Legalectric

OK, here we go on Excelsior’s Mesaba project again… go figure… all those complicated transmission studies that have come out over the last couple years, all the reports that Sherner made at MAPP’s NM-SPG meetings, well now suddenly there are two reports released on January 5, 2007, that say “IT’S DELIVERABLE.” Yes, that’s two studies that came out after that one that Xcel found that said “NO, you can’t have firm transmission service!” Well, now there are two more that say:

Hoyt Lakes Deliverability Study

and

Taconite Deliverability Study

Here there were these complicated studies over the years, lots of pages and lots of information and each said it just doesn’t work. Now there are two sparce 4 page “studies,” one for each site, that say it’s deliverable.

“600MW from this generator is deliverable based on MISO Generator Deliverability Study result.”

EH? SAY WHAT? HUH? WHAT CHANGED? Oh, $50 says they’ve added EVERY CapX2020 line??? WHERE’S THE SUPPORTING DOCUMENTATION THAT ACCOMPANYIES EVERY OTHER TRANSMISSION STUDY I’VE EVER SEEN? IT CONFLICTS WITH EVERY PRESENTATION THEY’VE MADE TO NM-SPG!
Xcel’s Thursday Study MISOA324_Interim_Report-OASIS

mcgp-ex-g519-initial2post-branch-violations.pdf

Excelsior Sherner presentation to NM-SPG Aug 16 2006
Excelsior Sherner presentation to NM-SPG 05-05-05
Excelsior Sherner presentation to MN-SPG 10-26-04
Excelsior Sherner presentation to NM-SPG 03-30-04

Oh, pluheeze, give me a break! As a cohort said a couple days ago, “I feel like I’m at the Mat Hatter’s tea party!” Well, I hear mercury does have that impact.

Color me jaundiced.

And rumor has it that the Garvey letter, when it refers to carbon capture and sequestration and that costs be included in the rate of $110/MWh, that it includes the reality, the action, of carbon capture and sequestration, that acutal capture and sequestration is required. UH-HUH, like in their “plan.”
Oh, really? The PPA cite? And let’s see the enforcement mechanism on that, and y’all know where you can blow that CO2, eh?
No problem, just one more mess to wade through… I’ve got my barn boots right here.

But the good news is that I didn’t get my Excelsior filings yet, the 61 page “brief” and the 307 pages of Findings of Fact, really, 307 pages. When I called about it, Byron says they’re very well written, of course I noted that I deduct for every word that ends in “ly” and they’ve got a bit of a deficit… it’s been five days… they’re sending it by oxcart, or maybe barge…
What a load of crap this all is.

I guess the NM-SPG meeting will be interesting.

And then there’s Minamata.

The Mayor of Hoyt Lakes said at the public hearing, “We’re used to mercury here.” Oh…

There’s a piece on MPR too, but I”ve not heard it yet, I wasn’t glued to the radio at 6:20 a.m.!!!

Here’s the STrib article, thanks Mikey! This Garvey “letter” or “Policy Statement” or “Late Filed Testimony” is such a mess of mixed messages, a step, but it’s something that could mean something to everyone, quite the political statement… sigh…

This STrib report is just part of the story, note that Amit found the costs Garvey says should be included in the flat rate are way higher than that, $170-180/MWh, and nevermind that Amit’s estimate of the costs of transmission are WAY low (and the transmission request has been DENIED by MISO) .

MOST IMPORTANT: Garvey talks about COST of carbon capture and sequestration BUT there is no requirement that it be done! So we pay but don’t get any benefit — that’s called a TRADE, it’s not carbon capture and sequestration! This doesn’t pick up that disctinction, and it’s an important one.

Range coal-gasification plant hits obstacle

January 08, 2007 â?? 9:53 PM

By Mike Meyers, Star Tribune

Current plans for a $2 billion coal-gasification plant on the Iron Range are â??not yet in the public interest,â? according to a state commerce official.

Excelsior Energy must first promise to control air pollution more dramatically than it has planned and sharply increase the protections it offers consumers against runaway electricity rates, argues Edward Garvey, deputy commissioner of energy and telecommunications at the Minnesota Department of Commerce.

Garveyâ??s criticisms are contained in a letter he wrote to two administrative law judges who are considering Excelsiorâ??s proposed plant just north of Taconite, Minn.

