00;00**Title**: Energy in the North - Lou Florence
**Date**: August 13, 2025
**Participants**: Amanda Byrd, Lou Florence

00;00;00;07 - 00;00;07;04 [Lou Florence] kind of like these, old airplanes you see flying around Fairbanks from the 1950s. As long as you maintain them, it'll go forever.

00;00;07;04 - 00;00;14;06 [Amanda Byrd] This week on energy in the North, I continue my conversation with Lou Florence, the president and CEO of Doyon utilities, which has a 50 year contract to operate and maintain the water and power utilities on Fort Wainwright, Fort Greely and Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson. Over a 50 year period, energy landscapes change. New energy resources come on board like the proposed micro nuclear reactor project that's being planned for
 Eielson Air Force Base. and renewed talks of a pipeline that will bring natural gas to Fairbanks and Anchorage. And I started the conversation with Lou by asking him how Doyon utilities, plans, energy and water generation for such a long period of time into the future,

00;00;46;02 - 00;03;48;07 [Lou Florence] So energy assets, and I would also throw in there
 water assets as well, are very long lived assets. And so, the decisions about when to replace
 tend to be kind of painstaking and long drawn out decisions. The future of energy in the interior, as you're very aware, there are a lot of nuances to it. So for example, if we were to see, a large natural gas pipeline, installed, that would be transformative for the interior. So that would make, the natural gas option would make it more attractive for some of the installations. It would probably make it a lot easier to keep using natural gas down JBER.
 At some point, energy facilities have to be replaced. They can live a long, long time. But but at some point they have to replace and so over time, we're going to have to and I say we it's not just us, it's really the army that makes the final call on what infrastructure they want to use. We're going to have to figure out what we use to provide energy at Fort Wainwright and Fort Greely, as well as down at JBER.  Over the past few years, we Doyon Utilities have really encourage the army to, to consider a nuclear option for Fort Wainwright. So the thinking that went into having a nuclear reactor at Fort Greely, you know, when they kind of conceived of this back in the 1950s, the rationale then is still valid today. You know, it's a compact source of energy. That's gonna be able to sustain energy over a long period in Arctic conditions or subarctic conditions. And so it's a very attractive option for Fort Wainwright. And we've been involved with the Army in, in discussions about nuclear power. Doyon Utilities has been engaged with the Department of the Air Force as a stakeholder, as they go through the procurement process of the micro reactor at Eielson, even though we don't have an ownership stake in, Eielson, we're interested and engaged. And we want to keep looking at that as, as an option. So, it's really hard to tell what the future is going to hold. But I think that. Nuclear power is, is a strong possibility up here in the interior. Natural gas, if it comes, will also change the energy landscape here. And, what we've told the Army is,
 you know, the infrastructure at Fort Wainwright when we took ownership of it, we did a complete assessment of both the, combined heat and power plant and all of the supporting piping and infrastructure on the installation and we found that some of it was kind of old and worn. But was surprising was how much of it we found was in very good shape after all these years. And even though has been operating continuously since 1954, there are a lot of the basic components that are in good shape. It's ind of like these old airplanes you see flying around Fairbanks from the 1950s. As long as you maintain them, it'll go forever. 

00;03;48;07 - 00;03;59;13 [Amanda Byrd] Lou Florence is the president and CEO of Doyon Utilities, and I'm Amanda Byrd, chief storyteller for the Alaska Center for Energy and Power. Find this story and more at uaf.edu/acep.