Failure of “clean coal” in The Guardian
March 2nd, 2018
Yes, we know it doesn’t work. Learned that in stopping the Mesaba Project:
There were IGCC – coal gasification – plants proposed all over the country, and they fell, one by one. Some not fast enough, the Kemper project, in today’s Guardian, is an example of protracted misrepresentations to keep that money coming in to fund the scam:
The best thing that came from the failed Mesaba Project was the information about the technology that hadn’t been disclosed before. We were able to use this information all over the country to stop these plants, and stop this one before Minnesotans were utterly and hopelessly screwed as they were in Mississippi with Southern’s Kemper and Indiana with Duke’s Edwardsport. Read the rest of this entry »
GreenMark & Wacouta Township in Goodhue Co. District Court
September 12th, 2017
I found my notes!! On August 29, 2017, Alan and I went to the Goodhue County Courthouse for the GreenMark Solar v. Wacouta Township (Court Case No. 25-CV-17-1462) festivities — a Summary Judgment hearing.
FULL DISCLOSURE: I’m not a fan of any of the principals of GreenMark, Mark Andrew, Dennis Egan, and Julie Jorgensen. Mark Andrew is a former Hennepin County Commissioner and a fan of burning garbage. Here’s a thread from the Mpls yak-yak list about Andrew when he was running for Mayor. Dennis Egan, well, we had a few go rounds when he was Mayor of Red Wing AND was executive director of Minnesota Industrial Sand Council, and at the time silica sand mining issue was on agenda for City of Red Wing. Julie Jorgensen? Her Excelsior Energy Mesaba Project coal gasification plant took up 5 years of my full-time labor before it went to part-time and intermittent, and still just won’t fully go away! Minn. Stat. 216B.1694, Subd. 3(b)(1)(ii).
That said, I’m also a big fan of solar, from way, way back when my father designed the solar on the Minnesota Zoo (that was later taken down, it was hot water! Not quite what was most needed, and they didn’t know much about solar back then).
Here’s the GreenMark Complaint — couldn’t find the Wacouta Answer or the cross-motions for Summary Judgment. The Wacouta Township website is years out of date — what’s up with that? (2014 is most current minutes, plus a notice of the May 2017 meeting about the solar project. ???)
Here are a couple articles:
GreenMark Solar challenges Wacouta Township | Republican Eagle
Minnesota Developer Sues for Solar Garden Permit
The oral argument started with Greenmark. Some points (not all inclusive):
Focus on Minn. Stat. 394.33, Subd. 1, that the township decision violates Town Powers Act. It’s inconsistent with their zoning. They can enact more restrictive zoning, but they didn’t, township has no solar ordinance.2
Township ordinance is ambiguous. Frank’s Nursery case — if ambiguous, allow property owner to do what they want with the property.
“Agricultural community” — Planning Commission and Board selected different definitions. Current use, peat mining and hay. Pollinator scale 45, and 85 with solar. Wetlands. Reduce carbon emissions.
Township argument:
Town Power Act does not restrict township actions. Bergen defines inconsistent, it’s not different.
Township Ordinance, Art. 3, Subd. 10, limits industrial uses that do not support agricultural. Solar is an industrial use. Twp. does allow solar in ag, BUT, it’s more restrictive, and it’s not inconsistnet.
The standard is whether down decision was rational, i.e., legally sufficient, supported by record.
Reasonable — inconsistent with agriculture, exported to the grid. CUP – exported, GreenMark takes issue with def of ag use, but see “Hubbard Broadcasting” denial of Conditional Use. Review is deferential. Mandamus (GreenMark’s action) review not to challenge discretionary decisions of local government.
Frank’s Nursery re: ambiguous ordinance, doesn’t require ordinance to be construed to support use. Court still needs to determine rationality.
Greenmark Rebuttal
Mandamus – this is about building permit, a ministerial act, not discretionary.
Does township even have jurisdiction/authority.
Purpose of project — Goodhue County, that’s the area.
Altenberg (?) – Town Powers Act – Twp didn’t adopt a more restrictive ordinance.
Bergum (?) – legislative intent of Town Powers Act.
Township Rebuttal
Cases of Mandamus for building permits
Goodhue – zoned agricultural, township couldn’t zone industrial, that would be inconsistent with county zoning.
__________________________
Judge Bayley said he has a lot of homework to do, and will do it and issue Order.
MN’s Renewable Development Fund HF235/SF214
February 3rd, 2017
Some have said that the Renewable Development Fund is sacred. WRONG. The Renewable Development Fund is profane, not sacred, all the way from its origins to its uses. It’s now under scrutiny at Minnesota legislature, and institutional memory is nowhere to be found in this discussion. See HF 235 and SF 214.
