Legalectric

Jorgensen’s got to get over it — Mesaba is done, ain’t happening, dead, dead dead, yet she’s spinning those tales and hype about Excelsior Energy’s Mesaba IGCC Project.  From the first words in the title, it’s lies, lies and more lies, oh, and misrepresentations and falsehoods and exaggerations and utter bullshit too!  Why does the St. Paul Pioneer Press give her space forthis advertising of the nonsensical kind?

Here’s what Citizens Against the Mesaba Projet’s Charlotte Neigh had to say about it:

Julie Jorgensen is using the opportune hook of the Copenhagen conference to repeat Excelsior Energy’s same old, self-serving promotional claims about the “clean coal” technology of its Mesaba Energy Project. One must wonder why the Press unquestioningly allots opinion space to the promoter of a precarious for-profit venture, financed almost exclusively by $40 million in public funds, which have been benefiting the author and her co-founder husband, Tom Micheletti.

What Jorgensen didn’t say:

• The U.N. negotiators in Copenhagen decided to leave carbon capture and storage, the prime objective of the IGCC technology touted by Excelsior Energy, off the list of clean-energy projects eligible for the Clean Development Mechanism; the 12/17/09 Wall Street Journal reported that “clean coal seems to be getting the cold shoulder at the climate summit”, and  “. . .  clean coal is anything but viable right now”.

• Mesaba’s Unit I would emit 5 million tons of carbon dioxide per year and the Department of Energy has acknowledged that capturing and sequestering the CO2 from the proposed Taconite plant is not feasible.

• The claimed economic benefit has been rejected by the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission, which found the project too expensive and risky and not in the public interest.

• The need for this Project has never been proven; no utility is willing to buy its output; Xcel Energy successfully resisted efforts to force it into a power purchase agreement; and the MPUC has declined to require other utilities in the state to include Mesaba’s output in their resource plans.

• The environmental claims are yet to be adjudicated as the MPUC considers the route and siting permits and other government agencies pursue their concerns related to air, water and waste permits.

Is Jorgensen’s piece really that bad?  See for yourself:

Julie Jorgensen: We need baseload power. Coal’s plentiful. Let’s clean it up

By Julie Jorgensen
Updated: 12/17/2009 05:54:25 PM CST

As heads of government gather in my ancestral home of Denmark, the world considers its energy options.

The challenge for Copenhagen is that commitments to cut greenhouse gas emissions are at odds with the plans of developing nations to rely on inexpensive fossil energy to fuel economic growth and improve their standard of living. Developed nations, meanwhile, fear that mandated greenhouse gas reductions will tax economic recovery and prolong global recession. Diplomacy is the art of the achievable, and these realities will be balanced against concerns about the effect of man-made carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases on Earth’s climate.

On the home front, there are plenty of competing concerns to consider as we address our energy needs. But there are two things our local energy experts agree on: Minnesota has an impending need for more baseload power, and renewables can’t do the job alone.

For baseload — that is, the steady supply of electricity for everything from factories to home outlets — Minnesotans must take a long, hard look at the most abundant resource in our own backyard: coal. Not old-fashioned, dirty, polluting coal, but coal used to fuel a new technology called IGCC, which stands for Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle. In addition to producing clean, affordable energy, such plants would allow us to transform America’s 250-year supply of coal into ultra-clean fuels like synthetic natural gas, transportation fuels, and hydrogen.

I’m the co-founder of Excelsior Energy, which is developing the Mesaba Energy Project, an IGCC power plant near the town of Taconite on Minnesota’s Iron Range. From my point of view, IGCC offers economic and environmental benefits to Minnesota. The Midwest is poised be a leader in the delivery of this technology. Gov. Tim Pawlenty and the Minnesota Legislature have supported the development of Minnesota’s IGCC plant, the Mesaba Energy Project, since 2003, and the project has been exempted from a statewide prohibition against new coal plants. Eleven Midwest governors established a collective goal to spur construction of at least five commercial-scale IGCC plants by 2015, and President Obama announced a goal to build five such “first-of-a-kind” clean coal plants. The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has provided significant funding and incentives to the Mesaba Project to offset the costs of needed innovation.

