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Alaskans received great news from Washington, D.C., last month when the Department of Energy named Alaska Village Electric Cooperative of Anchorage as the winner of the 2007 Wind Cooperative of the Year Award. Meanwhile, Chena Hot Springs continues to raise the bar in harnessing the potential for geothermal energy, a project under the leadership of Bernie Karl.

These two projects, now nationally recognized and inspiring similar work elsewhere, highlight how Alaskans’ ingenuity is meeting today’s challenges. We must continue to address our need for affordable energy by seeking new, alternative means to meet growing demand and, at the same time, deal with the effects of global climate change.

Solutions for each of these problems may be right in our backyard. By consistently pursuing alternative energy, we showcase Alaska’s invaluable role in the changing energy economy. The next example, methane, is already surfacing — literally.

Methane, a colorless, odorless gas, bubbles up through Alaska’s lakes, rivers and sloughs from at least two sources. The first is decomposing biomass beneath and within saturated soils. Under high temperature and pressure, methane is also produced deep in reservoirs within the Earth.

The methane emitted by decaying organic matter is plentiful, but cost prohibitive to capture for use in energy generation because it is dispersed in millions of lakes across the state. However, a second source of methane may offer more promise. Powerful seeps release methane to the atmosphere, and are suspected to occur where lakes and faults intersect with geological reservoirs of methane.

A few of these seeps have been identified in areas close enough to rural homes that the escaping gas may be directly harnessed into domestic energy sources. The number of such seeps around Alaska is unknown, as is their vulnerability to change as permafrost warms and thaws. The seeps in Alaska need to be mapped and their origin determined.

Harnessing methane represents an opportunity to reduce the climate change impacts of a potent greenhouse gas by converting it into a low-cost source of energy.

One molecule of methane gas traps 23 times the amount of heat in the atmosphere as one molecule of carbon dioxide. However, once methane is burned it converts on a one-to-one ratio into carbon dioxide. This means that burning methane creates a 23-fold reduction in its total warming potential.

According to current estimates, up to six percent of global methane output comes from decaying organic matter as bubbles in arctic lakes. Additional methane is emitted from wetlands, rivers and gas seeps. Where permafrost thaws around lakes, higher amounts of methane are emitted. This phenomenon feeds on itself; as more methane enters the atmosphere, thawing becomes more rapid, leading to even greater methane releases.

Although the negative impacts of these increasing greenhouse gas emissions are a cause for concern, methane may present a new opportunity for Alaskans.

Rural Alaska is acutely aware of the need for affordable energy. Methane, a clean-burning gas requiring low-cost, low-technology delivery systems once captured, could be a solution. It has been used in the Netherlands for heating and cooking for over a century.

Given the burning intensity of methane, it is possible that methane from seeps in Alaska could be used to heat buildings. In so doing, a direct and affordable energy source could provide an alternative to people paying staggering costs to heat their homes or run diesel generators for electricity.

We have asked the White House and the Department of Energy to support and advance the development of methane as an energy source in Alaska. NASA and NOAA could provide satellite and aerial imagery of the best potential sources, while environmental and energy scientists across the governmental, academic, and industrial spectrum can do their part to address environmental and technology concerns.

Here, as with AVEC and Chena, Alaskans could act as 21st-century pioneers by applying our industriousness and resources toward national energy and climate change solutions. Alaskans stand to benefit on every level. We look forward to working with the federal government and the State of Alaska to take the lead role in unlocking methane’s potential as Alaska’s next alternative energy achievement.

Katey Walter, an aquatic ecologist and biogeochemist, is a University of Alaska Presidential International PolarFellow at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. Ted Stevens is the senior United States Senator from Alaska.