The Giant Gold Sculpture on the Roof of the Minnesota State Capitol

Energy, Environmental Issues, Essays and Guest Posts, Social Justice

“The Progress of the State of Minnesota” is a quadriga, a type of sculpture involving four horses, a chariot, and one or more individuals, meant to symbolize grandiose or highly significant concepts or people. This one was made by Daniel Chester French and Edward Clark Potter, and was finished and installed in 1906. It is made of steel and copper, with gold leaf.

The symbolism in 1906 is now somewhat outdated, and here we offer a new interpretation that closely uses the original concepts.

The chariot is being drawn by four horses, representing the four major non-fossil fuel types of energy we hope to use as our only sources by 2050: geothermal, wind, solar, and hydro-power. The two women represent American-based highly efficient zero-carbon industry and business (the woman on the left), and renewable, regenerative, and forever green agriculture (the woman on the right). The man in the chariot stands in for the state of Minnesota, and he carries a cornucopia, which represents our society of wealth and privilege, which the legislature, courts, and Governor carefully curate and put to use to make all Minnesotans equal parts in a broad based, humanitarian, society lacking want and uncertainty. He is non binary.

Action Alert: Stop the sale of Coal Creek Station and the HVDC line

Energy

Great River Energy (GRE) changed plans to close Coal Creek Station and now plans to sell it along with our most valuable asset, the high voltage transmission line for pennies on the dollar. 

The sale requires GRE to buy back coal fired generation from the plant for years to come. 

Dakota Electric’s board will vote on January 27 to support or oppose the deal. Other GRE member-owned cooperatives will have a similar vote later this month. Below is more information, including what you can do. The last contract to sell these assets expired on Dec. 31. If you are a member-owner, now is the time to speak up!

ISSUE:

  • On May 7, 2020 GRE had a major press release announcing plans for closing the Coal Creek Station generation plant in Underwood, ND by 2023 and the development of new renewable energy investments that would provide 95% clean energy, at lower costs, for member-owners.
  • The announcement provoked a backlash from local governments in ND, with McLean County adopting a zoning change prohibiting new wind energy transmission lines – a move that bans new wind farms access to Great River Energy’s  transmission line.
  • It’s unfair that North Dakota government officials and investors are able to dictate that they will “consider” reversing their recently enacted renewable energy moratorium against clean, cost-effective wind production for Minnesota consumers only if we agree to their plans for continued operation of Coal Creek Station
  • GRE is now planning to sell the coal plant and the High Voltage transmission line that carries electricity from the power plant to Minnesota customers.
  • New details of this sale haven’t been shared with DEA member-owners yet but are on another coop’s website: https://clpower.com/sites/default/files/January%2013%20Member%20Briefing_redacted.pdf

Recommended Actions If you have concerns about the transparency of this sale and how it will affect an affordable, clean energy future:

First and foremost, if you are a member of any of the 28 cooperatives with over 700,000 members that work with Great River, listed here, that means that YOU have a representative on a board of directors involved in this decision. Write them, call them, email them, and ask to speak at their upcoming meeting. 

For Dakota Electric Association members:
1st OPTION (PREFERRED): If member-owners want the DEA board of directors to vote to oppose the sale of the coal plant and transmission line to private investors, including a long-term contract to buy back the coal power from the plant, sign up to speak at the virtual board meeting on Thur. January 27 with Melissa Cherney at mcherney@dakotaelectric.com by Jan 20.

2nd OPTION: Contact DEA board members.

Other action: Take this resolution calling for legislative oversight of member-owned cooperatives to your precinct caucus.

SEE ALSO

How coal holds on in America

In North Dakota coal country, officials rally to save a coal-fired power plant at renewable energy’s expense.

UNDERWOOD, N.D. — David Saggau, the chief executive of an energy cooperative, tried to explain the losing economics of running a coal-fired power plant to a North Dakota industry group more than a year ago.

Coal Creek Station had lost $170 million in 2019 as abundant natural gas and proliferating wind projects had cut revenue far below what it cost to run the plant. After four decades sending electricity over the border to Minnesota, Coal Creek would be closing in 2022, Saggau said, and nobody was clamoring to buy it.

“We made folks aware that the plant was for sale for a dollar,” Saggau, of Great River Energy, told the Lignite Energy Council during an October 2020 virtual meeting. “We’re basically giving it away.”

