This just in from Ron Gustafson, landowner right by the red and white pine old growth forest where Excelsior Energy announced it wants to put the Mesaba plant, a big coal gasification power plant. Here’s what he’ll see out his door:

The group of local landowners has put together the Minnesota Coal Gasification Plant Information Site.

Ron said this column was in yesterday’s Hibbing Tribune.

Questions remain in Excelsior Energy project

By Aaron J. Brown

The words ?eminent domain? seem harmless on paper, but for some local landowners those words crush dreams.

Ron Gustafson, his wife and brother-in-law own a cabin on Big Diamond Lake in Itasca County they had hoped would be a retirement paradise starting next year. Instead, they recently learned that Excelsior Energy might take over the unspoiled forests around Big Diamond and Dunning lakes to build a coal gasification power plant.

?It would end our Minnesota dream,? Gustafson told me in a recent radio interview on 91.7 KAXE.

Even more troubling was that Gustafson and other affected landowners only found out about possibly losing their land in the pages of their local newspapers.

Two years ago, we heard an idea to produce power on the Iron Range, creating good jobs and needed energy for the Midwest?s increasingly taxed power grid. Excelsior Energy, a fledgling company run by the lobbyist couple of Tom Micheletti and Julie Jorgenson, said the Mesaba Energy Project would involve an innovative new plant on the former LTV mine site in Hoyt Lakes.

Iron Range Resources invested millions of dollars early on, with support from local state lawmakers. Those same lawmakers passed legislation that gave Excelsior the right to use eminent domain in unprecedented ways, while also waiving the law that requires power companies to show they have an actual customer for the power. In most regions of the country, this would never fly, but ?jobs, jobs, jobs? was the rallying cry, and it went through.

Two weeks ago, President Bush signed a massive energy bill that included $800 million in loan guarantees for Excelsior Energy. The project enjoyed support from both sides of the aisle. Now the company says it will raise the remaining funds and start the plant sometime after 2010.

We need growth in Northeastern Minnesota. Retail development from Grand Rapids to Hibbing, possible steel and iron nugget production and a revved up mining industry all feel good after Northern Minnesota faced such bad economic news over the past five years.

But we need to be smart about that growth, and when taxpayers invest in something the way we?ve invested in this Mesaba Energy Project, we need to be firm in our expectations.

We were told this project would be on the site of the former LTV mine, already an industrial location. Instead, Micheletti announced in June that the Big Diamond Lake area and its all-natural surroundings off of Scenic Highway 7 was the new site. I still don?t have a firm idea of the reason for this.

We were told at one time that this project would create as many as 1,000 jobs. In the same June announcement Excelsior halved that figure. And, even 500 jobs seems high when compared to other similarly-sized power plants. How much of this was designed to win political favor?

And there is still lingering doubt in my mind about a 500-plus megawatt power plant where the only possible customer (Xcel Energy) is mandated by the government to purchase power produced from sources like coal gasification. Another major coal gas plant created under a similar set of circumstances in Indiana closed, and couldn?t reopen until once again bailed out by government funding (much of it from the same energy bill signed last week).

Maybe what bothers me the most about this is Excelsior?s impaired sense of irony. You see, the word ?scenic? in Scenic Highway 7 is not just an adjective, but it?s part of the OFFICIAL NAME OF THE HIGHWAY. Abundant signs tout the name, and the road itself leads to Scenic State Park. The site Excelsior now wants to use is in large part an untouched forest, when literally dozens of large, vacant industrial settings exist from one end of the Iron Range to the other.

The former mine sites and other vacant areas around Hibbing seem full of potential power plant sites. Perhaps the power company found it easier to push around private citizens than mining land feeholders?

Indeed, the lakes along Scenic Highway 7 might be ideal channels to send millions of gallons of warm water discharge through wetlands, the Swan and Mississippi rivers according to Excelsior Energy. But that doesn?t make it the best place to put a power plant. As of today, we taxpayers have put more money into this project than anyone else. As an Itasca County taxpayer, I expect better. The Big Diamond and Dunning Lake landowners expect better. So should you.

