Energy Resources: Policy and Administration

Northwest Energy Policy and the Columbia River

Reviewing the history, politics and institutions influencing current energy policy and Columbia River management issues in the Pacific Northwest.

Engage with a stellar list of guest speakers during our annual spring seminar on Northwest Energy Policy and the Columbia River. This seminar explores the extraordinary changes taking place in the realm of energy policy, and their implications for the Northwest electric utility industry, its consumers, the economy, the Columbia River, salmon, and the environment.  We will begin by examining the origins and history of Northwest energy policy. We will explore the reasons behind the development of an unusually strong federal role in energy policy within the Columbia Basin, the politics behind the creation of the Bonneville Power Administration, the negotiation of the Columbia River Treaty, the passage of the Northwest Power Act of 1980, the role of the Northwest Power and Conservation Council, and significant recent developments and controversies affecting the Northwest's electric power industry.

Next, some of the Northwest's top energy policy makers and analysts will join us to discuss and debate several of the most important “hot topics” currently under discussion, and explore their implications for the future of the region's economy and vitality of the Columbia River ecosystem. Optional field trips will also be available. For example, we will examine:

• The connections between the power generation from fossil fuels and climate change, and the new strategies the Northwest Power and Conservation Council, Oregon, and its neighboring states are developing to reduce the carbon footprint of the Northwest Power System.
• The rapid growth of renewable energy, including wind and wave power, to complement energy efficiency and other sustainable alternatives, and the important challenges the region must resolve before large amounts of intermittent and variable power sources such a wind and solar can be integrated into the regional power system.
• The new vision for delivering electricity through the “Smart Grid.” The digital world is changing the electricity world from a slow thinking, low innovation business low-innovation business into a real-rime creative world. The “Smart Grid” will be designed to self-heal, motivate and include the customer, resist attack, provide higher power quality, accommodate all generation and storage options, and be more environmentally friendly, safe, efficient and economic. But there are some big questions ahead about how to best make the transition to this new paradigm.
• The current proposals for liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminals along the Columbia River and the Oregon coast and new pipelines. Is LNG a clean and necessary bridge fuel in the transition to a low carbon energy future or a bad option at any time?
• New developments in integrated resource planning at the regional and utility levels.
• The latest developments in the continuing struggle over competing visions of the Columbia River's primary role: a “working river” that gives priority to human needs through hydropower, irrigation, navigation and other economic services; and a “natural river” that places a higher priority on the needs salmon and other fish and wildlife.