Legalectric

A little birdie told me there was an op-ed in the STrib that I had to read.  Sure enough…

Right here in Minnesota, a windfall of bad policy

The birdie cocked his shining eye and said:

Ok, how cool is it that I now have my answer to the question “what could Carol and Jason Lewis possibly agree on?”

It’s close but not quite. Not by a long shot… and close doesn’t count.   Lewis is not doing anyone any favors with this piece.  He’s agitating by deviating away from the problems with this project, and by unreasonably tying it to selected others, both projects and people, he’s misfiring.  He may get people worked up, but they’ll miss the boat too.

Look at the way he frames sand mine opposition and AWA Goodhue Wind Project opposition, and his claim that “environmental activists” are stopping the fracking sand mine, but ignoring the on the ground environmental activists who are tracking, (photo)shooting eagles, pulling in USFWS to document the eagles.  And he’s framing mine opposition and AWA Goodhue wind opposition as separate universes when there are many opposed to both and for a variety of reasons.   He also frames it as a partisan issue when it is not — there’s strong bi-partisan support for wind.  There is strong bi-partisan opposition to wind.  Has he forgotten that the Green Chameleon was a champion of wind, coal gasification, and transmission?  Has he forgotten that Republican House Speaker Steve Sviggum bought in hook, line and sinker and promoted wind generally and C-BED specifically, that the 2005 Energy Omnibus Bill from Hell couldn’t have passed without him, and look at the way it turned out… somehow the plans for the first C-BED wind project out the chute had a turbine and substation on Sviggum’s land???  What, Lewis didn’t forget… he didn’t know?  Oh, right… uh-huh… oh, my…

And he ends on this note, which is blatant misrepresentation:

… silica sand mining (primarily used to make glass) has been a fact of life in the upper Mississippi Valley for as long as anyone can remember. In fact, there are sand- and gravel-mining operations in every county in Minnesota, according to the state Department of Natural Resources.

Really!!!  And there’s no mention of the Wabasha County silica sand mine moratorium, begun a couple months ago. Statements like that don’t do anything for his credibility, and don’t help us get any closer to a turn-around of the PUC decision.

I do trust my “little birdie” doesn’t really think Jason Lewis is expressing my take on this!!!

Here’s the whole thing, get out the waders:

Right here in Minnesota, a windfall of bad policy

September 17, 2011 – 3:32 PM

Wind-energy projects are damaging to nature, to taxpayers and to residents, but onward they buzz.

If you want to know what’s wrong with the nation’s energy policy, look no further than Goodhue County, Minn.

Environmental activists are blocking a job-creating and profitable sand-mining operation that is vital to the newest energy technology that’s releasing copious amounts of shale gas and oil from far beneath the Earth’s surface. Meanwhile, the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission is ramming through a taxpayer-subsidized, 78-megawatt wind farm that promises little in the way of abundant or affordable power.

Indeed, were it not for the sophistry of the political entrepreneurs behind America’s newfound obsession with wind, the citizens of Goodhue County might be casting their lot with the likes of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., last seen chasing wind developers out of Hyannis Port. They might also be enjoying the economic benefits of domestic energy exploration.

Instead, it now appears that residents justifiably alarmed with the placing of more than 300 massive wind turbines in their back yards have but one last chance to stop the Texas-based AWA Goodhue Wind project.

The county is asking for reconsideration of the PUC’s June site permit allowing T. Boone Pickens to dump his surplus of GE wind turbines in Minnesota after similar plans in the Lone Star State failed a basic test of supply and demand. Let’s hope, for the taxpayers’ sake, that it succeeds.

Pickens, who has a knack for publicizing energy policies that coincidentally include his own projects is set to cash in on both federal and state subsidies for going “green” in Goodhue.

Thanks in part to Democratic U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar’s dogged effort in extending federal “renewable energy credits,” AWA Goodhue will no doubt share in the $23-per-megawatt-hour “windfall” reaped by solar and wind projects nationally.

Oh, and in case you’re wondering, the Energy Information Administration reports that, by comparison, subsidies for coal and natural gas come in at just 44 and 25 cents per megawatt hour, respectively.