Producing cleaner energy on the Iron Range remains a sensible pursuit, worthy of support, but don?t sell us on one site and then pull the wool over our eyes. Lots of well-intentioned local leaders supported this project, but if Excelsior plans to abuse its almost unbelievable rights of eminent domain it should not expect the good will to last much longer.

Aaron J. Brown is a columnist for the Hibbing Daily Tribune.

The Minnesota League of Women Voters included the Mesaba Project in its 2005 Capitol Letter — click on Energy scroll down for Mesaba!

Here’s the site they’ve picked: View image

We’ll have to be sure the Mesaba supporters get the thanks they deserve, including Northfield’s Rep. Ray Cox, a coauthor of the Mesaba bill, H.F. 964, and off in Washington, Sen. Mark Dayton and Sen. Norm Coleman… what’s appropriate for something this absurd?

A visitation will take place on Thursday April 4 from 4-6 p.m. at David Lee Funeral Home, 1220 Wayzata Blvd., Wayzata. A memorial service will be held on Friday April 5 at 10 a.m. at Wayzata Community Church, 125 Wayzata Blvd., Wayzata 952-473-8877. All are welcome to attend.

In the STrib:

Thomas Andrew Micheletti

January 28, 1947 March 15, 2024

Micheletti will not be forgotten.

Per his obituary, a PR campaign in its own right, he shares a military avoidance scheme on a level with Captain Bonespurs:

Tom broke his ankle his senior year playing football. He cut the cast off himself, long before it had healed, so that he didn’t miss the opening hockey game. This messed his ankle up just enough to eventually keep him out of the Vietnam War, but not so much that he couldn’t keep playing.

And “Tom’s career became another arena for his love of the game.” Yup, gaming the system, he was certainly an expert. Here’s the legislation he got through, by hook or by crook, paired with Xcel’s bid for more dry casks for nuclear waste — a deal with the devil, or between the devils:

Micheletti was a/the primary architect of one of the most costly boondoggles on the Range and in Minnesota, history, the “Excelsior Energy Mesaba Project.”

It was introduced in 2002 at an energy committee hearing, I was there — cost said to be $800 million. HA! By the time it got to the Public Utilities Commission, the cost was over $TWO BILLION!

$2,155,680,763

“… capable of offering a long-term supply contract at a hedged, predictable cost.” NOPE The PUC did catch it, was NOT a reasonable cost, was not in the public interest, and the PUC denied approval of the Power Purchase Agreement.

Throughout this, we faced bizarre, and yes, I’m using that term a lot here, and it’s fitting. The things they claimed were pulled out of some nether orifice, put in writing, and entered, under oath. The sums of money they took from so many agencies, the way they steamrolled local governments, legislative committees, throughout I was wondering what he had on so many, kompromant? Why would people would jump on his bandwagon, it made no sense. Did people think it was too much work to look at the facts? Was it a personal thing? Was it “debt,” and for what and why? Still don’t understand. I do know that so much that was said was not true. So much that was put in writing was not true. So much was made up, tossed at a wall, and why did it stick? Ultimately, it did not, but it took YEARS and hundreds of hours.

About that Mesaba Project, Micheletti’s obit says:

For a decade, he and his wife, Julie, combined their talents and built a company that partnered with the U.S. Department of Energy to develop a large- scale clean-tech power plant to be constructed on the Iron Range. He holds dear the many individuals who dedicated themselves to that effort, taking on the special interests that block innovation and progress. He was proud the team conceived and enacted significant state and federal policy legislation that removed significant barriers to innovation in the power industry.

“… partnered with the U.S. Department of Energy…” Nope, more like scammed the DOE, also the Minnesota legislature, Renewable Energy Development Fund, and of course the IRRB. How much of that IRRB “loan” has been paid back?

