Power Plants/ Coal and Air Pollution

[pbaker87]

Thanks for all the valuable information. With all this in mind, I believe we are going to pursue the expedition, as much can be mitigated with some perseverance . The follow up to all of this great info is the wonder at which the most cost effective/somewhat environmental products are to heat the home. It seems hydro baseboards combined with a wood stove is a common application in the area? Any feedback on this?

[Parnassia]

Originally Posted by pbaker87

Thanks for all the valuable information. With all this in mind, I believe we are going to pursue the expedition, as much can be mitigated with some perseverance . The follow up to all of this great info is the wonder at which the most cost effective/somewhat environmental products are to heat the home. It seems hydro baseboards combined with a wood stove is a common application in the area? Any feedback on this?

What do you mean by "hydro" baseboards? If you meant hot water baseboard that water still needs to be heated by something. That something could be an oil-fired boiler, a natural gas or propane-fired boiler, wood fired boiler, electric baseboard (electricity generated by a power plant that burns coal, oil, gas fuel), etc. So, you're right back to the earlier argument about what type of power generation is the most environmentally friendly. Usually a good idea to have a backup source of heat that doesn't depend on electricity such as a wood stove. Be aware that a pellet burning stove still requires power to operate the controls. How the house is built and how well insulated it is will affect how efficient any heat source is. If you insist on buying some barn of a house you don't actually need, both the environment and you will pay more to heat it.

While I haven't lived in Fairbanks per se, I've lived in several other parts of AK. 3 of 4 houses had hot water baseboard heat produced by an oil-fired boiler. Fuel oil tank on the property. I converted one house over to natural gas because I had to pay off the special assessment for the neighborhood's new natural gas line when I bought the property anyway and the original boiler was 30+ years old. Those houses also had wood stove backup heat. My current house furnace is natural gas fired but it does not rely on electricity. As long as there's gas in the transmission line and the thermocouple controller batteries are good it will keep the house warm. This house is small, compact, heavily insulated, and super energy efficient. No good spot for a backup wood stove.

[RayinAK]

Originally Posted by Parnassia

What do you mean by "hydro" baseboards? If you meant hot water baseboard that water still needs to be heated by something. That something could be an oil-fired boiler, a natural gas or propane-fired boiler, wood fired boiler, electric baseboard (electricity generated by a power plant that burns coal, oil, gas fuel), etc. So, you're right back to the earlier argument about what type of power generation is the most environmentally friendly. Usually a good idea to have a backup source of heat that doesn't depend on electricity such as a wood stove. Be aware that a pellet burning stove still requires power to operate the controls. How the house is built and how well insulated it is will affect how efficient any heat source is. If you insist on buying some barn of a house you don't actually need, both the environment and you will pay more to heat it.

While I haven't lived in Fairbanks per se, I've lived in several other parts of AK. 3 of 4 houses had hot water baseboard heat produced by an oil-fired boiler. Fuel oil tank on the property. I converted one house over to natural gas because I had to pay off the special assessment for the neighborhood's new natural gas line when I bought the property anyway and the original boiler was 30+ years old. Those houses also had wood stove backup heat. My current house furnace is natural gas fired but it does not rely on electricity. As long as there's gas in the transmission line and the thermocouple controller batteries are good it will keep the house warm. This house is small, compact, heavily insulated, and super energy efficient. No good spot for a backup wood stove.

Good points!

I would like to add the following:

a. I don't think the OP noticed what I wrote about wood, pellet, and coal, stoves. No solid fuel (wood, pellet, coal) can be burned in all outlining or low altitude areas near Fairbanks when the clean-air notices are published or sen-out by the EPA and Borough, and that this happens at least 80% of the time during the winter, usually on the coldest/clear days.

b. To retrofit an older small home to natural gas still takes a significant amount of money, specially if the home has an oil-fired boiler for heating the domestic water, and the home (perhaps from $18,000 to $25,000). And after retrofitting the house one still has to deal with the insulation; otherwise the natural gas bill is not going to be cheaper on a drafty house.

c. Natural gas is not available everywhere throughout the borough, including some areas of North Pole, Ester, Two Rivers, and so on. Also natural gas has to be transported (trucked) to Fairbanks, and it is not as cheap as some people think.

On another subject:
Well-insulated homes need to be ventilated, something that can be done much cheaper during a new construction. There are two types of ventilators, and in some cases can be added to a furnace. What the ventilator does is to circulate fresh air through the house, and exhaust the stale/humid air in the house (it cleans the air in the home). To retrofit a ventilator to the house costs around $8,000 for a medium size home. I had a HRV home retrofit las month, and paid a little oner $8K. The HRV recovers some of the heat from the air being exhausted, and adds this heat to the fresh air coming into the home.

All is explained in the link below, thanks to UAF (keep in mind that there are small ventilators for small homes too):
https://cchrc.org/indoor-air-quality/

http://cchrc.org/media/LittleVentilationSnapshot.pdf

HRV for home construction is cold country:
http://cchrc.org/whats-a-heat-recove...do-i-need-one/

[mitgreb]

If you are scared of bad air stay away!

[rwjoyak]

OP, this isn't directly applicable to your questions about the best heating source to use in Fairbanks, but you might want to check out Cold Climate Housing Research Center – Healthy & Sustainable Housing for Alaska. The Cold Climate Housing Research Center in Fairbanks continues to facilitate research into the best building technologies for cold climate areas. Ray provided a couple of CCHRC links above but I think many of the topics on their website make for interesting reading. One I would be thinking about as part of my energy solution if I were building a new home in Fairbanks is a ground source heat pump system.

[rwjoyak]

Here's a couple of very interesting articles about heat pumps: https://grist.org/looking-forward/he...oldest-states/ and https://www.wired.com/story/heat-pum...energy-prices/. These are about air source heat pumps, which are much more common (and cheaper) than ground source. And the latter article says there are air source heat pumps being tested that work down to -31F, so in a few years maybe these will be suitable for use in Fairbanks. The researcher quoted in the article actually works at CCHRC in Fairbanks.

Off topic a bit, but as an aside to the Alaskans contributing to this thread, sure seems like it would make sense for state government to fund more R&D efforts into developing cost-effective heat pumps for cold climate Alaskan use. Of course, you still need a source of electricty to run a heat pump, but that would be a lot less than electric heat.

[CCS414]

Originally Posted by pbaker87

Is this an issue here? My wife is pregnant and we are considering moving to Fairbanks for a job soon. We also have a 1.5 yr old. I am trying to get the details on the air quality here. The AQI looks fine for the data, but it looks like the local sensors may not be sensing up SO2 and the historical data is hard to interpret. Any thoughts on this? I lived in Salt Lake City for a while and we just dont want to be stuck in the inverted muck again, and definitely dont want to be anywhere near the drift from any plant. Fairbanks is such a beautiful place and its a shame to be critical about this but its important for us to breathe clean air. Any other local environment hazards we need to be aware of? Does anyone have honest info on this? Thanks so much.

Yeah, the SLC valley is pretty bad due to all the mining activity. Too bad because it's such a pretty area.