Legalectric

Just when I think I’ve seen it all, suddenly in an Affidavit, I’m a prostitute!!!

Letter of David Gross & Affidavit of Marie Borglum

This is a must read!!!

Like the photo above, the future of IGCC, the future of coal, presents a bleak landscape. IGCC goes down in flames at every turn, but still they persist in promoting it. A new “report” is out, charging ahead despite the overwhelming evidence against IGCC (will download and post directly soon, but it won’t cooperate, so it might be a while):

GLOBAL WARMING AND THE FUTURE OF COAL

And with the report came a dog and pony show with none other than David Hawkins, NRDC, carrying the coal industry’s coal:

The Path to Carbon Capture and Storage

Here’s a blurb from their press release entitled, really, “Using Coal Responsibly:”

Both Berlin and Hawkins underscored the urgency of finding policies that could capture carbon at new coal plants for environmental reasons. Hawkins claimed that by 2030 the emissions from just-planned new coal plants alone could exceed the CO₂ emissions of all human coal use to date by 25 percent.

Ummmmm, hello! That PRESUMES new coal plants. And “finding policies?” Policies don’t capture carbon, people do! Equipment does! And then, it has to do something with it, capturing just doesn’t do it folks, that’s just one third of the “Capture, Transport, Store” story.

And then there’s the cost… by now y’all know I HATE IT WHEN THEY LIE ABOUT COST. Here’s their chart, found on p. 27, and the red is the cost from the record of Mesaba

Here’s the graph of costs taken directly from the Dept. of Commerce’s Amit testimony:

Here’s my summary of the Commerce cost info including estimated transmission and estimated CSS cost:

That Future of Coal p. 27 cost graph… what a load of crap… I’ve asked them to correct their numbers.
Repeat after me: NO NEW COAL PLANTS…

NO NEW COAL PLANTS…

NO NEW COAL PLANTS…

Folks, don’t be worried about the “future of coal.” Don’t waste even one more second thinking and writing about the “future of coal” and don’t waste one speck of ink or one byte on the “future of coal.” How ’bout focusing on the “future of earth” or the “future of humanity.” grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

From Greg Nolan, he’s the one on the right, hiding the bowl of his homegrown blueberries, at the Windy River Energy Fair a couple years ago:

Will to do good work

I had a dream the other day. When I opened my electric bill, I found a letter that offered an investment opportunity to me. It seems that our legislators had changed the way citizens and utilities were taxed on investments they made together. The utilities saw an opportunity to use their customers investment capital, a share at a time, to purchase and operate utility grade wind machines in our region. What the utilities offered, with the legislators blessing, was a chance to democratize the production of electricity. Both the legislators and the utilities knew putting the people and their “will to do good work” was the best way to solve problems in America. Making rate payers a part of the production of clean power would make all of us winners. Everyone involved knew that new power plants that burned coal would create a lot of problems and that the wind in our region was a clean, renewable resource that could produce vast amounts of home brewed power. The electrical co-ops had a leg up on other electric companies as they were organized perfectly to get their customers involved. The consumer would not just own a monetary investment but a production quota, so as power went up in price so would their investments. The consumer would have the right to take there production quota off their bill every month after the power company was paid for the good service they provided moving the power to the customers. Power lines from these wind machines put up in windy areas, connecting the people in need, would be built with the same federal loan program that got power to rural Minnesota in the 30’s and 40’s. Non-profits in our region followed this program up with investments of their own in economic development to build utility grade wind machines in our area, creating jobs. The goal was to produce the best wind machines in the world and export these wind machines instead of weapons to the world. Research dollars were invested in electrifying transportation and more economic development went into making cars locally with good batteries that could store the wind energy. We all lived in a cleaner more peaceful place. Our kids took stock in our investments in the future and let out a sigh of relief.

Greg Nolan lives and naps at Snowy Pines, a 40 acre well managed forest in rural central Minnesota. He has lived in a solar power home for over 25 years, and has planted over 3 million trees with his family forestry business.

