Let Mesaba go…
December 19th, 2009
Jorgensen’s got to get over it — Mesaba is done, ain’t happening, dead, dead dead, yet she’s spinning those tales and hype about Excelsior Energy’s Mesaba IGCC Project. From the first words in the title, it’s lies, lies and more lies, oh, and misrepresentations and falsehoods and exaggerations and utter bullshit too! Why does the St. Paul Pioneer Press give her space forthis advertising of the nonsensical kind?
Here’s what Citizens Against the Mesaba Projet’s Charlotte Neigh had to say about it:
Julie Jorgensen is using the opportune hook of the Copenhagen conference to repeat Excelsior Energy’s same old, self-serving promotional claims about the “clean coal” technology of its Mesaba Energy Project. One must wonder why the Press unquestioningly allots opinion space to the promoter of a precarious for-profit venture, financed almost exclusively by $40 million in public funds, which have been benefiting the author and her co-founder husband, Tom Micheletti.
What Jorgensen didn’t say:
• The U.N. negotiators in Copenhagen decided to leave carbon capture and storage, the prime objective of the IGCC technology touted by Excelsior Energy, off the list of clean-energy projects eligible for the Clean Development Mechanism; the 12/17/09 Wall Street Journal reported that “clean coal seems to be getting the cold shoulder at the climate summit”, and “. . . clean coal is anything but viable right now”.
• Mesaba’s Unit I would emit 5 million tons of carbon dioxide per year and the Department of Energy has acknowledged that capturing and sequestering the CO2 from the proposed Taconite plant is not feasible.
• The claimed economic benefit has been rejected by the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission, which found the project too expensive and risky and not in the public interest.
• The need for this Project has never been proven; no utility is willing to buy its output; Xcel Energy successfully resisted efforts to force it into a power purchase agreement; and the MPUC has declined to require other utilities in the state to include Mesaba’s output in their resource plans.
• The environmental claims are yet to be adjudicated as the MPUC considers the route and siting permits and other government agencies pursue their concerns related to air, water and waste permits.
Is Jorgensen’s piece really that bad? See for yourself:
Julie Jorgensen: We need baseload power. Coal’s plentiful. Let’s clean it up
By Julie Jorgensen
Updated: 12/17/2009 05:54:25 PM CSTI’m the co-founder of Excelsior Energy, which is developing the Mesaba Energy Project, an IGCC power plant near the town of Taconite on Minnesota’s Iron Range. From my point of view, IGCC offers economic and environmental benefits to Minnesota. The Midwest is poised be a leader in the delivery of this technology. Gov. Tim Pawlenty and the Minnesota Legislature have supported the development of Minnesota’s IGCC plant, the Mesaba Energy Project, since 2003, and the project has been exempted from a statewide prohibition against new coal plants. Eleven Midwest governors established a collective goal to spur construction of at least five commercial-scale IGCC plants by 2015, and President Obama announced a goal to build five such “first-of-a-kind” clean coal plants. The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has provided significant funding and incentives to the Mesaba Project to offset the costs of needed innovation.
Adoption of IGCC technology is essential to cleaning up coal and mitigating climate change.
As fears mount about global warming, environmental advocates like the Clean Air Task Force and the Natural Resources Defense Council support the timely and widespread commercialization of IGCC technology. From a global perspective, the importance of commercializing a cleaner way to use coal cannot be understated: both India and China have vast coal reserves, which they will inevitably use in the cheapest and easiest possible ways to fuel their growing economies.
Additionally, the costs of new nuclear facilities may put them out of reach.
Julie Jorgensen is the former CEO of CogenAmerica, a publicly traded independent power company, and a former executive of NRG Energy, a global energy development company. She’s a co-founder of Excelsior Energy Inc., which is developing a coal gasification plant near Taconite on Minnesota’s Iron Range. Her e-mail address is JulieJorgensen@ExcelsiorEnergy.com.
Mesaba EIS? And close encounters of the Mesaba kind!
