Legalectric

Everybody’s cheering the passage of SF 004 – the Renewable Energy Standard. But why does the Senate open the door to more perks for market transactions — bulk power transmission? That’s not a good thing… we don’t need transmission. READ THE WIND INTEGRATION STUDY – HERE!!
Here’s the problematic part of SF004 (CLICK HERE FOR LINK):

Sec. 2. TRANSMISSION FOR RENEWABLE ENERGY STANDARD.
Minnesota electric utilities, as defined by Minnesota Statutes, section 216B.1691,
Subdivision 1, paragraph (b), must study and develop plans for the transmission network enhancements necessary to support the renewable energy standards and milestones established in Minnesota Statutes, section 216B.1691, subdivision 2a. The study process must be designed to identify and optimize delivery of that renewable energy to Minnesota retail customers while maintaining system reliability.
As part of the planning process, Minnesota electric utilities shall incorporate and build upon the analyses that have previously been done or that are in progress, including, but not limited to, the 2006 Minnesota Wind Integration Study and ongoing work to address geographically dispersed development patterns. The Minnesota electric utilities shall collaborate with the Midwest Independent System Operator to optimize and integrate to the extent possible Minnesota’s transmission plans with other regional transmission considerations.
As part of the planning process, utilities shall convene and regularly consult with a group of stakeholders with experience and expertise in transmission system engineering and renewable generation technology to review the study’s proposed methods and assumptions, preliminary results, and ongoing efforts.
Utilities shall submit a report to the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission by November 1, 2007, describing the activities undertaken pursuant to this section. The report shall include:
(1) a description of the analyses that have been undertaken and the results, including the critical issues that need to be addressed in order to develop the transmission needed to meet the standards and milestones of Minnesota Statutes, section 216B.1691, subdivision 2a;
(2) a comprehensive conceptual plan to guide ongoing planning efforts to develop the transmission necessary to support those standards and milestones;
(3) specific transmission line proposals necessary to meet those intermediate standards and milestones;
(4) a description of how the results of these studies have been reflected in the biennial transmission reports filed under Minnesota Statutes, section 216B.2425; and
(5) a five-year action plan that identifies with specificity the actions necessary to implement the specific proposals and to refine and further develop the transmission plans needed to support those standards and milestones, including initiating any certificate of need or other regulatory proceeding necessary to implement the specific proposals identified above.

Why is this in here? Wasn’t the 2005 Transmission Omnibus Bill from Hell enough? Why aren’t we repealing the noxious parts of that bill?

Assistant Majority Leader Aaron Peterson said after the lopsided Senate vote that he would consider substituting its version for his own before a House committee takes action next week.

HUH??  Oh, great idea…

BAD POLICY ALERT!!!

STUPID LEGISLATIVE TRICKS ALERT!!!

CapX2020 facilitates coal, and does it quite nicely! And no, that’s not a good thing…

CapX2020, a multi-BILLION dollar transmission project, is spending a lot of time and money at the legislature. They get a full House Energy Committee meeting to sell their sob story, and the only testimony allowed is from those who have a vested interest in CapX2020 (TRANSLink). Why do the get so much time for their sales pitch? Why are they getting any time at all? I’ve been told “oh, they don’t want anything.” Right… oh, pleeeeeze…

CapX2020 will want to latch onto the RES claiming that renewables can’t be added without the transmission.

Capx2020 claims they need to “streamline” and of course will want to gut the Certificate of Need and/or environmental review. CapX2020 (TRANSLink by another name) and WoW have consistently advocated for gutting of state review, abdicating to federal non-review.

200,000 landowners across MN are affected by CapX. Of course they don’t want to have any review!!!! Particularly at a time when Dept. of Commerce analysis shows both Big Stone transmission (and plant) and the Mesaba Project are not needed/not in the public interest. They can’t prevail under the rules so we should change them just for them… the arrogance!

1) RES can easily be done once or twice over without significant transmission additions — RES renewables can be sited carefully and effectively and save us billions AND it doesn’t facilitate coal.

2) Streamlining is desired only because they cannot prove need — and when it’s not needed, why would we spend billions to build it?

3) Any project in the BILLIONS must have full review — it’d be nuts to exempt it!

4) If CapX 2020 were to be exempted from environmental review, then 200,000 landowners would not have recourse of “Buy the Farm” where they can elect for utility to buy out the entire parcel so they can move away from the line. Minn. Stat. 116C.63, Subd. 4. This would screw over 200,000 Minnesota landowners, great policy idea, eh?