…

 

 OTHER RESOURCES

Great River Energy should think again about selling Coal Creek

The transmission line being sold just underwent significant upgrades in 2019 and is an extremely valuable asset for member-owners with higher value than the sale price. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bSIumDVaZko&t=320s

Article: Minnesota co-op utilities must vote on approval of the plant’s sale. The new owner is betting on carbon capture to extend its life.

DFL Environmental Caucus Blog post on Coal Creek

Sierra Club, July 30 Statement

Sierra Club:on  Coal Ash

Bald Eagles and Lead

Environmental Poisons, Threats to wildlife,

There is a new study out from Cornell concerning bald eagles and lead.  The short version: Hunters kill land mammals using lead shot, field dress the prey, and the remains are scavenged by bears, badgers, and everybody else including Bald Eagles. The study by Brenda Hanley and others, published in Wildlife Management, links the lead shot ingested by scavenging eagles to stunted growth.  Stunted, the eagles’ physiological buffer against disease or periods of food stress is reduced.

This lead poisoning of wildlife by hunters’ activity probably applies to all of the scavengers of lead ammo using hunters’ waste, but in this study, only eagles were addressed.

Krysten Schuler, one of the study’s authors, says, “Hopefully, this report will add information that compels hunters, as conservationists, to think about their ammunition choices.  Even though the population seems like it’s recovered, some perturbation could come along that could cause eagles to decline again.”

A press release from Cornell is here, and the original study is here.

Lead is a poison at any level, and we continue to put it in our environment, affecting other animals, as well as humans.  If you think this should be addressed, please bring this resolution to your precinct caucuses in order to give us (lead free) ammunition to help compel our legislators to address lead.  If you are reading this after February 1st, 2022, you can still contact your legislators in the Minnesota House and Senate and encourage them to get the lead out!

(The rest of our 2022 resolutions are here.)

 

 

 

 

We Call For More Oversight of Member Owned Electric Coops in Minnesota

Energy

One of our DFLEC resolutions asks for increased oversight of member owned electric cooperatives in Minnesota.  The realization that this is needed came recently to several climate change activists, working across a range of organizations, when Great River Energy decided to sell, instead of close, a dirty coal plant  in North Dakota.  At the same time, GRE seemed poised to give up on the use of a very high tech DC transmission line that we all thought was going to be used to bring abundant wind-generated electricity from one of the most consistently windy parts of the world to the Twin Cities.

During that kerfuffle, outlined at the time here, activists, including citizen board members of some of the state’s coops, realized that a) these entities are not closely watched by the public utility commissions or any government agencies because b) member stakeholder citizens run them so why would that be needed, but c) somehow that was not working, and decisions were being made and pushed through that the members did not want.

Thus, the resolution: ” Support legislative oversight of Minnesota’s member-owned electric cooperatives to improve transparency and ensure there is opportunity for input from members before key decisions are made that affect asset management, member payments, or climate impacts. ” (PDF here)

In case this is an area of interest for you, and you want to support this resolution at your Precinct Caucus on February 1st, or otherwise advocate for this cause in our upcoming legislative sessions, here are some bullet points that go beyond those listed with our resolution here on our resolution page, or on the above referenced PDF.

  • Rural electric cooperatives were created through the 1936 Rural Electrification Act as a part of the New Deal. At the time less than 10% of rural communities and farms were electrified, by 1950 electric cooperatives had electrified 80% of those communities. Rural electrification is one of the most successful federal programs in history. Today in Minnesota, 85% of the state’s geography gets its electricity from rural co-ops, 2 million Minnesotans dependent on that service.
  • Electric cooperatives are run by boards elected from their members (their customers).Sadly, since their creation many cooperatives have not accomplished their mission as democratic institutions.
  • Several decades ago a popular rural state senator wrote and led the passage of a law removing rural electric cooperatives from oversight of the MN Public Utilities Commission.  Today, he views this as “the worst mistake of his career.”
  • Today Minnesota’s electric cooperatives are only accountable to their local boards, who in many cases have a failing track record of being transparent to the public and often make decisions outside of their members best interest. When they act negligently there is virtually no state oversight to hold them accountable.
  • Currently Great River Energy (a group of 28 local cooperatives) is making a major energy decision that will impact Minnesota members and our climate for decades to come. The potential sale of member assets that will result in a long-term contract for a coal plant will lock nearly 2 million Minnesotans into coal generated electricity for years to come.
  • The sale of Coal Creek is contingent on the PUC approving the transfer of ownership of the HVDC power line that members have paid for over decades with an additional $130 in recent upgrades. Some 800 members of GRE wrote to the MN Public Utilities Commission to voice their concern for the lack of transparency, climate, and financial impacts of the sale.
  • The Build Back Better Act offers new programs and incentives for electric cooperatives to make the transition to clean energy. We need public oversight to assure co-op leaders are acting in the public interest.
  • Electric cooperatives put up unnecessary barriers to their members wishing to generate their own electricity and to improve the energy efficiency of their homes and businesses.
  • Electric cooperative Boards are democratic institutions that should be operating in the public interest and in the interest of their member owners.
  • Standardized co-op transparency and democracy practices that will protect co-op democracy, accountability, and improve member involvement.
  • Legislative oversight would create standardized co-op transparency and democratic practices that will protect co-op democracy, accountability, and improve member involvement. It would treat rural electric cooperatives like other utilities by applying similar oversight.
  • Treat rural electric cooperatives like other utilities by applying similar oversight.

