Legalectric

Seems Mike Wadley, Site V.P. at Prairie Island Nuclear Generating Plant, heard the squeaky wheel, joined now by several other squeaky wheels, and will dig around and find out what’s up with the Prairie Island relicensing applications.  Sounds like one is at the Red Wing library.  I’m holding out for a hard copy, as I told him, I think I deserve on, each of the 4-5 volumes in a gold plated binder.  We’ll see…

… or is it Bitch & Kvetch… Google Analytics, it’s a wonderful thing, it leads me places I have no clue existed and asking questions that leaves me wondering just exactly how many people are spending way too much time on their computer. The tracking shows searches, what someone was digging around about before they landed on my site, and some are inexplicable, like the regular searches for Andrew Borene, who cares, or the constant searches for “shit” or Krispy Kreme.” Others are more understandable, like “coal gasification” and “Outland transmission line” and “Big Stone combustion waste - where does it go?” and “certificate of need corrupt.” Then there’s the ones by people I figure I must know and if I don’t, I should, like “Ken Lay is not dead” and “rip their eyes out Greg Davids” (remember him???!!! eeeeuw), or “Lenka Dusilova + credits” or bust a gut ones like “what are the positive aspects of coal?” and… and … and others send me right to google, where I figure something’s up that I should know about, like “technological leprosy” and “warrick project flour india” and “use of sludge as pozzalan in concrete,” and today’s favorite: “can’t sell my Black & Veatch stock.”

Turns out that Black & Veatch, if you believe what you read on the internet, has an employee stock ownership plan. Which then got me thinking about whether, with all these plants going down, if the conslutants take it in the shorts if a project doesn’t go forward for one reason or another. Many of the folks working on Mesaba are doing it on spec. What about the biggies, do they get paid, get paid a percentage, how does it work? With so many coal plants going down, and if they had to take a hit on each, maybe that’s connected with the query? If that’s you out there, let me know what’s up!!!

Anyway, when I was googling around, I found this week’s “Energy Strategies Report,” which is looking at financial picture of the electric industry. Watching all these plants go down, watching stocks downgraded, watching the industry, and the coal sector in particular, coal plants specifically, watching these downgraded as investments, oh, it makes my day. So here’s another of the gloom and doom reports, and it’s very well written, meaning that it’s easy to read and understand, and it’s taking from my favorite sources, like NERC, lots of good little gems to be found:

NERC 2007 Reliability Assessment

Here’s the report that made my week, already, in just a quick scan:

Energy Strategies - Black & Veatch - March 3, 2008

My favorite quote? Ya gotta love it:

To put it less charitably than Moody’s, the invester-owned sector now teeters on the cusp of non-investment grade (junk) status.

Hee hee hee hee hee hee, it’s pretty hard to hide the economics of these hare-brained schemes. And they’re getting smacked upside the head with it. ‘Bout time… more comments later after I’ve had a chance to really read it.

Today is day two of a coal, or NO coal, conference in Houston. The weather is BEA-UUU-TI-FUL, but internet connection is sketchy, so before I lose it, here’s the presentation from this a.m. from moi, Nancy LaPlaca and Alan Muller:

IGCC - Pipedreams of Green and Clean

More later…

Today’s StPPP reports that Rep. Ken Tschumper is taking on ethanol, demanding environmental review. THANK YOU, KEN! Here’s the article:

Lawmaker proposes environmental review of new ethanol plants

BY DENNIS LIEN
Pioneer Press
Article Last Updated: 02/08/2008 04:03:42 PM CST

A southern Minnesota lawmaker said today he plans to introduce a bill in the state House next week that would require mandatory environmental reviews of all new ethanol plants.
State Rep. Ken Tschumper, DFL-LaCrescent, said such plants have environmental impacts, and should face the same types of scientific study that many other large ventures undergo. Besides using substantial quantities of groundwater and polluting the air, corn-based ethanol plants have led to increases in soil erosion, fertilizer runoff, and herbicide use, according to Tschumper.

Large ethanol plants have been exempted from environmental reviews in Minnesota since 2004, Tschumper said.

Minnesota has 17 ethanol plants producing 675 million gallons of the fuel a year, with another four under construction. Almost a dozen other ethanol plants have been proposed or are in their early planning stages, according to the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency.

This will go to the House Environment Committee.

CLICK HERE for House Environment Committee members & contact info. 

Here’s his own press release with a little more detail:

NEWS RELEASE

TSCHUMPER PROPOSES ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT STATEMENTS FOR ETHANOL PLANTS
ROCHESTER, MN - State Representative Ken Tschumper (DFL - Houston and Fillmore counties) announced new legislation today that would require mandatory Environmental Impact Statements (EIS) for all new ethanol plants in Minnesota. Facilities that produce ethanol in Minnesota are currently exempt from having to do an EIS in most cases.

