AFCL appeals PUC denial of EAW Petition
March 20th, 2020
On Wednesday, Association of Freeborn County Landowners filed an appeal of the Public Utilities Commission’s denial of AFCL’s Petition for and Environmental Assessment Worksheet. It was mailed Certified Mail yesterday, as required by statute, and today, filed on the PUC’s eDockets:
The PUC really screwed this up, in so many ways. Granted there are few Petitions for EAW to the Commission, and Commission staff may not be familiar with EQB rules and process. However, in the only other Petition for Environmental Assessment Worksheet/EIS, they denied a Motion and then a Petition for EAW forwarded by the EQB, and it was sent back to the Commission by the Appellate Court:
In the Matter of Minnesota Power’s Petition for Approval of the EnergyForward Resource Package
Lesson not learned. We’ve been trying to get environmental review of wind projects for how long now, particularly given the demonstrable impacts, actual and constructive notice, beyond the “potential” for environmental impacts. Bent Tree noise excedences and landowner settlements? What more is needed?
Bent Tree Order filed by PUC
In the Staff Briefing Papers, which is staff’s recommendation to the Commission, over and over it was said that the Petition was insufficient because there were not 100 signatures, but there were 380+ signatures! In the Staff Briefing Papers, over and over it was said that the Commission could declare the Petition insufficient, when it is NOT the Commission’s job to address sufficiency, that was already determined by the Environmental Quality Board, which validated the Petition and forwarded it to the Commission for action! Read the Briefing Papers… really, it’s that absurd:
I fired off a letter requesting correction, which never happened:
And even after denying AFCL’s Petition, they went further, and provided “notice” in an email to the EQB that the Board had made its decision:
And that “notice” was published in the EQB Monitor on February 18, 2020:
And yet to this date, they’ve not filed an Order or the Record of Decision on this decision! WHAT?!?! Yes, really!!
I’d sent a letter to the EQB about the Commission’s failure to file the Order and Record of Decision nearly a month ago:
STILL NO ORDER OR RECORD OF DECISION. There are no Findings of Facts to explain, to support, the Commission’s decision. I guess it’s harder to make them up than staff thought?!?!
Meanwhile, the appeal deadline of a decision on an EAW Petition is 30 days after the notice is published in the EQB Monitor. Minn. Stat. 116D.04, Subd. 10. It’s kind of hard to Appeal a decision without the necessary documents, so I can guess that’s one more reason the Commission has chosen not to file! Oh well… ONWARD!
Prior posts on AFCL’s Petition for Environmental Assessment Worksheet:
Freeborn EAW – more time!
EQB forwards EAW Petition to PUC
Petition for EAW – Freeborn Wind
STAY HOME!
March 16th, 2020
From the STrib: Tracking Coronavirus in Minnesota
Just do it — no excuses. Neighbors, relatives, friends, need to help each other get through this, self-isolation and social distancing is not easy, and is for sure nearly impossible for too many. HELP AS YOU CAN!
Coronavirus and the Sun: a Lesson from the 1918 Influenza Pandemic
2019 PJM State of Market
March 12th, 2020
PJM’s annual State of the Market Report has been released by Marketing Analytics:
What I’m looking for first is demand info, so I’m searching. Here ya go:
It looks like peak demand/load, at 148,228MW is above what it was in 2006. From FERC – Electric Power Markets PJM:
All time peak demand: 144,644 MW (set August 2, 2006), and down to 139,438 in 2007.
Peak demand growth (2006-2007): Peak demand declined 3.6%. See PJM State of the Market 2008, below.
| 2006 | ||
|---|---|---|
| Summer Peak Demand (MW) | 144,644 | 139,438 |
| (Source: PJM) |
And about wholesale cost, from the 2019 State of the Market report:
One of the benefits of competitive power markets is that changes in input prices and changes in the balance of supply and demand are reflected immediately in energy prices. PJM real-time energy market prices decreased significantly in 2019 compared to 2018. The load weighted,average real-time LMP was 28.6 percent lower in 2019 than in 2018, $27.32 per MWh versus $38.24per MWh. Of the $10.92 per MWh decrease, 41.5 percent was a result of lower fuel costs. Other contributors to the decrease were the dispatch of lower cost units, decreased load and lower markups (2019 SoM,Intro, p 3).
Once more with feeling –wholesale energy costs and prices are DOWN, DOWN, DOWN, yet rates are going UP, UP, UP. DOH! It’s because, like Xcel, utilities are changing their business plan. They’re not making the money anymore on selling electricity, and can make a LOT more by building infrastructure that we don’t need and charging us ratepayers for it. Transmission costing billions; the rebuild and start up of Sherco 3 after 22 months off-line, and then announcing shut down of 1 & 2; the rebuild of Monticello costing twice the estimate; request to PUC to sell surplus Sherco and King plant generation on MISO market (just how is running it for sale elsewhere consistent with cutting CO2?!?!?)…
Another thing I do see is that the Capacity Market is deemed “Not Competitive,” and this has been a documented problem since 2007. DOH! Yet it continues.
If it’s not competitive, why hasn’t the market structure been changed? After all, it’s all about “let the free market decide,” and where it’s not competitive, that isn’t happening, eh? As Marketing Analytics states, “Structural market power is endemic to the capacity market.” From a wiki definition of endemic, “In epidemiology, an infection is said to be endemic in a population when that infection is constantly maintained at a baseline level…” Houston, methinks we have a market problem…
More to follow, but wanted to get these tidbits out there.
Winona County frac sand mining ban upheld
March 11th, 2020
And the good news is… the Minnesota Supreme Court has upheld Winona County’s frac sand mining ban:
Check out the court’s rejection of Minnesota Sands’ takings claim, starting on p. 26.
9th Anniversary of Fukushima Daiichi meltdown
March 11th, 2020
Nine years ago, when this happened, I posted as much as I could find about it, and it was hard to nail info down, but this photo above pretty much said it all, massive explosion.
Today, the release of SimplyInfo.org’s 9th Anniversary report:
View The 9th Anniversary Annual Report Here
SimplyInfo.org, a group of talented volunteers deep-researching this issue, has been tracking this for 9 years now. From their site’s “about us” page:
Back when it happened, I put these up on my Legalectricsite, and shortly after it happened, Day 3 I believe, I had over 4,000 hits in ONE DAY! People were hungry, desperate, for information. When I’d reported the explosion, the first one, someone commented that “no way was it melting down,” and that made no sense, even given what little objective information we had. And in fact, it was a lot worse than those folks thought. I knew it was a disaster, but as it kept getting worse, well, stunning… and the impacts are still affecting us, will be for thousands of years. Right now, they’re on the verge of dumping radioactive water into the ocean!
These Legalectric posts below were no real scoop, “just information lite,” a compilation of public info, news reports, but its information that we in Minnesota should take into account because our Monticello nuclear plant is the same design as Fukushima Diiachi: