Alaska

Apple introduced the emergency SOS satellite feature with iPhone 14 series. The feature went live in the US and Canada a few weeks back. Now, a man is crediting the emergency feature to save his life when he found himself stranded in the mountains of Alaska.…

The iPhone 14's Emergency SOS via satellite feature was launched last month and, according to a new report, it has already saved at least one person.As reported by the Department of Public Safety, on December 1st around two o'clock in the morning, Alaskan State Troopers were notified that "an adult male traveling via snowmachine from Noorvik to Kotzebue had activated an Apple iPhone Emergency SOS via satellite on his iPhone after becoming stranded."The NWAB SAR worked with Apple's Emergency Response Center and local…

People walk down the elevated, raised wooden sidewalks - created so people don’t sink into the melting permafrost - on July 5, 2015 in Newtok, Alaska.Photo: Andrew Burton (Getty Images)Three Native American communities are receiving millions of dollars from the federal government to relocate due to climate change-related risks to their homes, the U.S. Department of the Interior said in an announcement today.Three communities—one in Washington state and two in Alaska—will each receive $25 million from the Interior to help…

The US Interior Department today announced that an oil and gas lease sale for Alaska’s Cook Inlet will take place on December 30 – a concession made to Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV) so that he’d vote for the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). Oil and gas lease sale in Alaska The Interior Department’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) issued a final notice of sale today for 958,202 acres off Alaska’s south central coast. The IRA directed BOEM to hold the sale by December 31,…

JUNEAU, Alaska —  Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski and Democratic Rep. Mary Peltola have both defeated Trump-backed challengers to win reelection in Alaska.Murkowski beat GOP rival Kelly Tshibaka, who had former President Trump’s endorsement, in the Nov. 8 ranked-choice election. The results were announced Wednesday, after election officials tabulated the ranked results because neither candidate had won more than 50% of first-choice votes. Murkowski wound up with 54% after picking up a majority of the votes cast for…

The Defense Department’s pursuit of carbon-free power has led to solar generation at Sun Belt bases from Florida to California, and geothermal systems at installations with suitable geologies. But what of Alaska? Deep winter there brings less than four hours of direct sun daily, and thawing permafrost—itself driven by climate change—threatens the very existence of some bases. Eielson Air Force Base may have a solution: micro-scale nuclear energy. Last month, the Air Force issued a request for proposals to construct a…

The following essay is reprinted with permission from The Conversation, an online publication covering the latest research. The powerful remnants of Typhoon Merbok pounded Alaska’s western coast on Sept. 17, 2022, pushing homes off their foundations and tearing apart protective berms as water flooded communities. Storms aren’t unusual here, but Merbok built up over unusually warm water. Its waves reached 50 feet over the Bering Sea, and its storm surge sent water levels into communities at near record highs along with…

A flooded road is seen during the passage of hurricane Fiona in Villa Blanca, Puerto Rico, on September 18th, 2022. | Photo by JOSE RODRIGUEZ / AFP via Getty Images The US was caught in the crosshairs of both the Atlantic hurricane and Pacific typhoon seasons over the weekend, which saw storms deal heavy blows to communities across both Puerto Rico and Alaska. More than 1.3 million customers are still without power in Puerto Rico today after Hurricane Fiona tore through the island on Sunday.…

Sustainable aviation fuel, commonly called SAF, has so far been expensive to produce, but new startups are now creating clean fuels out of carbon at a much cheaper cost. Now, new tax credits for clean fuel production from the recently signed Inflation Reduction Act could propel these companies further faster.Most SAF is made out of organic vegetable oils, but Twelve, a chemical technology company based in Berkeley, California, is making fuel out of carbon. It just announced a collaboration with Alaska Airlines and…

In the summer of 2019, Roman Dial and his friend Brad Meiklejohn hired a single-engine bush plane out of Kotzebue, on the northwest coast of Alaska. Even those wings could only get them within a five-day hike of where they wanted to be: deep in the tundra, where Dial had noticed peculiar shadows showing up in satellite images. On the fourth day of that hike, the pair was walking along a caribou trail when Meiklejohn yelled, “Stop!” Dial thought his friend had seen a bear. But it was something more troubling: a stand of…