“Congress and various state legislatures have passed generous subsidies to promote the development and expansion of ethanol plants and mandated various levels of ethanol content in gasoline,” Tschumper commented. “Some states, including Minnesota, have gone even farther by exempting ethanol production facilities from the normal environmental review and regulation that such projects of similar size would undergo in other sectors of the economy.”

However in the last several years existing ethanol facilities have expanded and new plants are proposed that are much larger than in the past.

“The environmental impacts of this expanding ethanol production are causing great concern,” Tschumper emphasized. “Huge demands on groundwater, increased air pollution, heavy demands for rail transportation, increased soil erosion and fertilizer runoff, negative impacts on livestock prices and the increased use of atrazine, (a pesticide known to cause prostrate and uterine cancer in humans) are impacting our lives, our financial stability, and our environment.”

This is especially true for Minnesota. Many of the rural areas where ethanol plants exist or are proposed also have important livestock farming, especially in southern Minnesota.

“As we all know, the most important resource we have in southern Minnesota is our abundant, high quality supply of groundwater. Our livestock industry is very dependent on this critical resource, ” Tschumper, a dairy farmer himself, added.

Since the Groundwater Protection Act was passed in 1989, the State of Minnesota, working with county governments, has engaged in many initiatives to monitor and protect our precious groundwater resources.

“Unfortunately our groundwater resources on which our livestock industry is so dependent, is now being threatened by this new generation of ethanol plants. I plan on doing everything I can to protect our groundwater and our livestock industry,” Tschumper promised.

Ethanol production uses 5-6 gallons of high quality groundwater for every gallon of ethanol produced. An ethanol plant capable of producing 100 million gallons of ethanol annually will draw 500 million to 600 million gallons of water from an aquifer annually. This tremendous draw down in such a short period of time will challenge the ability of many aquifers to recharge themselves and will expose cleaner, higher quality aquifers to more pollution from pesticides and fertilizers. This has long-term implications for not only our livestock farming but also our small towns and other rural businesses.

Environmental Impact Statements are a complete scientific study of all the environmental, economic and health impacts of a proposed project.

“It is important to understand that Environmental Impact Statements do not halt projects,” said Rep. Tschumper. “They simply provide more science-based information as to the long-term consequences of these projects for our environment, our economy, and our health. Requiring an EIS for all future ethanol production facilities is reasonable, responsible and necessary.”

The EIS process that ethanol facilities will do under this legislation is similar to the standard environmental review required for projects of similar size in other sectors of the economy.

“Many large industrial and commercial projects in Minnesota are required to complete an Environmental Impact Statement before they can be built,” said Rep. Tschumper. “Prior to 2004, ethanol plants of a certain size were required to do the same, but they were exempted from this requirement that same year. Clearly that was a mistake given the growing environmental concerns surrounding current ethanol production practices.”

Rep. Tschumper will introduce his bill when the legislative session resumes February 12, 2008.

Mikey Bull’s been busy… he was promoting this last night, though earlier he’d said it would be a while before something came out in writing.  Well, wait no longer…

Here it is, warm off the press:

Cover Letter to Senate and House Energy Chairs

Preliminary Climate Change Action Plan

Here’s what jumps out at me that sucks (yes, Mikey, to critique is to live, it is my job):

Remove the barriers to and encourage development of Combined Heat and Power (CHP) projects.

Repeal the state’s moratorium on new nuclear energy facilities.

Reduce regulatory barriers by eliminating the Certificate of Need requirement for generation and transmission facilities needed to meet the renewable energy standard.

Create renewable energy “zones” and “corridors” to streamline the regulatory, environmental and siting review process for new renewable energy generation facilities and transmission lines.

Support the creation of incentives aimed at bioenergy facilities that use biomass as an energy feedstock to lower their carbon footprint.

Define wastwater sludge and byproducts as biomass and define wastewater sludge and the organic portion of solid waste and organic byproducts of each as renewable fuels.

Cap and Trade Implementation - SHOULD BE CAP AND TAX!

Advance Coal and Carbon Capture and Storage — the Midwest Regional Commitment on coal use for electricity generation is that by 2020, all new coal gasification and coal combustion plants will capture and store CO2 emissions.

And the best thing, I guess the only thing that excites me about this plan, is recycling increase, although I’d previously heard it was 75%, not 50%:

• Expand waste reduction, recycling, composting and management efforts:

• Increase further recycling and source reduction rates in Minnesota. Minnesota has reduced GHG emissions from the solid waste sector by 14% since 1990 by having the second highest recycling rates in the country and landfill gas emissions controls.

• Support increased source reduction and the interim goal of achieving a 50% statewiderecycling rate by January 2011, through efforts including:

- Recycle More Minnesota Campaign
- Office paper and junk mail reduction
- Waste reduction in the grocery sector
- Electronics recycling
- Telephone book reductions
- Increased beverage container recycling

OK, folks, comments???