Adoption of IGCC technology is essential to cleaning up coal and mitigating climate change.

IGCC plants use less water, use less land, create less waste, and emit two-thirds less air pollution than the cleanest of the traditional coal plants that currently deliver most of our electricity. In addition, IGCC plants clean a volume of gas that is a mere 1/100th of the stream pouring out of the smokestacks at the Sherco coal plant in Becker and the Boswell coal plant in Cohasset. This makes it easier and cheaper to prevent the release of carbon dioxide, which is essential in the face of potential climate change regulation.

As fears mount about global warming, environmental advocates like the Clean Air Task Force and the Natural Resources Defense Council support the timely and widespread commercialization of IGCC technology. From a global perspective, the importance of commercializing a cleaner way to use coal cannot be understated: both India and China have vast coal reserves, which they will inevitably use in the cheapest and easiest possible ways to fuel their growing economies.

Nuclear power faces major obstacles. Plans for a federal nuclear waste repository have been scrapped. The Obama Administration stopped the DOE’s development of the Yucca Mountain repository, originally slated to begin accepting waste in 1998, without providing an alternative storage plan. As a result, we will store nuclear waste on the banks of the Mississippi River for the foreseeable future.

Additionally, the costs of new nuclear facilities may put them out of reach.

Even if the Legislature lifts Minnesota’s ban on new nuclear plants, it will be at least 20 years before a new plant could be licensed and built in Minnesota, given the long and costly lead-times. Simply put, new nuclear capacity cannot meet our current needs.

While the eyes of the world are on Copenhagen, it’s appropriate for Minnesotans to ponder our own impending energy crisis. Since renewables and conservation can’t meet all of our new energy needs, we must make some difficult choices that ultimately will involve coal-fired, natural gas-fired, and nuclear energy sources. Marrying new IGCC technology with the abundance of U.S. coal makes clean coal the most rational choice for our state.

Julie Jorgensen is the former CEO of CogenAmerica, a publicly traded independent power company, and a former executive of NRG Energy, a global energy development company. She’s a co-founder of Excelsior Energy Inc., which is developing a coal gasification plant near Taconite on Minnesota’s Iron Range. Her e-mail address is JulieJorgensen@ExcelsiorEnergy.com.

From ECM article…

On Monday, citizens of Lent Township organized a Special Meeting, as allowed under statute, and told the Town Board what they thought of LS Power’s Sunrise River Energy Station.  The hands raised you see in the photo is the vote telling the board that they should not approve a development agreement with LS Power.

The people say NO, but the township, the following day, went ahead and approved the Development Agreement:

Power Plant Gets Township Approval

And a view from the trenches:

We the PEOPLE – found in the Fish Lake Karpa

And here’s the report from the Post Review:

Citizens’ vote was to nix power plant

By MaryHelen Swanson

There were a few empty chairs, but if those standing at the back of the room had all wanted to sit, the attendance would still be considered “standing room only.”

lent meeting1.jpgThat was the scene at Lent Town Hall Monday night as a special citizen-petitioned meeting got underway.

The folks were divided by Lent residency and non-residency.

There were separate sign-in sheets and designated seating areas.

Called to order by Lent Township Clerk Laura LeVasseur, it soon became the people’s meeting when they elected Mark Koran moderator.

First order of business was the Pledge of Allegiance.

With the agenda adopted, resident Dave Milles introduced a resolution which was adopted by the people with no audible nays.

Milles went on to read the resolution.

It noted three things that were expected to happen that night:
• openly and publicly review and discuss the final draft of the development agreement by and among Lent Township and Sunrise River Energy, LLC (also known as LS Power) prior to any official vote of the Lent Township board to approve and/or sign the development agreement;

• to present and vote on a resolution requiring a public referendum on the question of approval or disapproval of any development agreement by the township and energy group prior to any official vote of the Lent township board to approve and/or sign the development agreement;

• and to present and vote on a resolution requiring Lent Township board to comply with the results of the referendum when taking any action or vote to approve and or sign the development agreement.

