Democrats need to think of economic alternatives for Alaska

[Ken Burch]

We are never going to "out-extract" the Republicans up here, and people will keep defeating us if we can't think of something to get the economy moving, so we have to think of something big and bold, something we can get going if ANWR doesn't get opened or, if it does, when the Republicans blow all the money on pointless road-building projects.

We've got imaginations. We've got minds. Let's start thinking here.
And let's NOT be afraid of being called "radical". Centrist Dems do just as badly as "liberals" up in these parts.

[Vincardog]

1. How about the North American Water Project?

Take Fresh water from Alaska and make a canal to the desert in the American South West and Northern Mexico. You can see the results of bringing water to the desert by looking at California. Imagine how New Mexico Arizona and Northern Mexico would look with a few million acre feet per day of fresh water added to the mix! It will take years to do and a few billion. We can Afford to divert a few days expense from the fiasco in Iraq and invest that in America's future.

[Ken Burch]

2. Ok, that's a possibility.

I'd also suggest making the whole state a testing ground for alternative energy technology.

If whatever you were testing worked on The Last Frontier, it would pretty much work anywhere!

[Blue_In_AK]

11. Sounds like one of Wally Hickel's old ideas......... n/t

[Toots]

3. Most Democrats I know are for the Gas pipeline

I think water may also be a good idea. With Global warming becoming more perceivable and draught overtaking the mid west water will become a high value resource

[Ken Burch]

4. Maybe there are possibilities for alternative agriculture

Very good wild rhubarb grows around Juneau. Perhaps this and other wild crops could be harvested and provide a more sustainable income.

[Topo]

5. The Bering Strait Bridge

Not only would it result in a permanent paved road north of Fairbanks but it would include a pipeline so oil from northern Asia could be loaded in Valdez instead of having to ship across the Pacific.

http://media.dsc.discovery.com/convergence/engineering/beringstrait/interactive/interactive.html

[Ken Burch]

6. Two related ideas that could go with that...

1)We could expand the Alaska Railroad across that bridge as well, hooking it up with the Trans-Siberian Railway. You could get some serious money from people wanting the ultimate excursion train experience.

2)This could open up another natural gas market as well, with a Bering Strait Pipeline.

[Ken Burch]

7. We also need to be tying this in to the question of

What happens if they NEVER open ANWR?
The Republicans have totally refused to open themselves to this possibility, and they have no alternative plans waiting
if it happens.

[Topo]

8. NPRA

Well there's always the NPRA, the initial numbers I've seen show that there might be more there than in ANWR.

[Ken Burch]

10. On the idea of Capitol Access by land

I like to suggest we also propose that, if there had to be land access between Skagway and Juneau, that a railroad rather than a highway be built. This would cause a smaller footprint, the avalanche zones could be bypassed through tunnelling, and, if there was still an insistence on people bringing their cars, it could be a car carrying train like they have in Europe and in and out of Whittier.

[Boreas]

9. Hydrogen

There's lots of hydro power in southeast. How about making and storing hydrogen with excess electric power. Hydrogen fuel cell technology seems to be one wave of the future. Alaska should be right in the middle of it. Most alternative energy technologies seem a natural for Alaska from tidal to geo-thermal to solar. It would be a fitting legacy of the petro dollars: set up and encourage renewable energy systems. Exporting water is going to be a very big thing. Think about it if you already haven't.

[cleofus1]

12. fresh water is an old hickel idea

he wanted to break off huge glaciers and tow them down to the lower 48. no one could figure out how to do that safely. and building roads thru Siberia has not been done to the scale that would be necessary to make it profitable because the weather is still too extreme thru certain parts of the year...gas and other mine products are in the works and being negotiated.

[Ken Burch]

13. Well, Hickel's "break off the glaciers" idea was nuts

As was Joe Vogler's notion of building a road through the Southeast Alaskan glaciers by using nuclear weapons to clear right-of-way.

But there must be other approaches.

People up here respond to grandiose "megaproject" economic ideas.
What I'm trying to do is get us to think of progressive "green" ideas which dealt with economies of scale and had the same capacity to capture the popular imagination as the GOP economic formula(mine, log, pave and stripmall every inch of the mother)does.