The Renewable Development Fund (RDF) came into being in the 1994 Prairie Island bill, and was to be a per cask compensation fund for the Prairie Island Indian Community for storage of nuclear waste next door and extension of Prairie Island nuclear plant life. That compensation was turned into the RDF in a late night deal by “environmental” groups lobbying, of which Bill Grant (now Deputy Commissioner, Dept. of Commerce, formerly and then Izaak Walton League) was an integral part, Michael Noble (ME3, now “Fresh Energy”), and George Crocker (North American Water Office) too. Prairie Island Indian Community was supposed to get priority in grants, but that never happened. The RDF was administered by 3 from Xcel, plus Bill Grant, and one other “environmental” rep. The composition of the group giving out the grants has changed, and there is now someone from PI on it, but that’s recent. (Full Disclosure: I represented Florence Twp. fighting the “in Goodhue County” alternate site mandate for nuclear waste and the Township worked very mindful of, and often in tandem with, PIIC, where it fiercely refused to acquiesce to Xcel and say “STICK IT THERE” to PIIC. The working relationship continues and PIIC is now largest private landowner in Florence Twp.).
1994 Prairie Island bill — Ch. 641, MN Session Laws (https://www.revisor.mn.gov/laws/?year=1994&type=0&doctype=Chapter&id=641).
The RDF was a material term of the 2003 Prairie Island bill, where as part of the deal millions of RDF money was to go to the Excelsior Energy Mesaba Project. Bill Grant was primary again, and when the Mesaba Project was stricken in one House session, a red-faced Tom Micheletti came flying down the hall yelling at Grant “We had a deal, we had a deal!” That deal was later added back in, and Micheletti’s Excelsior Energy coal gasification plant, Mesaba Project, was added to the factors to keep PI open. “Environmental groups” got massive grants to promote coal gasification. Micheletti got $10-12 million from RDF for Mesaba (and lots more from IRRB and DOE) and other regulator perks in the 2003 law, like exemption from CoN, and a mandated PPA with Xcel. (Full Disclosure: I represented MNcoalgasplant.com against Mesaba Project, and with CAMP and help from Xcel, we got the details of coal gasification, that project was killed, and the info killed others nationwide, but Mesaba still has a site permit in Taconite from PUC valid until 2019!)
2003 Prairie Island bill – Ch. 11, MN Session Laws (https://www.revisor.mn.gov/laws/?year=2003&type=1&doctype=Chapter&id=11)
On Monday, January 23, the Red Wing City Council voted to accept a $2 million grant from RDF to install a garbage grinder, a project they’ve been lobbying for for years, where they’ll take in garbage from the whole county, grind it up, and burn it in Xcel’s garbage burner here, its air permit expired in 2009! GARBAGE!!! DOH! GARBAGE is not clean, it’s toxic! The purpose of all this is to keep the incinerators open and burning. (Full Disclosure: I have been representing clients being screwed by Xcel’s plan for “ash mining” in their incinerator ash landfill in Red Wing, part of which includes a plan to build a Red Wing laydown yard and crusher on a site half of which is designated Water Tower Burial Mounds — yeah, really. That’s been exposed:
My partner, Alan Muller, is an incineration expert and has worked with groups to stop RockTenn; Midtown Burner in Phillips, Rockford City and Township; HERC uprate, etc. See the Tyler Hills Neighbors Comments: Comment Extension for Lab USA EAW & Xcel & Lab USA Solid Waste)
The RDF has been a slush fund for deals enabling nuclear, promoting coal gasification, and greasing the skids for scams of great financial and environmental magnitude and impact. It should be shut down and turned over to Prairie Island Indian Community as originally intended.
Trump and ‘clean coal’ — just say NO!
November 13th, 2016
After this election, there are so many things to be concerned about, so many reasons to be utterly horrified… a Muslim database, Trump’s fraud trial to begin November 28th, promise of mass deportations, sharp increase in hate crimes, assaults and threats on the street and in the schools (and online, oh my!). Trump’s “100 Days” plan was out in October, and has many points, full of words to decode, including a ‘clean coal’ reference, showing he’s clueless, just clueless:
Trump’s Contract with the American voter — the First 100 Days
In the 2nd and 3rd debate, Trump used those two words that have deep meaning to me, “clean coal,” because of Excelsior Energy’s Mesaba Project here in Minnesota, and because of the NRG proposed IGCC plant in Delaware, both of which were defeated after a long protracted fight. There is no such thing as ‘clean coal.”