It gets worse.

State Rep. Tim Kelly, R-Red Wing, is calling on the PUC to decertify the project as a Community Based Energy Development eligible for the Minnesota’s CBED tariff (read rate hike) in the Power Purchasing Agreement between Xcel Energy and AWA Goodhue — if for no other reason that the word “community” in this case statutorily means based in Minnesota, not Texas.

The Minnesota PUC, like successive Republican and Democratic administrations, seems hellbent on ending local control over wind developments that swallow up thousands of acres, relying instead on the state’s renewable energy standards.

Enacted under the euphemistic title of “next-generation energy” legislation in 2007, the ill-advised mandate means that Minnesota utilities are now busy passing along the costs to ratepayers.

Because generating power from wind is about as reliable as, well, the weather, utilities will still need to pay for steadier sources as backup. As a result, a Beacon Hill Institute study says the average Minnesota household will have paid an extra $1,814 for electricity by the time the standards are fully implemented.

Regardless of the economics, it’s becoming quite obvious that these mammoth wind developments are every bit as damaging to Mother Nature as anything the fossil-fuel industry could dream up.

For the price of intermittent power, nearby homeowners put up with 400-foot towers with flashing lights; high-voltage transmission lines; flickering shadows from 95-foot rotors, along with the potential for dangerous ice shards flying off the blades during winter, and near-constant high- and low-frequency background noise disturbing to the human ear.

Estimates vary as to how many birds are slaughtered each year due to wind power, but it’s certainly in the tens of thousands.

The Washington Post reports that “one of the nation’s largest wind farms, the Altamont Pass Wind Resource Area near Livermore, Calif., has killed an average of nearly 2,000 raptors annually, including more than 500 eagles, over four years, according to federal agencies and bird watchers.” Hardly good news for the bald eagle along the Mississippi flyway for migratory birds.

Where’s the Endangered Species Act when you need it?

Meanwhile, hope for a more-sensible energy future remains hostage to a few activists who get their talking points from movies like “Gasland” (environmentalists used to love natural gas until they realized you had to drill for it). Hydraulic fracturing, known pejoratively as “fracking,” has the potential to dramatically alter America’s economic landscape by lowering the costs of domestic energy production.

The Rand Corp. (a nonprofit research organization) says there are 800 billion barrels of recoverable shale oil — three times the reserves of Saudi Arabia — in the United States alone. Remarkably, “if the full potential of domestic oil and gas production could be achieved while also increasing imports from Canadian oil, all of America’s liquid fuels could come from secure North American sources within 15 years,” notes the American Petroleum Institute in a study released last week.

One key component of fracture drilling is silica sand, ubiquitous in the sandstone bluffs throughout southeastern Minnesota. That’s why another Texas company, Windsor Permian, wants to start constructing sand mines and transportation facilities in and around Red Wing for its operations in the lucrative Permian basin. And it plans to do it with no “renewable energy credits” or state CBED tariffs.

It seems that something which is viable needs no subsidy — while all the subsidies in the world won’t make viable that which isn’t.

Alas, the Goodhue County Board adopted a one-year de facto moratorium on the Windsor project earlier this month, despite the fact that silica sand mining (primarily used to make glass) has been a fact of life in the upper Mississippi Valley for as long as anyone can remember. In fact, there are sand- and gravel-mining operations in every county in Minnesota, according to the state Department of Natural Resources.

No matter, because for now our energy future is just blowin’ in the wind.

* * *

Jason Lewis is a nationally syndicated talk-show host based in Minneapolis-St. Paul and is the author of “Power Divided is Power Checked: The Argument for States’ Rights” from Bascom Hill Publishing. He can be heard from 5 to 8 p.m. weekdays on NewsTalk Radio (1130 AM) or online at jasonlewisshow.com.