November 17th, 2009
The joint DOE and MN Dept. of Commerce EIS for Excelsior Energy’s Mesaba Project has been released. WTF? This is SUCH a waste of time. And I am at a lost to explain how it is that this even was released, why we have to bother with it, when it’s the vampire-vaporware project from hell that is dead but … but…
Excelsior Energy Mesaba Project Environmental Impact Statement
Comments on the “adequacy of the Final EIS or its impact upon the issues” are due on December 2, 2009. Send Comments to:
steve.mihalchick [at] oah.state.mn.us
or by mail to:
Steve Mihalchick, ALJ
Office of Administrative Hearings
P.O. Box 64620
St. Paul, MN 55164-0620
Here’s the Order establishing that deadline:
Is this weird language or what:
b. Such comments on the “adequacy” of the Final EIS or its “impact” upon the issues in this matter shall be filed with the Administrative Law Judge within ten business days after filing of the Final EIS.
So get cracking on “such comments” and send them in!
And just in, breaking news…
Just last Friday, a MCGPer and his son were out deer hunting on the preferred Excelsior site, guns in hand, on the alert, and what should come bursting through the trees but… BOB EVANS! Bob Evans and two other Excelsior boys, they were out viewing the site during deer hunting! That just doesn’t seem to bright.
Give it up!!! Get a job, Bob!!!
And have they forgotten that other encounter in the woods, almost exactly three years ago?
Meanwhile … the sun is coming up over New York right now…
Mesaba EIS delayed again
October 27th, 2009
For a project that’s dead, they continue to take vital signs… go figure…
And once again, the EIS, which was pooh-poohed by the EPA and US Army Corps of Engineers as insufficient, has been delayed…
Here’re the EPA and US Army Corps of Engineers objections:
The chart also says the Kemmer IGCC EIS should be out in October. Is it?
Excelsior Energy has another bad day…
May 29th, 2009
Yes, Tom Micheletti and Excelsior Energy’s Mesaba Project had another rough time at the Public Utilities Commission yesterday. The PUC was deciding on Excelsior’s Motions for Reconsideration in “Phase II” of the proceedings:
Excelsior’s Motion to Suspend, for Reconsideration etc etc etc
It was fast, the tone seemed to say that the PUC had had enough of it, and wanted to be done. Deny, deny, deny, the end.
So, now what? I don’t know, because Charlotte Neigh, of Citizens Against the Mesaba Project, had inquired with Richard Hargis, of the DOE, as to the status of the EIS in the siting docket, scheduled to be released in June (yeah, right, as if…). He said:
Ms. Neigh,
I don’t think this affects the issuance of the FEIS.
Richard Hargis
Huh… so now what? Haven’t a clue. My client, mncalgasplant.com, was an intervenor in this case, beginning nearly five years ago. Will this thing end some time in my lifetime? I’m starting to wonder…
Sen. Amy gets visit from Micheletti!
April 30th, 2009
WASHINGTON, D.C. — This morning, at “Coffee and Potica” or Minnesota Morning with Senator Amy Klobuchar, who should be there but Tom Micheletti! Yes, Excelsior Energy’s Tom Micheletti was there. And he was there on the eve of the DEADLINE, the day before the PUC said it would pull the plug on Excelsior Energy’s Mesaba Project.
The legendary Alan Muller, Green Delaware, was in Amy’s office this morning too! He got there, and “the only other person I knew in the room was Tom Micheletti.” Too weird. And here I had to stay home and dogsit. DAMN! I could have used the aerobic exercise of duking it out with Tom again.
Sen. Klobuchar’s energy staffer, Charlie Moore, said he wasn’t in on the conversation between Micheletti and Klobuchar’s chief of staff, Alan said they were huddled together for quite a while. Moore also said that he didn’t know that there was a May 1 deadline. Oh, really? Not good. It’s bad enough that we have to worry about what Micheletti might be saying, but now we’ve also got to be concerned about what he isn’t saying.
And sorry, no photo, yes, I’m MOST disappointed, oh well… but there’s a photo of Sen. Klobuchar with Alan in his Neighbors Against the Burner shirt.
Will it happen? Will they pull the plug? They sure better, they’ve been stalling long enough.
Here’s Excelsior Energy’s filings in their attempt to keep the PUC from FINALLY pulling the plug on the Mesaba Project:
So let’s just let this thing die. Xcel doesn’t want it, the Minnesota municipal utilities don’t want it, the PUC doesn’t want it, and mncoalgasplant.com sure doesn’t want it and neither does Citizens Against the Mesaba Project.