Keep Carbon Capture At Bay in the Build Back Better Act

Energy

Carbon Capture and Storage technology is not an effective way to address the climate emergency.

Supporters of CCS have sent a letter to Senator Wyden, chair of the Senate Finance Committee, asking him to eliminate minimum capture requirements for CCS, claiming they will not be able to do CCS with the requirement that they capture 75% of emissions. Instead of abandoning this technology they are now admitting is ineffective, they are pushing to eliminate minimum capture requirements in the Build Back Better Act.

We hope you will contact Senator Wyden at (202-224-5244) and as well as leader Senator Schumer (202-224-6542) and tell them oppose subsidies for Carbon Capture and Storage technologies, and that you don’t appreciate fossil fuel energy industry attempts to remove guardrails on CCS that are currently included in the Build Back Better Act.

Pleas also contact our Minnesota Senators, Tina Smith and Amy Klobuchar and express the same thoughts.

Black and Latino neighborhoods pay more for energy despite far lower emissions – read all about it

Climate Change, Social Justice

This is a story about pollution in a place far far away from Minnesota. Chicago. But the story is familiar to any one following environmental issues in Minneapolis.

Adam Mahoney (pictured above) at Grist writes:

Tucked into the city’s Southwest Side, the once-industrial corridor is now a part of the region’s quickly growing warehouse and logistics network. What does that lead to? Air pollution. More diesel air pollution than anywhere else in the country, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. What that doesn’t lead to: well-paying jobs. Nearly 45 percent of children and 30 percent of adults live in poverty. In addition, there’s the lethal combination of over-policing and incarceration, compounded by the area’s racial makeup — 67 percent Latino and 30 percent Black. It’s also home to the Cook County Jail, the largest jail in America.

But in this seemingly dismal setting, there has emerged a great success story. According to a recently published peer reviewed study,

Residential energy use represents roughly 17% of annual greenhouse gas emissions in the United States… Legacy housing policies and financial lending practices have negatively impacted housing quality and home ownership in non-Caucasian and immigrant communities. Both factors are key determinants of household energy use… We estimate energy use and emissions of 60 million household to clarify how energy efficiency and carbon emissions vary by race, ethnicity, and home ownership. We find that per capita emissions are higher in Caucasian neighborhoods than in African-American neighborhoods, even though the former live in more energy-efficient homes (low energy use intensity). This emissions paradox is explained by differences in building age, rates of home ownership, and floor area in these communities. In African-American neighborhoods, homes are older, home ownership is lower (reducing the likelihood of energy retrofits), and there is less floor area per person compared to Caucasian neighborhoods. Statistical models suggest that historical housing policies, particularly “redlining”, partially explain these differences….

Mahoney brings the paradox to Chicago’s Southwest Side:

Chicago’s 60623 zip code illuminates this. The average resident in the zip code emits the least amount of greenhouse gases out of all the city’s 67 zip codes, according to the study. Households in the community are also extremely energy efficient. In comparison, the average resident in the city’s affluent, majority-white Near North Side emits 2.8 times more greenhouse gases than those in the Southwest Side community. Homes in 60623 are also 1.5 times more energy-efficient than those on the Near North Side.