Here’s where some of the money went — somewhere in my Mesaba Project files we’ve got documentation of their using taxpayer funds for a Christmas trip to Italy! I’m looking, and in the meantime:

And spreadsheets for 2004, 2005, a tiny bit of 2006:

Here’s a review from Citizens Against the Mesaba Project (CAMP),:

“… special interests that block innovation and progress…” Special interest!?!?! Right… Here’s a wayback link to Citizens Against the Mesaba Project (CAMP), and my clients mncoalgasplant.com, grassroots “special interest” groups addressing community concerns, groups which did the most amazing organizing, and the drudgery of detailed work and digging about coal gasification, the financing of this mess, and documentation of much of the federal and state dollars; federal, state, and local perks, given to this vaporware “project.” Special interests???

• CLICK HERE for CAMP-SITE
• CLICK HERE for mncoalgasplant.com

That’s a CAMP meeting, above, a room packed with regular folks. The special interests? Well, “they” showed up in force at the hearings. There were 300+ filling the Taconite Community Center, so if you’re classifying all these regular folks as “special interest,” people who got up, one by one over HOURS of the hearings testifying about seriously technical issues and considerations in their own backyards that were being ignored in Micheletti’s Mesaba Project plans… special interests? well… that’s a bit misguided.

Here’s Micheletti at a Mesaba Project meeting in Trout Lake Township before the Town Board:

And he instructed his new hired hand, Xcel’s recently retired Michael Wadley, not to let me speak because I didn’t live in the area — nevermind that I was representing mncoalgasplant.com, a group of local residents! Oh, and I was living in Red Wing right across the street from Wadley’s parents! Why Wadley got involved in the Mesaba Project mess I’ll never know, had to be money, but it sure couldn’t have been worth it to wade in that cesspool.

And here’s a wayback link to excelsiorenergy.com

Leadership team of seasoned power industry executives? Seasoned? Right — stick a fork in, they are DONE!

Micheletti was an extreme example of using connections and knowledge and influence to cobble together many moving pieces into a phenomenally orchestrated steamrolling line of bullshit that was the Mesaba Project, taking advantage of public and governmental ignorance and apathy, dragging those of us who opposed it on a decade of intense work — successfully stopped — but what a grind that was.

Micheletti & Overland near fisticuffs in the Hoyt Lakes Arena October 27th, 2005

The legislation promoting the project required that it was to be built on a site with available infrastructure, and here what it looked like – see above, Minn. Stat. 216A.1694, Subd. 1(3), “adequate infrastructure to support new or expanded development,” so it says, but here’s the reality. They were discovered trespassing in the woods by hunters:

Here’s a photo from a DOE site visit — dig that utility infrastructure:

Tom was not at all happy to find our “boys in the woods” and the press there too. From an MPR site visit:

The only way to get to the site was on ATVs using a transmission easement over land that wasn’t theirs, not theirs via easement or in fee — yes, they were trespassing:

Here’s an example of the bizarre filings from Micheletti’s “seasoned” experts:

Health Benefits of Coal (ya gotta read this one, HILARIOUS!)

Bizarre? Yes, that’s the operative term here. A bit of Alan Muller’s cross-examination, the question clarified by ALJ Mihalchick:

I’m looking for the map showing their plan for rail access — they wanted to go right THROUGH Diamond Lake! Found it — that’s it, circled in pink, from the DOE’s EIS:

THROUGH DIAMOND LAKE?!?! WHAT WERE THEY THINKING?

