Here’s why it’s good the Mesaba Project was not built!
June 14th, 2015
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!
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.
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:
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.
Now what’s Micheletti up to?
April 21st, 2015
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.
Here’s the change, hidden in Senate File 2101:
Today, say NO to lines 191.4 – 191.19 of Senate File 2101.
Again! Legislative Auditor on IRRRB!
April 19th, 2015
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:
$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:
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…
Or was it a Data Practices Act request?
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?
Another cut to Excelsior Energy
March 12th, 2013
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:
The state has been unreasonably and inexplicably reluctant to kill this non-project. Maybe the feds are willing?