This is where social justice and addressing climate change meld into Green New Deal-esque policies. Click through to read all about Black and Latino neighborhoods pay more for energy despite far lower emissions, and lets see if we can apply some of this information here at home.

Protect Minnesota’s Waters from Copper Sulfide Mining

Sulfide Mining

There are two things you can do right now to help protect some of Minnesota’s waters from copper sulfide mining.

1- Update Minnesota’s Laws to Protect our Waters from the Dangers of Sulfide Mining

A change to these laws could ban sulfide mining in the Rainy River Headwaters. A 30-day public comment period is open until December 8, 2021! Tell the DNR that our laws do not adequately protect our waters. 

Comment directly to the DNR.   Here is suggested text for a comment.

Department of Natural Resources,

The current restrictions on nonferrous mining in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness (BWCAW) are not adequate to protect the BWCAW from pollution, impairment, or destruction. I strongly urge your department to extend further restrictions on mining to all of the Rainy River Headwaters.

The risks from non-ferrous mining are vastly different from the traditional iron mining in Minnesota. Non-ferrous mining is the process of extracting trace amounts of copper, nickel and other metals from sulfide-bearing ores. This process produces sulfuric acid, which is the same as battery acid. In addition to acidifying lakes and rivers, sulfuric acid leaches out heavy metals such as mercury, lead, arsenic, and other toxins from the rock to produce acid mine drainage (AMD). Sulfate discharge to very freshwaters, such as those found in northern Minnesota, also unleashes a cascade of damaging ecosystem effects. This type of mining is so problematic that there has never been a sulfide mine anywhere in the world that did not contaminate surrounding water sources. The extreme threat to the Wilderness from this type of mining was confirmed by a 2016 U.S. Forest Service (USFS) study that found that the risks associated with the proposed Twin Metals mine were so great that USFS denied the project’s permit application based on the best available scientific evidence.

Additionally, as water does not follow lines on a map set by humans, these restrictions on mining must be extended to the entire Rainy River watershed. What happens upstream, happens downstream and the risk of catastrophic pollution failure or chemical leaching from a nonferrous mine upstream of the BWCAW, like the proposed Twin Metals Mine, is far too great to be allowed on the edge of the pristine natural resources of the BWCAW. The environmental danger posed by non-ferrous mining in the Rainy River watershed is even more acute because it exposes the singularly beautiful and pristine, but very fragile, BWCAW and adjacent areas to the threat of irreversible environmental harm caused by AMD and sulfate pollution.

The federal and state government’s intent to protect the BWCAW for its unique wilderness characteristics was the essential motivation behind the protections the BWCAW currently receives as a federal Wilderness Area. To ensure the Wilderness remains free from pollution as originally intended, the watersheds that flow through the BWCAW must also remain free from pollution. Protection must be extended to the Rainy River Headwaters watershed by prohibiting non-ferrous metallic mineral mining in these areas.

2- Support a 20-year Federal Moratorium on Sulfide Mining near the Boundary Waters

The Biden Administration recently announced that the US Forest Service submitted a mineral withdrawal application to the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) which would provide for a 20-year moratorium on copper-sulfide mining on 225,000 acres of federal land in the Rainy River Watershed. The 2-year environmental study began immediately with the announcement, and a 90-day comment period is underway until January 18, 2020!

You can comment through Friends of the Boundary Waters website, or submit your own unique comments to the BLM. 

 

To learn more about the Tamarack mine, a newly emerging issue of concern, click here. 

Electric Cars Racing to Save The Planet

Electric Vehicles, Energy

“[Fossil fuel companies] are going to build oil pipelines, and we’re going to build the future as they build the past.” says DFLEC ally Bob Blake, who is executive director of Native Sun.

The Standing Rock Indian Reservation and the Red Lake Band of Chippewa are hoping to share a $6.7 million infrastructure grant to purchase electric vehicles and install 120 charging stations to link together tribal lands with each other and regional destinations.  Energy News Network has the story. 

Meanwhile, electric vehicle advocates are trying to get  more charging stations in the Midwest, and investors are demanding motor companies do better at producing electric vehicles, speaking with their feet, with electric vehicle company Lordstown Motors’s shares falling some 14% on Friday after reporting production delays.  Everybody wants more electric vehicles, and soon!

But can the grid handle all these new electric vehicles? Yes, of course.  American Electric Power CEO Nick Akin tells us that their grid is prepared “right now” for the expected wave of electric vehicle adoption.