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.
The Minnesota Public Utilities Commission rulemaking for Minn. R. Ch. 7849, Certificate of Need, and 7850, Routing and Siting, is slowly moving forward. Here are the final drafts up for review before they go to the Commission for a rubber stamp and release for general comment:
Reply comments are due by 4:30 p.m. on May 31, 2017. eFiling is preferred! If you need to register to eFile, GO HERE! It’s easy, quick, and makes filing a breeze. Get to work — there’s a lot here to comment on!
What’s new? Well, Xcel Energy has announced its 3Q results and the 2013 demand just keeps going down!
From Seeking Alpha, the 3Q call transcript (emphasis added):
Kit Konolige – BGC Partners, Inc., Research Division
On the — your sales growth outlook, I believe you said that you are expecting 0% to 0.5% in 2013. Can you discuss the breakdown by states on that and maybe any color about commercial versus industrial versus residential? And also give us a view of the longer term sales outlook that you’re seeing at this point?
Teresa S. Madden – Chief Financial Officer and Senior Vice President
Well, sure, Kit. Let’s start with the 2013 by the states. Minnesota, we’re still projecting a decline of about 1.2%. In NSP-Wisconsin, just a slight decline. And then the other 2 jurisdiction, PSCo slightly up and SPS at about 1.2% range. But all of it netting to within the — up to 0.5%. When we look to the future, we’re looking at about, as we indicated in our guidance up to 0.5%, those are narrowing, not such a great degree in terms of the decline in NSP-Minnesota. In terms of the various classes of customers, it does vary by jurisdiction. I will say that C&I, we see the most growth in Texas with the oil and gas industry boom.
Minnesota, we’re still projecting a decline of about 1.2%. In NSP-Wisconsin, just a slight decline.
And as we know too well, the CapX 2020 transmission project taking over Minnesota is based on their wishful-thinking projections of a 2.49% annual increase.
From Xcel Energy’s own investor page (click to enlarge):
Here’s how they present it in Figure 2 of the Certificate of Need application:
But here’s what it really looks like:
I’m representing a family that lives west of the “Focused Study Area” who just moved to Medina and were surprised by this project — no notice that it was proposed — and are challenging need for the project, and if need is demonstrated, supporting the A-2 distribution system alternative, an upgrade of the 13.8 kV system to 34.5 kV, distributed generation at the load along the area highways, and a combination that would address any demonstrated need:
The parties had a phone conference Monday about Xcel Energy’s request to delay the evidentiary hearings (we aren’t formal parties at this point and weren’t invited, but thanks to “plays well with others” Xcel for the heads up about it):
It’s odd delaying a project hearing for a bill that’s speculative, who knows if it might pass or not. But it’s delayed, the evidentiary hearing, that is, until May or June sometime, after the legislative session is over, and details remain to be worked out. I’d guess Xcel Energy has other reasons not to go forward with the evidentiary hearing on need for this line…
Today the public hearings continue for the Hollydale transmission project.
