A2
THE ASTORIAN • THURSDAY, APRIL 29, 2021
SUPERMOON
IN BRIEF
Knappa student tests positive for
virus
A student at Hilda Lahti Elementary in Knappa
tested positive for the coronavirus on Monday.
The student’s family said the student tested pos-
itive at the end of the school day and had not been
showing any symptoms during the day, according to
a letter to parents Superintendent Bill Fritz posted on
the school district’s website Tuesday.
While there do not appear to be other virus cases
tied to this student case, three students and one sub-
stitute teacher are in quarantine, Fritz said.
The school district recently returned to full in-per-
son classes fi ve days a week.
“We are pleased to return to a more normal school
model, and we want to remind students and parents
that safety protocols must continue to ensure contin-
uation of movement toward a typical school sched-
ule,” Fritz wrote. “This includes proper mask wear-
ing and distancing. Also, please make sure that
students avoid coming to school sick.”
Seaside plans forums on
homelessness
SEASIDE — The fi rst of four forums on home-
lessness will be held May 6, Mayor Jay Barber
said.
“Our goals are working on what we’re calling
homeless strategies forums,” the mayor said. “We’re
trying to educate ourselves and the community about
how to deal with the homeless situation, trying to
bring diff erent groups together.”
The fi rst forum, planned for 6 p.m. at the Seaside
Civic and Convention Center, will bring together
members of the faith-based community to inform the
city what they are doing for the homeless.
Forums on May 13 and May 27 will follow, con-
cluding on June 3 in an “open mic kind of meeting,
to give people an opportunity to talk about their con-
cerns, their solutions and and how we navigate going
forward,” Barber said.
In November, driven by a rising level of need and
impacts to Seaside’s neighborhoods and businesses,
city councilors asked the police chief, city attorney
and city manager what can be done to manage the
growing number of homeless people.
City Councilor Tita Montero proposed public
forums on the issue, but the dates were postponed
because of the coronavirus pandemic.
At a goal-setting session in January, city council-
ors said they hope to address homelessness, addic-
tion and mental health issues.
At a City Council meeting in April, Montero
sought to revive the forum process. “I believe with
all of our goals, we are giving the citizens more
opportunities to weigh in and to learn and to partici-
pate than ever before,” she said.
— The Astorian
Pacifi c County unemployment
nears pre-pandemic levels
LONG BEACH, Wash. — Pacifi c County expe-
rienced another positive monthly jobs report, nearly
returning to pre-pandemic unemployment levels
a year after the county — and the country — suf-
fered through one of the worst economic crises in
its history.
According to the latest report from the Wash-
ington state Employment Security Department,
the county’s unemployment rate in March stood at
8.2%, down from 8.9% in February. The rate is sim-
ilar to where it has been in March in recent years;
it was 7.6% in 2018, 8.4% in 2019 and 8% in 2020
— although it likely would have been much lower
last year if not for being in the early stages of the
pandemic.
— Chinook Observer
DEATH
April 27, 2021
In PATTERSON,
Brief Bonnie
Lee, 66, of Hammond, died
in Astoria. Caldwell’s Luce-Layton Mortuary of Asto-
ria is in charge of the arrangements.
Death
ON THE RECORD
Strangulation
arrested Tuesday on U.S.
On
the Record
•
Steven
Gerald Highway 30 for driving
Larsen, 58, of Astoria,
was arrested Tuesday on
Marine Drive in Asto-
ria for strangulation and
harassment.
DUII
• Merrill C. Saunders,
44, of St. Helens, was
under the infl uence of
intoxicants.
• Jerry Leon Tepfer, 69,
of Astoria, was arrested
Tuesday on U.S. Highway
26 for DUII and criminal
driving with a suspended
or revoked license.
PUBLIC MEETINGS
THURSDAY
Clatsop County Recreational Lands Planning Advisory
Committee, 1 p.m., (electronic meeting).
PUBLIC MEETINGS
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Hailey Hoff man/The Astorian
The super pink full moon rises over Clatsop County on Monday night.
Renewable electricity can slash
Cascadia pollution, new study says
By PETER FAIRLEY
InvestigateWest
New research shows that
renewable electricity can
move Washington state, Ore-
gon and British Columbia
off of fossil fuels, do so at an
aff ordable price and create
jobs along the way.
After decades of reticence
from fossil fuel producers and
utilities, this may sound like a
wishful vision. But building
a cleaner and more equitable
economy — and doing so in
just a few decades to head off
the worst eff ects of climate
change — is backed by a
growing body of regional and
international studies.
Innovation and mass pro-
duction have made wind
and solar power installations
cheaper than most fossil-fu-
eled power plants. The key
to moving Cascadia’s econo-
mies away from fossil fuels is
to make renewable electricity
the region’s go-to “fuel.”
