy companies in Alaska to retire all existing coal plants over the next 10 to 30 years to meet the United Nation’s 2050 goals related to climate change.