Given the Waltons have been shamelessly promoting CapX2020, if this proposal comes up, who will oppose it? I don’t know of anyone who has resources/funding to do that. Just remember that when it comes to CapX2020, the Izaak Walton League is promoting their self interest, and not the public interest, and not representing “environmental” groups. And of course there are those of us doing what we can with what we’ve got to shine a light on CapX2020!

Question of the Day: WHAT DOES CAPX2020 WANT NOW?

Here’s my House Energy presentation that didn’t happen:

House Energy Jan 29 2007

Once more with feeling… Question of the Day: WHAT DOES CAPX2020 WANT NOW?

CAPX 2020 for RES??? Streamlining?

Exempt from what… Certificate of Need?

Environmental review?

I don’t think so… Over my dead polar bear!

Why are they before the legislature? Didn’t they get it all in the 2005 transmission bill? Other than an exemption from all regulation and review — so that must be what they want, eh? No Renewable Electricity Standard without more transmission?

I’m really tired of these “little bit of wind for noxious generation” deals…

Minutes of October 19 2006 MAPP NM-SPG meeting state:

Ed Weber noted that the Coalition coal generator location is expected to be announced sometime early in 2007.

Anyone want to put any $$$ on that one?

It’s time to effectively deal with the transmission lies of Wind on the Wires, and their agreements with NSP/Xcel that grew from the 2002 SW Minnesota 345kV case. To watch Beth Soholt represent that proceeding to legislators as one where they got conditions to the Certificate of Need that would limit coal (a logical and legal impossibility) and as one where landowners were behind it because they got something out of it, that’s too much. Their entire purpose is to promote transmission, and they’ve done a good job of it. It has nothing to do with the public interest, nothing positive, that is, and has everything to do about the purposes of the Wind on the Wires grant — it’s a grant, not an organization, it’s just like the Great Plains coal work group — they’re paid to promote transmission.

For years, Soholt as Izaak Walton staff, and Matt Schuerger as ME3 staff, were attempting to gain SEED buy-in. They advocated for transmission in other venues too, promoting transmission generally, weakening of state jurisdiction and strengthening of federal jurisdiction, alteration of criteria for Certificate of Need particularly toward a regional focus — how is any of this in the public interest? How is any of this within the mission of the Izaak Walton League? Within the mission of ME3? Do their constituents know what they’re doing?

The sell-out by Minnesota’s so-called “environmental” groups has been apparent for a long time, starting with the Izaak Walton League and ME3, and including Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy and George Crocker’s North American Water Office on the deal for the SW Minnesota 345kV line. That sell-out was codified in the 2005 Transmission Omnibus Bill from Hell. My awareness of it began a couple of days before September 6 or 8, 2001, months prior to the filing of the SW MN 345kV Application, when Beth Soholt and Matt Schuerger asked six or seven of us potential intervenors to sell out on the line, errrrr… to “approve” of the line. At the time, Beth was working for Izaak Walton League and I think Matt was still with ME3 (he’s now contracting with the state). The perceived problematic potential intervenors were myself, the only attorney of the group, Bill Neuman, Sig Anderson, Dan Juhl, George Crocker and Dave Benson (two others have agreed to sign affidavits about this meeting). I’d requested the SW transmission study, which I still have, and was up at 6 that morning to review it. What was obvious to me was that when they listed generation waiting that required the line, it was coal, a big long list (see SW MN/SE SD Transmission Study, Section 7.2, p. 29-30). Soholt’s and Schuerger’s line was that it was needed for wind, but a 345kV line doesn’t do a thing for wind — yet that 345kV part was what they were insistent about. Wind interconnects, even large projects, to at most a 115kV line, well, logically it could connect to anything, but there’s not enough in one spot to justify the size of the line that was proposed, 2,085 MVA capacity, and the cost for wind to interconnect to that is prohibitive. The 345kV line ran from Sioux Falls (Split Rock) to Lakefield Junction, with just one interconnect from Buffalo Ridge, at Nobles. At that substation, the powerflows show that there’d be 213-302MW coming off of Buffalo Ridge, a very small percentage of the capacity of the line. At the time, I asked about Big Stone II, the logic user of that transmission. I pointed to the list of coal plants in the draft study, and asked what would limit that 345kV line from being used as the logical purveyor of coal, and he got snippy and pissy, and of course had no answer. I also said that obviously they were getting something, and were they willing to share? And got another pissy snippy answer, he threatened to walk out of the meeting again, hey, please do! I was there for the duration to find out what was up, and what struck me most was the “B squad” nature of the approach, there was no sell, no offer of anything that would justify selling out on that line. All they did was alert me to their selling out and promotion of that line and the importance of stopping that line because it really would facilitate coal.