Just in from Nina Axelson:

I would like to invite anyone interested to post their thoughts, links to research, or any other points of dialogue on the the Rock-Tenn Interested Neighborhoods listserv.  There are about 25 members currently, but I believe it could be a good method for exchanging ideas and information.

To join, send an e-mail to RTIN-subscribe@yahoogroups.com.

Thanks,

Nina Axelson
Community Organizer
St. Anthony Park Community Council

Last night, there was a meeting held at Hamline … passive language, I know… I was going to say “sponsored by…” but I can’t really figure that out. So let’s identify all the suspects: At the auditorium entry taking names and emails was Justin Eibenholzl, Southeast Como Improvement Association. Beyond that toward the door was Nina “don’t quote me!” Axelson, Community Organizer for St. Anthony Park Community Council – District 12, telling Neighbors Against the Burner that they could not hold signs outside the door of the auditorium! And running interference out in the hall was Carl Nelson of the Green Institute. Who should stroll in but Steve Taff, U of M Applied Economics, the guy who does things like “Pathways to a reduced-carbon energy system for the Midwest.” District Heating’s Anders Rydaker and Bill Malum, Ken Smith (the site blurs District Heat/Market Street) were there, but what can you say about an entity that brags about a visit from Bush? And of course there were at least two from Rock-Tenn, Steve Haselmann and Jack Greenshields.

I was in on this because a certain Mr. Muller was pulled in by Neighbors Against the Burner to lend his technical expertise (garbage burners have been run out of Delaware and they’ve got strong legislative language to keep them out!). These fights are all the same, and this is Alan’s forte.

For some reason, the neighbors are finding that those they’d expect to support their efforts to stop the burner are taking very odd and painful positions — and that has much to do with the Metropolitan Emissions Reduction Project that’s shutting down Xcel’s St. Paul High Bridge coal plant. There’s a problem here, because Rock-Tenn has painted itself as the poor victim of MERP, which is shutting down the coal High Bridge Plant and there goes Rock-Tenn’s steam, and of course it’s all the enviro’s fault and all the legislators fault that High Bridge is closing, poor Rock-Tenn, they’d better do something to help poor Rock-Tenn. And they forget to mention that Rock-Tenn’s 20 year contract with NSP for that steam is up in July, 2007. Or that the garbage burner that Rock-Tenn dreams of is not only much higher priced than natural gas, but it requires massive public subsidies to not only build the burner, but to build a bigger Newport facility to collect garbage and another C&D facility to deal with that — oh, isn’t this a great idea for our tax dollars? No tax dollars for health care, but tax dollars to make us sick…

A few main things that jump out at me — THIS IS THE OPINION OF OVERLAND:

1) The legislation and the enviros’ MERP deal did NOT create Rock-Tenn’s contractual problem and the demise of its steam supply. End the guilt — don’t take on their problems!
2) Hey, Rock-Tenn, ever hear of laches? They knew the contract was running out and they pay big bucks for legislative and administrative representation. They did not say a peep in the MERP docket and din’t bother to intervene — only send a pissy letter at the very end.

3) To the extent there are any public subsidies, there must be an equal public equity interest!

Here are some of the handouts:

Agenda and Contact Info

Rock-Tenn language from SF 2096 Energy Omnibus Finance

Rock-Tenn Steam Permit FAQ

Here’s the Green Institute report, which has a very narrow scope for the $$$ paid:

 Green Institute – Biomass Fuel Report

Here’s the “FrOTH” report promoting a garbage burner:

(where did that go???)

Here’s a Memorandum of Understanding between MPCA and Rock-Tenn:

Memorandum between MPCA and Rock-Tenn

And here’s an interesting Resolution from Ramsey County supporting a “legislative MERP charge” for Rock-Tenn which for some reason doesn’t mention that in July 2007  the Rock-Tenn Contract runs out:

 RamseyCoResolution-RockTenn

I’ve still got some reports to scan in, others to find, and will post those and some more links someday soon…