Coal gasification is one thing that my coal-plant designing Mechanical Engineer father and I had some bonding moments over, going over EPRI coal gasification reports from the 80s and the Mesaba application… And I had the pleasure of meeting and working alongside my father’s boss’s son, who is also an engineer, formerly with NSP/Xcel, who knew what a bad idea coal gasification is. Oh yeah, we who fought these projects have learned a lot about coal gasification, “carbon capture and storage,” and will not go there again (see Legalectric and CAMP – Citizens Against the Mesaba Project sites for more info). We know it doesn’t work. And experience with the few projects that did go forward, what a mess, cost overruns beyond the wildest SWAG estimate, inability to get the plant running… Trump, don’t even think about it:
IGCC – Pipedreams of Green & Clean
IGCC, coal gasification, is nothing new. And despite its long history, it’s a history of failure, failure to live up to promises, failure to operate as a workable technology, and failure to produce electricity at a marketable cost, failure to produce electricity at all! On top of that, it’s often touted as being available with “CO2 capture and storage” which it is not. That’s a flat out lie. Check this old Legalectric post:
More on Carbon Capture Pipedream
A key to this promotion is massive subsidies from state and federal sources, and selection of locations desperate for economic jump-start, so desperate that they’ll bite on a project this absurd, places like Minnesota’s Iron Range, or southern Indiana, or Mississippi. The financing scam was put together at Harvard, and this blueprint has been used for all of these IGCC projects:
That, coupled with massive payments to “environmental” organizations to promote coal gasification, and they were off to the races.
Joyce Foundation PROMOTES coal gasification
Doris Duke Charitable Foundation & IGCC – WHY???
VP-elect Mike Pence should know all about coal gasification, he’s from Indiana. Indiana is coal generation central, and has had a couple of IGCC projects planned, construction started, and built. Indiana’s Wabash Valley plant is a perfect example, a small IGCC plant that was built, and after it was “completed,” took 22 on-site engineers to keep it running, now and then, at a greatly reduced capacity.
Wabash River Final Technical Report (it was “routinely” in violation of its water permit for selenium, cyanide and arsenic)
When they tried to sell the Wabash Valley plant recently, of course no one wanted it:
Wabash Valley coal gasification plant closing!
And another Indiana plant, with huge cost overruns that never started operating:
Rockport coal gasification plant dies – Indianapolis Star
Coal News: $2.8B coal gasification plant in Indiana canceled
And then there’s Edwardsport IGCC plant, also in Indiana, what a disaster:
Edwardsport plant not at promised capacity
Settlement won’t be the last word on controversial Indiana coal plant
Duke Energy Edwardsport Plant Settlement Expanded
The original settlement in September was a response to the plant’s rising operating costs while failing to meet performance expectations.
In the new agreement, Duke Energy agrees not to charge customers for $87.5 million of the operating costs of the Edwardsport plant, $2.5 million more than the original agreement.
And note that problems with Edwardsport tie in to similar problems with the Kemper IGCC plant in Mississippi:
Indiana ‘cease fire’ could provide a model for Mississippi regulators
Yes, in Mississippi, the Kemper IGCC plant is proving to be a problem, and yes, folks, note the Obama promotion of IGCC — after all, Obama is from Illinois, a coal state, and had lots of support from coal lobbyists. Check this detailed NY Times article:
Piles of Dirty Secrets Behind a Model “Clean Coal’ project: Mississippi project, a centerpiece of President Obama’s climate plan, has been plagued by problems that managers tried to conceal, and by cost overruns and questions of who will pay.
The sense of hope is fading fast, however. The Kemper coal plant is more than two years behind schedule and more than $4 billion over its initial budget, $2.4 billion, and it is still not operational.
The plant and its owner, Southern Company, are the focus of a Securities and Exchange Commission investigation, and ratepayers, alleging fraud, are suing the company. Members of Congress have described the project as more boondoggle than boon. The mismanagement is particularly egregious, they say, given the urgent need to rein in the largest source of dangerous emissions around the world: coal plants.
Trump, just don’t.
Pat Micheletti has kidney transplant
May 28th, 2015
Fair Use from STribIn today’s STrib:
Micheletti recovering from transplant after brother donates kidney
Says he was in severe pain and thought he had hip issues… whoa… and then went to Mayo to get checked out:
I’ve not dealt with Pat since Excelsior Energy Mesaba Project days, what a protracted sticky and very painful mess that was. He’s probably very glad to be out of that… I remember when he was caught in the midst of an ex parte contact blitz:
Excelsior’s indirect ex parte contact
July 26th, 2007
I will never forget the packed standing-room-only hearing in Taconite when one of the public commenters drifted up the aisle in flowing clothing and brought a sculpture/collage/birdcage(?) as an exhibit to present to the judge, representing the Mesaba Project and what it meant to her, the devastation it would create, and she said she made it especially for Pat (it might have been his birthday that evening). He was sitting near the back, on the center aisle, head in hands, shaking his head in disbelief at this odd presentation. The judge was visibly afraid/concerned, he held his hands up, “stay back” or some such, did not want her to approach with that “exhibit.” It was one of the most hilarious parts of that long mess.