**Title**: Energy in the North - Nick Nickelson
**Date**: December 24, 2025
**Participants**: Amanda Byrd, Nick Nickelson

00;00;00;11 - 00;00;07;03 [Nick Nickelson] Dozen eggs or $13 a loaf of bread, $9. A gallon of milk is $13,

00;00;07;03 - 00;00;35;15 [Amanda Byrd] This week on energy in the North, I speak with Nick Nickerson, the Mayor of Clark and Prince of Wales Island. Prince of Wales Island is the third largest island in the United States, and it houses nine communities and has over 900 miles of drivable roads. It's powered mostly by two hydropower plants - Black bear and Hiilangaay - operated by Alaska Power and Telephone. I started the conversation with Nick by asking how many people work for the AP&T utility.

00;00;35;15 - 00;01;01;25 [Nick Nickelson] I believe they have a crew of 12. You know, just like last night, we had power outages in Naukati and they're on site, you know, taking care of it. And we're very fortunate to have this energy on the island. You know, the cost of living in rural Alaska is very, very high in comparison to urban. So to alleviate costs with natural energy like that, you know, it does help our communities as a whole.

00;01;01;25 - 00;01;05;23 [Amanda Byrd] On Prince of Wales Island a lot of the schools have biomass boilers?

00;01;05;23 - 00;01;34;03 [Nick Nickelson] There's two that I know of and I believe it's Coffman Cove and Thorne Bay. I know one of the issues they had with the biomass plants is they're high maintenance, and it takes a technician, you know, to take care of them, you know, when there's an issue, there's usually a delay. And, you know, their heat and their resources, you know, for their building. You know, that was the last thing I heard. And that was a couple of years ago. This is a possible chance that was resolved.

00;01;34;03 - 00;01;37;04 [Amanda Byrd] Do you know what the price of your kilowatt hour is?

00;01;37;04 - 00;01;40;11 [Nick Nickelson] I think it's around 18 or $0.19 a kilowatt.

00;01;40;11 - 00;01;45;05 [Amanda Byrd] Wow. That's a pretty high price for, power even with hydro.

00;01;45;05 - 00;02;04;17 [Nick Nickelson] Well, welcome to rural Alaska. It's very expensive to live in rural Alaska with fuel, with groceries, you know? Any payment services that are required in our community is very expensive. A dozen eggs is $13, a loaf of bread - $9, A gallon of milk is $13, you know,

00;02;04;17 - 00;02;15;10 [Amanda Byrd] And regarding the energy on the island, last night there was a big windstorm here in Sitka are the challenges that you face on Prince of Wales Island?

00;02;15;10 - 00;03;20;00 [Nick Nickelson] Well, I just met with the manager at Alaska Power and Telephone and they did have an outage and Naukati. What's so good about that is the crew gets called out. It doesn't matter if it's two in the morning, three in the morning. They're onsite with them in an hour. They have established maintenance crews and all the facility, you know, so whomever is close by gets the call to respond, and I, I could probably guarantee you not to be back on power. Got the power restored, you know. So they're very, very good maintenance crew. 51·çÁ÷¹ÙÍø ten years ago, we lost power for about 12 hours in our community, and my biggest concern was we have elders, you know, that are on oxygen concentrators or require any kind of medical equipment that requires power. So we met with the Alaska Power on telephone, and, they hooked us into a backup generator to eliminate, you know, these issues. Anytime we are looking at a long term power outage, you know, we are transferred over to, a generator.

00;03;20;00 - 00;03;24;07 [Amanda Byrd] So it's something that I think a lot of people take for granted but don't really think about.

00;03;24;07 - 00;04;12;17 [Nick Nickelson] Exactly. Before we went to hydro, you know, we had so many issues, you know, our generator went down. There was times when or without power, you know, we didn't have service technicians, you know, and I'm using this as an example as far as how some of the smaller communities are and there was a time when we had power, lost power for three days. And that was challenging, you know, because we weren't able to treat our water with our water plant. We had no wastewater plant. I mean, you know, the grocery stores were closed and it was quite the challenge. It felt like we went back in time 100 years, you know, because like you said, we what we take for granted, I compare that to how we are today. You know, there's such a significant difference. There's no comparison.

00;04;12;17 - 00;04;21;16 [Amanda BYrd] Nick Nickerson is the mayor of Klawock on Prince of Wales Island, and I'm Amanda Byrd, chief storyteller for the Alaska Center for Energy and Power at 51·çÁ÷¹ÙÍø. Find this story and more at uaf.edu/acep.