Letter to the Editor - Bill Grant, Izaak Walton League

To the editor:

The Tribune’s rather overwrought response to Minnesota’s emerging effort to consider the very real economic risks of global warming (N.D. Must Challenge Carbon Tax) contains numerous factual errors and misleads the paper’s readers. First, Minnesota’s Next Generation Energy Act directs the state’s Public Utilities Commission to “establish an estimate of the likely range of costs of future carbon dioxide regulation on electricity generation.” This estimate is then to be used by the Commission to evaluate all options when utilities are proposing new power plants. It is not, as the paper claims, a tax or fine or fee, and no existing plants would be affected. It is instead a planning tool that allows the Commission to protect consumers by comparing the carbon cost risks of future power plant options.

This planning tool is not directed at North Dakota or its lignite industry. It will be applied uniformly to all new power plant options regardless of location. Applying the carbon cost estimate to a lignite project in North Dakota will have the same effect as to a coal plant proposal in South Dakota or Minnesota.

In fact, the Industrial Commission’s precipitous response is strange given the state’s tremendous potential to sell low or zero carbon electricity to Minnesota. North Dakota is already pioneering the technology to capture and store carbon dioxide from its Beulah synfuels plant and the state is blessed with highly suitable geology for deep, long term storage of carbon dioxide. This technology will soon be paired with state-of-the-art lignite coal gasification plants resulting in very low net global warming emissions. North Dakota is also “the Saudi Arabia of wind energy” and the state could be doing much more to develop an industry that has a willing customer in Minnesota.

The Tribune argues that “the status quo should be preserved.” But climate change has already altered the status quo in fundamental ways. Minnesota’s law and federal proposals under consideration by Congress are recognition that regulations to limit and reduce carbon dioxide emissions are coming, sooner rather than later. Energy consumers will be deeply affected by these regulations and our energy decisions must reflect this reality and protect consumers to the extent possible. The “cheap” electricity Minnesota receives from North Dakota won’t be cheap for long. It’s time for North Dakota to wake up, smell the coffee, and give its customers what they want.

Bill Grant
Midwest Office Director, Izaak Walton League of America
St. Paul, Minnesota