Legalectric

The Environmental Impact Statement for the Lava Ridge wind project, proposed by Magic Valley Wind, is now available — get it here:

BLM page for Lava Ridge

I’d first learned about this when we were on the way from Craters of the Moon National Monument …

… to our next stop, which took us through Jerome, Idaho, and to the Minidoka National Historic Site.

That’s a “new” historical site, where a Japanese internment camp was located. And as we were learning about it online between the two sites, the Lava Ridge wind project popped up — turns out that the wind project as proposed would be adjacent to the historical site! Check the first map above, hunt for “Hunt” Idaho, and here’s Minidoka in relation to “Hunt.”

And from there, Friends of Minidoka popped up, and their advocacy to protect the site, so we’d learned some before we got there:

Friends of Minidoka has an excellent “Comments” page — written suggestions for EFFECTIVE and SUBSTANTIVE comments, and scroll down for a youtube (see also National Trust for Historic Preservation Action campaign), as does the linked BLM pate. From that Friends of Minidoka page:

How to Submit Effective Comments

Effective comments will produce actionable items for BLM. How to Write Substantive Comments provides tips and examples. As per Kasey Prestwich of the BLM, it is important to:

* Focus your comments on the proposed project and what is being analyzed.

* *Describe the significance of the potential impacts and how they affect you, others, places, and activities.

* Provide any new information that is relevant to the project (e.g., potential affected resources).

* Discuss modifications to existing alternatives or suggest other reasonable alternatives with justification.

* Provide detailed information and references to back up your comment.

If your comment includes a statement that describes your opposition or support for the project, ensure you describe specific elements of the project or specific potential impacts that are influencing your position. Position statements must include enough information to help the BLM inform reasonable changes to the alternatives or revisions to the assessment of potential impacts. Avoid comments like “I don’t like this” or “I do like this.”

Identical comments are treated as one comment, including form letters.

Get to work on comments!

For years, I’ve wanted to put together a test project here in Red Wing, a solar heating panel on the south facing wall of many of the homes in town. Given the major impact of a heating panel on ONE house, imagine the heat, cost savings, and energy consumption decrease in a fleet of them! Oh well… I’ve not done the work, but if I have some time, dream on, but parking some pages here and starting a file.

There are so many good sites with info. The most important take away is that it’s very CHEAP to build these, and doesn’t take much skill.

And some related inks:

Low Profile, Aluminum Downspout, Solar Hot Air Construction Project

Downspout Test Collector Construction

OK, parked…

BE THERE OR BE SQUARE!

9:30 a.m. Wednesday November 9, 2022

3rd Floor Large Meeting Room

Public Utilities Commission

121 – 7th Place East, St. Paul

Seeing so many drought posts, photos of the Mississippi River at such low levels, looking at the Elephant Butte reservoir and the Rio Grande, drought affecting bird migration through California, essentially drought throughout much of U.S., particularly east of the Mississippi:

… and as I was deleting files, cleaning up computer as I clean up hard copy boxes and boxes of old files (i.e., the Mesaba Project, glad to be putting that one away), I found a report on water needs of power plants, it’s old, but I’d guess relevant, eh?

Here’s the 2011 update:

2011 Update: Estimating Freshwater Needs to Meet Future Thermoelectric Generation Requirements

Interesting that a search doesn’t turn up anything newer!!! Another from 2011:

A Review of Operational Water Consumption and Withdrawal Factors for Electricity Generating Technologies

There is this, so July 2022, must need other search terms???

NETL Co-Develops New Model for Sustainable Freshwater Use by Power Plants

When boats are having a hard time getting around on the Mississippi River, what does this mean for all the power plants dependent on the Mississippi for their water supply? Even our lovely garbage burner here on the river, not to mention Prairie Island Nuclear Generating Plant!