mesabaone

Remember the Excelsior Energy Mesaba Project (see Legalectric posts and Citizens Against the Mesaba Project’s “Camp Site”), the boondoggle coal gasification plant that almost was, the project that got every legislative perk possible, got financing and grants based on wishful thinking and that “something else” that we just can’t identify (without which, who would think this was a good idea?  That plant that was to be built, according to the special legislation for this project, on a site WITH INFRASTRUCTURE?  This site… dig the infrastructure!

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Anyway, it wasn’t built here.  But a similar plant WAS built in Indiana, the Edwardsport plant owned by Duke Energy.  As with the Mesaba Project it was proposed at a reasonable price, legislators were first told $700 million, and then it went upwards of $2.11 billion.  For Edwardsport, same story, and that price kept going up, up, up, and in Indiana, it was so extreme that costs recoverable from ratepayers were capped by the Indiana Public Utility Commission at $2.9 BILLION.  It was allowed to be built, and it started operating, sort of…  Average output has been 41%, when an 80+% capacity factor was promised.  Repairs?  That’s putting it mildly.  Now they’re going to try to get cost recovery for that.

Problems pile up at Edwardsport 06-14-2015

Now, let’s not all forget all the money given by the Joyce Foundation to support this nonsense.

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Here’s a specific and eloquent comment from Michael Mullet, very involved in opposition to the Edwardsport fiasco:

    You raise what is definitely the “bottom line” question for Edwardsport given the huge subsidy which almost 800,000 Indiana ratepayers have been paying and are continuing to pay to Duke Energy every month for Edwardsport generation.
 
    Based on what DEI customers had paid to the Company for Edwardsport and the plant’s net generation through March 2014, the cumulative cost since Edwardsport costs (including CWIP charges) began appearing in customer rates in 2009 was approximately 57 cents per kwh and the current cost for only the twelve month period under review in pending Cause No. 43114-IGCC-12&13 was approximately 33 cents per kwh.  See Direct Testimony of Ralph C. Smith, Joint Intervenors Exhibit A, IURC Causes Nos. 43114-IGCC-12&13, filed December 15, 2014, pp. 48-54.
 
    Complaints by Duke Energy and other Indiana IOUs that the costs of energy efficiency under Energizing Indiana were “excessive'” resulted in the Indiana General Assembly abruptly terminating that program in 2014 even though an impartial third party concluded that its costs were approximately 4 cents per kwh of electricity saved.    Complaints by Duke Energy and other Indiana IOUs that the costs of customer credits for rooftop solar power in the range of 9 to 13 cents per kwh represent an unfair and unaffordable subsidy to approximately 500 net metering customers statewide also resulted in serious legislative consideration of a bill (thankfully not resulting in any enacted legislation to date) to terminate that program as well.
 
    In this context of sustainable resources being “too costly” at a level of 4 to 13 cents per kwh, it would seem long overdue for Indiana’s regulators (or, alternatively, its legislators and its Governor) either to impose a reasonable “operating cost cap” on Edwardsport charges to customers or, failing that, to shut the plant down as grossly uneconomic and a monumental waste of scarce ratepayer resources in the face of Edwardsport costs for millions of mwh of coal gas generation with no carbon capture let alone sequestration which are multiple orders of magnitude greater than those for end-use efficiency under Energizing Indiana  or rooftop solar under Net Metering.
 
    This incredible “double standard” to subsidize Indiana’s favorite “crony capitalists” at Duke Energy and Peabody Coal (whose Bear Run mine in southwest Indiana supplies 100% of Ewardsport’s coal) in order to permit them to spew millions of tons of unregulated CO2 annually into the global atmosphere should end ASAP.
 
Michael A. Mullet
 
 

PatMichelettiXplntFair Use from STrib

In 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:

Doctors believe Pat Micheletti’s kidneys were failing because of years of taking the over-the-counter pain reliever, Motrin (ibuprofen), to deal with discomfort stemming from his hockey-playing career. Alex said his dad plans to start making hockey players aware of the dangers of taking too much ibuprofen.

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.

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Doesn’t this guy ever quit?  New legislation with new option, wanting to change the law to allow a “biomass” plant on the Mesaba Project site.  WHAT?  Aren’t they paying attention to the Laurentian Energy Authority’s unworkable “biomass” projects in Hibbing and Virginia, the “biomass” plants that don’t have enough feedstock and so are burning coal?  Did they forget that the MPCA has only issued one woody biomass permit, for Laurentian (Hibbing and Virginia) and that that permit was violated, so extremely that the MPCA issued fines and reworked the permit?

LEGALECTRIC POST: Laurentian “biomass” Air Permit Draft (second time around)

LEGALECTRIC POST: “Biomass” violates air permit – fines likely

DOH!

Thanks to a little birdie for the heads up on this.

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Here’s the change, hidden in Senate File 2101:

2101Today, say NO to lines 191.4 – 191.19 of Senate File 2101.

IRRRB

Big thanks to Citizens Against the Mesaba Project for the heads up!

Minnesota’s legislative auditor will investigate IRRRB _ Duluth News Tribune

This specifically includes the $9.5 to Excelsior Energy and its Mesaba Project:

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$9.5 was loaned, but as of 2008, with interest, that number was up to over $14 million, per the Legislative Audit report of 2008 (full report below):

Here’s an overview from CAMP:

CAMP UPDATE _ Mesaba Energy Project _ Excelsior Energy

Here’s the 2008 Legislative Auditor Report_IRR Loans to Excelsior Energy

And on this site, also posted in 2008:

Excelsior Energy under the auditor’s microscope

Here are some of the pertinent documents from that round — Read it and see for yourself. Anyway, mncoalgasplant.com wanted to dig around in the IRR’s records, so we started in filing this and that…

Subpoena Request IRR September 7, 2006

Or was it a Data Practices Act request?

IRRB Data Practices Act Request

Letter to IRRRB June 19, 2006

Letter to IRRRB July 26, 2006

All of the above!

We got quite a bit of information, and here’s Ron Gustafson’s spreadsheet, it may not be all inclusive, but some choice tidbits are there:

IRR Receipts – Final Review

The IRRRB’s handling of money, particularly handing it over to Excelsior Energy a/k/a Tom Micheletti and Julie Jorgensen, was appalling, and it’s about time this got another review.  The Mesaba Project was one of the most obvious and disturbing examples of special legislation ever, from the legislatively granted perks like a mandate of Power Purchase Agreement, to eminent domain for a private company, to the Renewable Development Funds to the IRRRB money, pouring money down the rathole.

What were theys thinking?  And what was the pay-off?  The pay-off to Xcel Energy was that they got to keep their Prairie Island nuclear plant going.  What was the pay-off to legislators who agreed to this?  What was the pay-off to the “environmental” groups, particularly Bill Grant, then Izaak Walton League, who Tom Micheletti furiously accosted after the deal was temporarily stopped, yelling, “WE HAD A DEAL!!!  BUT WE HAD A DEAL!!!”  What did Bill Grant’s organization and its supporters get?

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Dying the death of a thousand cuts, here’s one more paper cut for our good friends at Excelsior Energy.

Excelsior Energy’s Mesaba Project, the creme-de-la-creme of vaporware projects, was slashed again by a Midwest Independent System Operator filing with FERC that the project had breached its transmission interconnection agreement and was in default.  MISO has asked FERC to terminate the agreement:

ER13-1049 Notice of Termination Filing

The state has been unreasonably and inexplicably reluctant to kill this non-project.  Maybe the feds are willing?