Right after that came the Buffalo Ridge Transmission Plan, designed to address REAL wind collection and integration into the grid, and to expose the lie of the 345kV line. In disgust at the Soholt/Schuerger proposal, it was clear another means of achieving wind development was needed, and here it is:

Buff Ridge Transmission Plan

I’ve got to dig up my notes here… this will be a multi-part piece.

The Chisago Project is back.

Chisago Map – PDF for Download

Clisk HERE for the state’s Energy Facilities docket.

PUBLIC MEETING NOTICE:

Public Meeting & Scoping Meeting

February 27, 2007

4:30 – 7:00 p.m.

Lindstrom Community Center

13292 Sylvan Ave

Lindstrom, MN 55045

Worse, it’s moving forward in the PUC Certificate of Need process, and the process there is appalling. I’m hard pressed to find printable words to describe what’s been happening. The Siting and Certificate of Need docket are before the PUC today and a short rundown of the problems: No service of application, removal from service list, no service of Commerce Comment, Commerce and PUC making up “non-contested” process and worse, saying the Chisago Project should use it! What makes them think that this is acceptable, much less LEGAL, and that they can get away with it!

Concerned River Valley Citizens – Reply Comment

To find out what’s happening, pack a bag lunch and a compass. Go to www.puc.state.mn.us and go to “Search Documents” and plug in docket 04-1176. If you ask to be put on a Service List, be sure to let your loved ones know because you never may be heard from again — at best, you won’t be served with the documents and will have no clue what’s going on in the docket.

And let’s be very clear about something… Though the utility has failed to serve applications, clear violations, they’re the utility and we expect them to be that way.  The state is the real problem here.  The state is the one charged with protecting the public, the public interest, and the ratepayer.  They’re the ones really screwing us over.

I really hate it when this happens — it’s so egregious, and yet what options do we have to stop it? I’ve got the Appellate Court reviewing a MERA case of mine, trying to get some clear law about the “violation of rule, standard” aspect of MERA, when that comes down, we’ll know if MERA is a winning approach to this flagrant violation of statutes and rules. They’re begging for a big fat legal slap… OK, fine, whatever…

The Arrowhead-Weston transmission line, looking east as it winds toward the St. Louis River and Wisconsin…

High-voltage power line nears completion

(if you want to comment, click on the lnk above to get to the paper’s site and tell them what you think of the Arrowhead Project — that is, unless you’re one of my loyal readers from Minnesota Power!!!)

Duluth News Tribune – 12/08/2006

A controversial high-voltage transmission line is nearing completion, as energy has begun to flow on about two-thirds of the proposed 210-mile Arrowhead-Weston power line in Wsconsin.

A segment of line between the Weston Power Plant and the Stone Lake substation in Sawyer County was energized Nov. 30.

In Northwest Wisconsin, about 66 miles of the line remain to be constructed, including a segment that will run through Douglas County.

Pete Holtz, general manager of the Arrowhead Weston project, said it was necessary to power up the line to complete its construction. The line will run through Northwest Wisconsin along the path of an existing power corridor. To allow for the new lineâ??s construction, a smaller line will need to be taken out of service temporarily. Holtz said the newly energized line will be used to feed customers, minimizing electrical disruptions along the route as the project goes forward.

The line is scheduled for completion in May 2008.

When finished, the line will carry 600 to800 megawatts of energy â?? enough electricity to power 200,000 to 250,000 households.

At present, Holtz said the energized segment of line is operating at only a small fraction of its capacity.

Opponents of the line fear electromagnetic fields and stray voltage from the fully operational 345-kilovolt line could endanger the health of its neighbors.

Tom Kreager said the power line passes within 100 feet of his house in Mosinee, Wis., and said he shares those concerns.

The American Transmission Co., which is building the line, has assured residents it will pose no health danger.

As president of a group called Save Our Unique Lands, or SOUL, Kreager has been involved in unsuccessful efforts to block the construction of the Arrowhead-Weston line.

Now that the project is moving forward, Kreager called on the Wisconsin Public Service Commission to keep a close eye on its cost, warning that rate payers could be stuck with the bill for any overrun.

Holtz said the project is on schedule and on budget. The line is expected to cost $420 million.