All of the above was accomplished Monday night.
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“HOT” off the press from Stop the Poles!  The Atlantic City Electric substation in southern New Jersy went up in flames today.

And as to the article below, keep in mind that this is one big honkin’ substation — “distribution” — I don’t think so…

How does a substation burn?!?!?!?!?!   Apparently it’s the plastic wall around it that’s on fire, the “sound” wall, but how could that be? How could that burn?  And I’ve heard that emergency crews can’t get near it,they’re on the scene, but aren’t allowed to get close.  That’s them banded together to the left of the line, and that’s the substation on the left.   Must be pretty intense toxic emissions?!?!?!

Here’s another photo:

Fire reported at Atlantic City Electric Co.’s Orchard Substation in Upper Pittsgrove

By Today’s Sunbeam
December 14, 2009, 4:36PM

UPPER PITTSGROVE TWP. — A fire has been reported at Atlantic City Electric’s Orchard Substation on Bridgeton Road here this afternoon.

Several Salem County fire companies have been called to the scene.

One nearby resident told Today’s Sunbeam that those living near the station had been told to temporarily leave their homes, although this could not be immediately confirmed through official channels.

Heavy smoke to could be seen in the area.

The cause of the fire is still unknown.

The new station is part of Atlantic City Electric’s power distribution network in South Jersey.

Difficulties are growing for “backbone” transmission for coal in the east.  Not long ago, Virginia staff had asked the Commission to deny the PATH proposal.  Now, after the hearing ended, after reviewing testimony, staff has again recommended the petition be denied.  This is the project where Maryland tossed it out because the applicant was not a public service corporations.  If one end of the project is taken out, it’s a project going nowhere.

West Virginia declined to dismiss the application, and instead has taken action, or taken inaction:

W.Va. delays power line decision until February 2011.

Now it’s time for Virginia’s reality orientation.

Va. staff again recommends denial of PATH project

Originally published December 11, 2009

By Ed Waters Jr.
News-Post Staff

A project to put a high-voltage transmission line across three states is facing another obstacle in its path.

On Wednesday, the Virginia State Corporation Commission’s staff again recommended the denial of the proposed PATH system in the Old Dominion.

After reviewing testimony on the issue, the SCC staff is advising the commission, which oversees utilities in the state, to turn down the proposal from Allegheny Energy.

The Potomac Appalachian Transmission Highline is a nearly 300-mile, $1.8 billion project beginning in West Virginia, crossing Virginia and ending in southern Frederick County at a proposed new substation. It is a joint project of Allegheny Energy and American Electric Power.

In November, the Virginia commission’s senior hearing examiner denied a similar motion by the staff members. Alexander F. Skirpan said continuing the project in Virginia gave the commission jurisdiction over the project.

The SCC staff has argued that without approval in Maryland of PATH, and a move by West Virginia authorities to postpone a decision on the project until 2011, the transmission line is going nowhere. Allegheny Energy said it will file a new application for PATH in Maryland within the next few weeks. The application in Maryland was initially turned down on legal issues.

“We only just received the Virginia commission staff’s testimony and will closely review the testimony over coming days. PATH Allegheny Virginia Transmission Corporation will respond to staff testimony with rebuttal testimony sometime near the end of December,” said Todd Meyers, manager of external communications for Allegheny Energy, on Thursday.

“The public regulatory review process in Virginia is extremely thorough and has a long way to go. The PATH evidentiary hearings before the Virginia State Corporation Commission are scheduled to begin in Richmond, Va., on Jan. 19, 2010, and are expected to last about two weeks,” Meyers said.
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I know, there’s nothing here!!  That’s because everything is happening the last two weeks at NoCapX 2020!  We’ve been having transmission line hearings all across southern Minnesota, and there’s not much time for anything else.  So do check out the NoCapX site… there are a few tidbits piling up, but it’ll be a while before I get to the inbox!