There was also a bizarre, yes, again, bizarre, “plan” to capture CO2 and store it, BUT the amount that could be captured was not much at all, it severely decreased efficiency of the proposed plant, AND once captured, it took it … really… only to the PLANT GATE, no further. Then what? Who knows, they sure didn’t have a clue. Yup! Really… a brilliant plan. And where it possibly could be stored? Another bizarre filing:

Their plan? Read it and guffaw, snort, hoot and holler: Ex_EE1067_Plan for Carbon Capture and Sequestration Download

They got a GRANT for this, our tax dollars thrown away:

Sequestration grant press release June 24 2005 Download

Looking back, it s really uplifting to see what we did accomplish, two rag-tag groups of people on the range who knew a boondoggle when they saw it, and who put in the time and effort to learn about coal gasification, no small feat, enough to make knowledgeable comments on what Micheletti & Co. were proposing, and put on enough pressure to slow it down, and ultimately stop the project. Considering the resources that Micheletti brought to this, with DOE, MN legislature, IRRB, and Renewable Development Fund, plus so much Joyce Foundation funding to enviros to support it:

Joyce Foundation PROMOTES coal September 5th, 2006

Yes, the Mesaba Project did go down in flames. Took a long time, but looking back, we did a good job.

As of last week, Tom Micheletti will not be promoting any more bogus projects and pocketing our taxes to do it.

Apparently, Micheletti resurrected Reddy Kilowatt! That’s something that really ought to be in his obit!

Back to Micheletti’s obituary:

p.s. To access the PUC’s Excelsior Energy’s Mesaba Project Power Purchase Agreement docket, go HERE – eDOCKETS, and then click again on “eDockets” and click on “Search Documents” on Left, and arrive at this screen and add Year “05” and Docket “1993” and then click SEARCH!

For the siting docket, plug in 06-668:

The siting docket was also bizarre. We tried to intervene, but were not allowed, and as “participants” were not allowed to question witnesses. The hearing was a farce, and it was in a gym next to the hockey rink, the heat turned of on a -20F day, because with the blower on we couldn’t hear a thing. Afterwards, Excelsior entered in a LOT if additional exhibits, as the record was flimsy:

Mesaba – Extend the hearing! February 23rd, 2008

That site hearing was such a travesty…

Gotta get out of this rabbit hole.

EXCELSIOR ENERGY’S MESABA PROJECT

PARTIAL DOCUMENT REPOSITORY

Well, a bit more than 20 years ago… January 15, 2002, just after the start of the legislative session, I was at an energy committee meeting, Senate? House? I think Senate was first, then heard again at House, and the following year they got their legislation through as a part of the 2003 Prairie Island bill.

• The Excelsior Energy link I’m using is compliments of waybackmachine. Note that now, if you plug in “excelsiorenergy.com” it becomes “excelsiorcapital.com (Excelsior Energy Capital).” essentially at a marina at 21960 Minnetonka Blvd.! Related?

Anyway, there was a presentation back in 2002 about the greatest thing since sliced bread (NOT!), a coal gasification project proposed for “somewhere” on the Range. Here’s what they presented:

Note the parts about “brownfield” and “existing infrastructure.” LIES, it’s that simple. Here’s what their site looked like, this was at the DOE and locals site visit in 2005:

Starting in 2005, I was representing “mncoalgasplant,” landowners and residents near the proposed project, joined in tandem by Citizens Against the Mesaba Project (CAMP) (site circa 2013 with live links, thanks waybackmachine!). We had such active folks, every hearing was PACKED, and eventually the project faded, never formally declared dead, but piece by piece, it went away.

HOWEVER, Excelsior Energy did manage to get an save passed by the legislature for a natural gas plant:

Week before last, I picked up files from a cohort who shall remain unnamed, and am scanning in boxes of files, to post here, and recycle hard copies for biomass (UGH, but that’s what Red Wing does. Thanks, Xcel Energy!). I’ll be posting them, some interesting stuff if you’re into energy and political and capital intrigue, some purely inside baseball that no one will care about.

MONEY TRACKING – Spreadsheets and invoices to IRRB for reimbursement

Various Contractor Invoices (some redacted)

What a pain in the patoot that was — TWO ENTIRE WASTEBASKET OF SCANNING!

