Remember when the site of the Elk River garbage burner was a nuclear demonstration plant? I do, because my father worked on parts of the design for that plant, and characterization after it was operational — I played with the geiger counter as a kid, and the rest is history. Technical difficulties at the Elk River Nuclear Station were many. It was shut down and decommissioned in the early 1970s. Today, that site is now a garbage incinerator.
Remember just one year ago, Xcel Energy going to the Public Utilities Commission to terminate their garbage and turkey shit burning Power Purchase Agreements?
GRE now wants to do the same, and is considering, and is likely to, shut down its Elk River garbage burning operation. News from Elk River, the red highlights are mine, and (red comments in parens are mine). If you get confused what’s what, click on link for original article:
Municipal solid waste from Hennepin, Anoka and Sherburne counties and other nearby communities is delivered to the processing plant in Elk River where it is sorted. The plant captures steel, aluminum and items that can’t be burned and often recycles them (FYI, most things that burn ARE recyclable). The remaining refuse is used to generate electricity at the Elk River Energy Recovery Station.
Everybody, get out your HERC Hanky and wave it for the home team!!!
Last Thursday was a fairly short, but quite intense, day at the Public Utilities Commission. First up was Freeborn Wind (go here and search for docket 17-332), and its application for a transmission line for the project plus more. We did get the “proceeding” process and not a summary report. That’s good, not a huge deal, but enough that it means we get some extra process in the transmission routing docket, meaning an ALJ drafted Findings, Conclusions, and Recommendation (not just a report), and the opportunity to file Exceptions to the ALJ Recommendation. In those exceptions, we can also ask for public comment and oral argument to the Commission.
Bottom line, after much deliberation, and a 10 minute break (what is it they do back there???), here’s the decision option they chose, as framed in the Staff Briefing Papers_201711-137262-01:
Yesterday Neighbors Against the Burner filed this Petition to Intervene in a docket at the PUC where Xcel Energy has filed a request for approval of a Power Purchase Agreement slashing the rate paid to Hennepin Energy Recovery Center – HERC for electricity generated at the HERC garbage burner:
On what? Xcel Energy’s latest plan (part of) to terminate and/or amend outrageously high priced Power Purchase Agreements on incinerators across Minnesota.
The fundamental problem I have with this is that Xcel Energy and “Hennepin Energy Resource Company” privately reach an agreement that works for them, but screws the public and enables operation of an incinerator that is a money-sucking polluting drain. Listen for that sucking sound…
Now would be a good time to shut it down.
The HERC Burner has been a problem for a long time… and their plan to increase garbage-burning capacity went south.