Yesterday, we filed Motions for Reconsideration of the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission Order regarding the AWA Goodhue (a/k/a T. Boone Pickens) Wind Project:

PUC Order – AWA Goodhue Wind Project Permit

What’s really weird about it is that not only is there a PUC Order where the ALJ’s Findings of Fact, Conclusions of Law and Recommendation is adopted, with a few amendments and deletions, but there’s an “EFP” Order too, with the Energy Facilities Permitting writing their own separate overlapping “Findings.”  Ummmmm…. who the hell is EFP to be writing Findings? When do intervenors get a chance to comment on them??? This is a very bizarre morphing that is not addressed anywhere in the rules.  I can see EFP briefing papers, but Findings… and Findings that aren’t even cited?  WTF?

Anyway, here’s what’s been filed, starting with my client, Goodhue Wind Truth:

GWT – Reconsideration – Site Permit

GWT – Reopen Based on New Information

GWT – Reconsideration – Certificate of Need

There are a lot of  others, will post later, this is painfully slow…

Demand is down, ja, we know that, you betcha… and it seems word is finally getting out!

And we know those utilities and how badly they want to “prove” need, but hey, bullshit by any other name smells as sweet!

Reserve margins are at an all time high and projected to get higher, from the 2010 NERC Long Term Reliability Assessment:

And then there’s the MISO State of the Market Report agreeing:

Including all demand response capability, we estimate a planning reserve margin in the range of 28 percent to 37 percent depending on the summer capability of the resources that are assumed.  These margins substantially exceed MISO’s planning reserve requirements that have recently increased from 15 percent to 17 percent.

p. iii, Ex. Summary, 2010 MISO State of the Market Report.    Increased required reserve margins?  Hmmmmm, part of their hype on transmission build-out was that it would DECREASE reserve margins… but hey, they said “competition would decrease prices” didn’t they… and they ARE, but not for US, cost of electricity is only lower for those elsewhere, and not for those of us in a “low cost” state.  Consider Xcel’s request to raise electric rates 37.5% over the next 5 years…

And here is Associated Press saying what we already know…

Shocker: Power demand from US homes is falling

By JONATHAN FAHEY, AP Energy Writer – 23 hours ago

NEW YORK (AP) — American homes are more cluttered than ever with devices, and they all need power: Cellphones and iPads that have to be charged, DVRs that run all hours, TVs that light up in high definition.

But something shocking is happening to demand for electricity in the Age of the Gadget: It’s leveling off.

Over the next decade, experts expect residential power use to fall, reversing an upward trend that has been almost uninterrupted since Thomas Edison invented the modern light bulb.

In part it’s because Edison’s light bulb is being replaced by more efficient types of lighting, and electric devices of all kinds are getting much more efficient. But there are other factors.

New homes are being built to use less juice, and government subsidies for home energy savings programs are helping older homes use less power. In the short term, the tough economy and a weak housing market are prompting people to cut their usage.

Read the rest of this entry »

Yesterday at the Fair…

There’s Alan at the booth, and note the guy in the green…

As you all know, I’ve got a lot on my plate, what with utility money-mongers trying to remake their world, and ours… and all this flap about “gay marriage” is what I regard as a political distraction from the harm the right is doing with their mutant and malignant capitalism.  But yesterday at the “Our State Fair is a Great State Fair” some people really got to me with their hateful and absurd agenda.  As Alan asked, “Why do you care about this?”  What is it that drives someone to sit at a little wooden booth in the sun all day to argue that someone who is gay should not be able to marry their partner?  I passed the “Minnesota for Marriage” booth in disgust, noting there was a video camera on a tripod at the southern end of the booth.  And Alan, fresh from a visit to the Republican building, wanted to have a chat.  He’s such a quiet and calm questioner, and is able to elicit the most amazing statement from people in any venue.  He did it again.  He went up to the booth and began to ask a woman there some questions.  The first, “Why do you care about this?”  And instead of responding, she said “Do you mind if I ask you a couple questions?” and he said, demeanor well depicted above, ‘Well, actually, I do, I asked you a question, why do you care about this?”

