Hot off the press from David Morris – ILSR, a demolition of the Benson Burner celebratory historical podcast about burning turkey shit. The ILSR podcast gets into some of the origin of the “biomass mandate,” the history of Fibrominn, Fibrowatt from England, and in Maryland, where chicken shit was polluting land and water.
I so well recall the hours and hours of testimony about turkey turds back in 1998, when state Sen. Steve Novak, chair of Minnesota’s Senate Energy Committee (and on of the orchestrators of the 1994 Prairie Island bill that pushed biomass as part of the deal to keep Prairie Island nuclear plant open) refused to let “our” bill be heard that would delete the alternate site mandate to site nuclear waste “in Goodhue County.” Burning turkey shit was ahead of our bill on the agenda, and so hours and hours and hours of testimony. Of the many, many “environmental” groups in Minnesota, ILSR was the ONLY one opposing this turdful idea, and in that 1998 session, David Morris testified in excruciating detail about why burning turkey shit was a bad idea, more than I ever wanted to know about turkey shit.
Fibrowatt was run out of Delaware when they wanted to burn chicken shit there, thanks to Alan Muller and Green Delaware. That was when I’d first heard from Alan, way back in 2002, warning about Fibrowatt as they pushed into Minnesota!
When Xcel filed for permission to get out of the turkey shit Power Purchase Agreement (PUC Docket 17-530), Alan Muller and I filed comments:
WHY would the PUC reward Xcel this way? Cancelling the Xcel PPAs and shutting down that Benson plant, and also the Laurentian Energy Authority, that was good, but the pay offs? Doesn’t seem reasonable to me.
And while you’re at it, check this out from ILSR on a “renewable” issue here in Minnesota and elsewhere:
What happens to coal ash? It’s shoveled out, brought to a “ash disposal facility” where it goes into the ground, and from there??? We’re finally learning that it often leaches into the ground, down into the groundwater. Thanks to EarthJustice for posting the raw data — no plants listed for Minnesota:
There are coal ash and other ash “disposal facilities” everywhere, usually very close to where the ash is generated, here in Red Wing we have an ash dump, ash from two old coal burners at the NSP/Xcel garbage burners on the south end of town, and a now closed city garbage burner, visible on the map above, at the lower right corner of the black striped “Water Tank Mound Area” and beyond, that complex there. The City garbage burner was closed not long ago (YEAAAAA!!!), but the NSP/Xcel former coal burners, now garbage burner, remain burning.
(The Air Permits for those 2 burners have been expired for a decade or more, but that’s another story, covered before and to be covered again, but not today.)
The coal ash and garbage ash has been piling up for decades. A couple of years ago there was a city and Xcel scam launched here in Red Wing, “ash mining.”
A little birdie flew by today, cocked its shiny eye and said…
So following up… Does anyone find it strange that as of August 3, 2018, the registered office of Excelsior Energy and its agent, CEO, and Principal Executive Office Address of Tom Micheletti, is THE ABOVE STORAGE UNIT at 4630 Quebec Avenue North, New Hope, MN 55428?
Really. Could google maps be wrong? It’s not international waters, but assuredly … ummmm… well, bizarre! Look at their TEAM (can you say photoshopped?). I can’t find direct connections to our friends at Excelsior Energy, but with an operation like this, it’s got to be there! Searching…
Remember AWA Goodhue’s office? And Secretary of State lets them get away with this?
Remember when the site of the Elk River garbage burner was a nuclear demonstration plant? I do, because my father worked on parts of the design for that plant, and characterization after it was operational — I played with the geiger counter as a kid, and the rest is history. Technical difficulties at the Elk River Nuclear Station were many. It was shut down and decommissioned in the early 1970s. Today, that site is now a garbage incinerator.
Remember just one year ago, Xcel Energy going to the Public Utilities Commission to terminate their garbage and turkey shit burning Power Purchase Agreements?
GRE now wants to do the same, and is considering, and is likely to, shut down its Elk River garbage burning operation. News from Elk River, the red highlights are mine, and (red comments in parens are mine). If you get confused what’s what, click on link for original article:
Municipal solid waste from Hennepin, Anoka and Sherburne counties and other nearby communities is delivered to the processing plant in Elk River where it is sorted. The plant captures steel, aluminum and items that can’t be burned and often recycles them (FYI, most things that burn ARE recyclable). The remaining refuse is used to generate electricity at the Elk River Energy Recovery Station.