The judges are expected to make a recommendation to the Public Utilities Commission next month. The plant cannot be built without the PUCâ??s approval.

Excelsior officials hope to start construction early next year and have the plant in service in 2011, with much of its power sold to Xcel Energy for use in Minnesota.

Garveyâ??s proposals could represent major new costs for the project and limit the ability of Excelsiorâ??s developers to recover those expenses from electricity customers. The price tag for the power plant could rise by hundreds of millions of dollars if Excelsior is compelled to keep 90 percent of its carbon dioxide from going up its smokestacks, a company executive estimated.

â??What the letterâ??s trying to offer is a path out of whatâ??s been a contentious litigation,â? Garvey said in an interview Monday. The power-plant proposal has won support and drawn fire from legions of lawyers, accountants, engineers and other experts since it was filed with the state in December 2005.

Julie Jorgensen, Excelsior co-president and chief executive, said she reads Garveyâ??s letter as the latest round of negotiations, with the agencyâ??s suggestions only a â??wish list.â?

â??My immediate reaction is that if all of these things could be had without driving up the cost of the power, we of course want to give it to them,â? Jorgensen said.

Garvey said the sticking points, in the Commerce Departmentâ??s view, center on three issues:

â?¢ Excelsior wants to sell Xcel Energy 603 megawatts of electricity. But state legislation directing Xcel to buy Excelsiorâ??s power limits the requirement to 450 megawatts â?? a limit that should be kept, Garvey wrote.

â?¢ The power purchase agreement between Excelsior and Xcel should include the costs of sequestering 90 percent of the greenhouse gases created by burning coal and the cost of transmission lines. Both are big-ticket expenses. Jorgensen said the price certainly would be in the hundreds of millions of dollars. The cost of diverting CO2 created in burning coal â?? a process that could involve building more than 600 miles of pipelines to ship the gases for underground storage in Canada or North Dakota â?? could run as high as $891 million and reduce the operating efficiency of the plant by as much as 40 percent, Xcel said in one filing before the PUC.

In a nod to those higher costs, Garvey said the commerce agency suggests, over the life of the contract, a price no higher than $110 per megawatt hour â?? or â??twice the cost that the Legislature set for energy from a biomass facility in the 2003 energy legislation.â?

â?¢ The agency also wants more consumer safeguards.

â??There should be terms that protect ratepayers from any performance failures of the Mesaba project,â? Garvey said.

â??The direct power purchase agreement costs payable by ratepayers are excessive and are not balanced by ratepayer benefits,â? he wrote to the judges.

Jorgensen said the Excelsior proposal already includes safeguards for electricity customers that they wonâ??t get from a conventional coal-fired or gas-fired plant built by Xcel or another utility. For instance, Excelsior will not be paid for power it doesnâ??t produce.

â??Every kilowatt hour we donâ??t deliver, we take a ding on the payments,â? she said. â??Utilities arenâ??t penalized for outages.â?

Mike Meyers â?¢ 612-673-1746

©. All rights reserved.

And about that transmission service denial…

Whatever is he thinking? We in the Excelsior Mesaba Project docket at the PUC have all received a “Policy Statement” from one of the Gov’s boys, Ed Garvey, Deputy Commissioner — Energy and Telecommunications. It’s weird, coming in not as part of the brief, but separately, as if they decided to submit additional testimony long after the record closed on December 22, 2006. HUH? What is Ed Garvey thinking???

Here it is:

Policy Statement of Ed Garvey
This case takes so many bizarre turns that I just don’t know what to say, other than it’s an attempt to pull the Gov’s fat out of the fire on this and they hope that etiher Excelsior or Xcel capitualtes. Not likely! Who would buy into a goofy deal like this? And to suggest something like this publicly?????

Note that in suggesting “modifications,” he suggests that the price of the PPA include COSTS (remember that word) of transmission and sequestration and it be a “fixed all-inclusive” price of no more than $110/MWh over the life of the contract, and that the PPA be limited to 450MW. Well, according to Amit’s testimony, also of Commerce, he found that the price just a tad bit more than $110/MWh — like another 50-70%!
From the Commerce Brief, p. 28 [table includes only total, TRADE SECRET data omitted]:

Commerce Initial Brief

Stolen from www.brainfartsonline.com