Here’s a real DOH! which could have been avoided, but DOE through several administrations keep throwing good money after bad for carbon capture and storage pipedream:

The ill-fated Petra Nova CCS project: NRG Energy throws in the towel

NRG’s Petra Nova project $$$:

Short version? FAIL! From the article:

Following this FAIL, the understatement of the century, from the article:

Yet CCS is a big part of the latest federal energy efforts. It’s also a huge boondoggle for not just outfits like NRC, but for certain “non-profits” like Great Plains Institute:

And check out these salaries:

Great Plains Institute helped push coal gasification, for extreme amounts of money…

Great Plains Institute – is Joyce getting their $$ worth?

January 18th, 2007

… but that pales in comparison for the dollars for this recent round of “carbon capture” promotional funding. Unreal…

Once more with feeling — carbon capture is not real, is not workable, is a waste of $$ and effort.

I’m BAAAAACK! Have had that awful sinus stuff turning into bronchitis, never again will I spread straw around after weeding the garden without wearing a mask. It’s been THREE WEEKS, really hard to get anything done, so I’ve not been doing anything, and I’m still hacking and wheezing, but have had 3 days now with only one episode of coughing up a lung in the middle of the night, so finally getting some sleep. That said, I’ve had camping reservations since last winter, so off we went with the Wawona 6 with its roomy vestibule “office!”

Spent the better part of a week at Clubhouse Campground, in the Chippewa National Forest, and it’s a great spot. Fishing reigns, and boats of all sorts, pontoons, kayaks, canoes, in addition to the big fishing boats pulled by big pickups (and big travel trailers to match). There were few during the week, maybe 4-5 sites occupied in each of the north and south loops. It’s cheap, and with the senior pass, 1/2 price! Reservations and more info: Clubhouse Campground.

I had wanted to go up there for years, and at long last, so off we went. Why? Here we are, sitting at Clubhouse Lake, looking east to the other side, at the huge chunk of land my father used to own, lots of lakeshore and quite a ways back into the woods.

From the info I got after my mother died, the land is highlighted on Itasca County map, with “Sold 1955?” written in — close, because my father brought a tree from the land and planted it in our backyard, house bought in 1955. I just can’t get over that he sold that land!!!!

We had a direct path from our campsite, #14, down to the lake on the other side of the loop:

The story is that the guy who owned the land just to the north, which “My Lake Road” went through to access my father’s property, would not allow access. Don’t know if there was an easement, or if that was a public road — now it is open to the many parcels along the shore (the plot was divided up decades ago, I think it was then “Lot 9” and has since been split up, and it’s hard to tell, his parcel may have extended all the way to that bold line to the east:

We went down Clubhouse Lake Road to My Lake Road and to the end of the road:

It’s in Itasca County, where I spent a lot of time circa 2005-2010 during the fight against the Excelsior Energy Mesaba Project. Like Freeborn County, it’s a home away from home. We checked out the North Star campground, also in Chippewa Nat’l Forest, just south of Marcell on 38, which also has lakeshore sites, and there are so many more campgrounds in the forest:

Camping in Chippewa National Forest

We also went to many of the sites on the “Edge of the Wilderness” trail, which really isn’t much — this is the “Scenic Overlook” SNORT!

The “Lost Forty” was worthwhile, 40 acres of trees that clear cutting missed due to survey error, so the old growth remains. More picnic tables, please!! A while back a youtube had appeared about it, can’t seem to find that one, but here’s another:

Back in the Mesaba Project daze, I’d learned that the Joyce Estate was up there, really odd considering that the Joyce Foundation was a massive funder of coal gasification promotion. The proposed site for the Mesaba Project was about 10 miles as the crow files from the Joyce Estate. What on earth were they thinking??

I wasn’t up for a long hike, any exertion sets me coughing and wheezing, so we’ll get there another time.