The new research high-
lights three mutually support-
ing strategies that squeeze out
fossil fuels:
• Increasing energy effi -
ciency to trim the amount of
power needed
• Boosting renewable
energy to make it possible
to turn off climate-wrecking
fossil-fuel plants
• Plugging as much stuff
as possible into the electri-
cal grid
Recent studies in Wash-
ington state and British
Columbia, and underway
for Oregon, point to effi -
ciency and electrifi cation as
the most cost-eff ective route
to slashing emissions while
maintaining lifestyles and
maximizing jobs. A recent
National Academies of Sci-
ence study reached the same
conclusion, calling electrifi -
cation the core strategy for
an equitable and economi-
cally advantageous energy
transition.
However,
technolo-
gies don’t emerge in a vac-
uum. The social and eco-
nomic adjustments required
by the wholesale shift from
Amelia Templeton/Oregon Public Broadcasting
Wind turbines with Mount Adams in the backdrop.
KEY STRATEGIES
• Increasing energy effi ciency to trim the amount of power
needed
• Boosting renewable energy to make it possible to turn off
climate-wrecking fossil-fuel plants
• Plugging as much stuff as possible into the electrical grid
fossil fuels to renewable
power can still make or break
decarbonization, according
to Jim Williams, a Univer-
sity of San Francisco energy
expert whose simulation soft-
ware tools have guided many
national and regional energy
plans, including two new
U.S.-wide studies, a Decem-
ber 2020 analysis for Wash-
ington state and another in
process for Oregon.
Williams points to vital
actions likely to rile those
who lose money in the deal,
like letting trees grow many
decades older before they are
cut down so they can suck up
more carbon dioxide, forgo-
ing quicker profi ts from sell-
ing timber. Or convincing
rural communities and con-
servationists that they should
accept power-transmission
lines crossing farms and
forests.
“It’s those kinds of policy
questions and social accep-
tance questions that are the
big challenges,” said Wil-
liams. And without poli-
cies to protect disadvantaged
communities from potential
energy cost increases, some
could be left behind.
By 2030, the path to decar-
bonization shows Washing-
tonians buying about $5 bil-
lion less worth of natural gas,
coal and petroleum products,
while putting even more dol-
lars toward cleaner vehicles
and homes. No surprise then
that oil and gas interests are
attacking the new research.
Key to decarbonizing
Cascadia are computer sim-
ulations of future conditions
known as models. Research-
ers run dozens of models, tin-
kering with diff erent vari-
ables: How much will energy
demand grow? What happens
if we can get 80% of people
into electric cars? What if it’s
only 50%?
What most drives Casca-
dia’s energy models toward
electrifi cation is the dropping
cost of renewable electricity.
Take solar energy. In 2010,
no large power system in the
world got more than 3% of
its electricity from solar. But
over the past decade solar
energy’s cost fell more than
80%, and by last year it was
delivering over 9% of Ger-
many’s electricity and over
19% of California’s.
Once prohibitively expen-
sive, solar’s price now beats
nuclear, coal and gas-fi red
power, and it’s expected to
keep getting cheaper. The
same goes for wind power,
whose jumbo jet-sized com-
posite blades bear no resem-
blance to the rickety machines
once mocked by Big Oil.
In contrast, cleaning up
gas- or coal-fi red power
plants by equipping them to
capture their carbon pollu-
tion remains expensive even
after decades of research and
development and govern-
ment incentives. Cost over-
runs and mechanical failures
recently shuttered the world’s
largest “low-carbon” coal-
fi red power plant in Texas
after less than four years of
operation.
Innovation and incen-
tives are also making equip-
ment that plugs into the
grid less expensive. Battery
advances and cost cuts have
made owning an electric car
cheaper than conventional
cars, fuel included. Electric
heat pumps — essentially
air conditioners that run in
reverse to push heat into a
building — may be the next
electric wave. They’re three
to four times more effi cient
than electric baseboard heat-
ers and save money over nat-
ural gas in most new homes.
Merran Smith, exec-
utive director of Vancou-
ver-based nonprofi t Clean
Energy Canada, says that —
as with electric cars fi ve years
ago — people don’t realize
how much heat pumps have
improved. “Heat pumps used
to be big huge noisy things,”
said Smith. “Now they’re a
fraction of the size, they’re
quiet and effi cient.”
The computer simulation
tools take an economy-wide
view. Planners can repeatedly
run scenarios through sophis-
ticated software, tinkering
with their assumptions each
time to answer cross-cutting
questions.
Evolved Energy Research,
a San Francisco-based fi rm,
analyzed the situation in
Washington. Its algorithms
are tuned using data about
energy production and use
today — down to the number
and types of furnaces, stove-
tops or vehicles. It has expert
assessments of future costs
for equipment and fuels. And
it knows the state’s mandated
emissions targets.
The model fi nds the most
cost-eff ective choices by
homes and businesses that
meet the state’s climate goals.
Modelers then account for
uncertainty by throwing in
various additional constraints
and rerunning the model.