Note the guy in the green…

After I took this photo, I turned to catch the full booth…

… and the woman on the left told me I can’t take photos.  Excuse me?  I said I could and did!  She demanded to know who I was taking it for, and I said, “For me, Carol A. Overland, legalectric.org, you’ll find it there if you’re interested.”  She again said I couldn’t take photos, and that I have to get permission and fill out a form, it’s “down there” waving toward the other end.  She also said one of the others at the other end was an attorney… (drat, should have had a chat with THAT person, maybe it was the guy in green, though I think she may have meant the woman talking to Alan).  I told her I don’t have to sign anything… Then I ask whether their agenda includes outlawing D-I-V-O-R-C-E (!) and she gets pissed and hollers that I’m off point.  EH?  MOI?  OFF POINT?  I’m asking the question, and that’s my point.

The guy in the green comes over and gets very close into my space and in front of me and says “we’ve had about enough” and I’m just getting going, so I say, “OK, great, I’ll get your photo too” and got out the camera again, this time catching him with the camera and camera guy that was off to the left — what were they doing with that video camera:

So were they filming everyone who came up to the booth???  It was positioned to get the front of the booth… Hmmmmm… anyway, at this point I left to sit in the shade and catch up with Alan after he finished.

The punchline?  The woman he was talking to had been scripted to ask questions, and to get you to a point where you agreed that there should be some limits on who could marry, and actually told him, “You know, in Europe, people are marrying animals!”  He asked what country and what animals, and she didn’t know… uh-huh, right… so logically, we NEED this amendment in Minnesota so we won’t be marrying animals.  Alan missed his opportunity to tell her all about our wonderful German Shepherds who we so love…

Their “Minnesota for Marriage” website has no “About Us” information, not one name there, it’s an anonymous shell, “powered by ACT Right.com” where:

You choose your favorite candidates, causes, and actions, tell your friends, and get to work immediately helping the right people and organizations instantly. If you are pro-life, pro-second amendment, and pro-traditional marriage, want to support the Susan B. Anthony List, the National Organization for Marriage and the NRA, while helping a House candidate in Texas and a Senate candidate in Maine, you can do it at ActRight.com .

Minnesota for Marriage is registered as a Ballot Question group: Minnesota for Marriage

Here’s their 2010 Lobbying Report, via Minnesota Family Council fax.

595 arrested so far… There’s been a lot online about opposition to the Keystone XL pipeline for Tar Sands oil.

TAR SANDS ACTION

I’m looking at all of this and I’m wondering where the resistance was to the MinnCan pipeline, just one of our own tar sands crude oil pipeline through Minnesota.  Why is the Keystone XL pipeline project special?  Why are people waking up about tar sands pipelines?  Is it because Keystone XL is a “Presidential Permit” project at the Dept. of State?

MPIRG helped some of the landowners affected by MinnCan organize after they got very late notice they were potentially affected, but they lost bigtime, were denied intervention status by the ALJ because they were “late,” and then after it was permitted, booted out of the Appellate Court because they were not formal intervenors.  As they were in condemnation court for the pipeline, they got notice that they were targeted for CapX 2020 transmission.  At that point they became dyed-in-the-wool activists and joined with NoCapX 2020 as intervenors, in the Certificate of Need case and subsequent routing dockets for CapX transmission across Minnesota, right now in the Hampton-LaCrosse CapX 2020 routing docket .

For more info, here’s the MinnCan routing docket at PUC:

http://energyfacilities.puc.state.mn.us/Docket.html?Id=18339

Here is a link to a post with the Appellate decision:

Appellate court affirms PUC in pipeline appeal

Here are county maps, from Clearwater Co. down to the refinery in Dakota County:

http://energyfacilities.puc.state.mn.us/resource.html?Id=19000

And the Certificate of Need, go hear and search for docket “06-02” (year-docket no.)

https://www.edockets.state.mn.us/EFiling/edockets/searchDocuments.do?method=showeDocketsSearch&searchType=new

Here’re some other tar sands pipelines in Minnesota, completed:

The “Alberta Clipper” pipeline project:

http://energyfacilities.puc.state.mn.us/Docket.html?Id=19203

And another Enbridge “Southern Lights” oil pipeline project

http://energyfacilities.puc.state.mn.us/Docket.html?Id=19133