| Big Stone II power lines decision delayed again
Utilities Commission votes to hire own expert, get more information ST PAUL, MN— A Minnesota commission today decided it couldn’t approve power lines for a proposed coal-fired power plant based on the information it had so the commissioners postponed a final decision.
The Minnesota Public Utilities Commission voted 3 to 2 to hire their own expert and develop more information on the costs of construction, carbon dioxide regulations and natural gas as part of the commission’s review of a request by five utilities to construct power lines from the proposed 580-megawatt Big Stone II power plant. The commission must approve power lines for that plant located on the South Dakota side of Big Stone Lake into Minnesota to deliver a large portion of the power. Without the lines, investors say the plant probably will not be built.
“The commission doesn’t know what it will cost to build Big Stone II,” said Janette Brimmer, legal director for Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy. “There are serious holes and hiring another expert to look at it won’t fill those holes.”
Brimmer and her colleague Beth Goodpaster have argued the case against the power lines on behalf of their organization as well as Fresh Energy, Izaak Walton League of America, Wind on the Wires, and Union of Concerned Scientists. In addition, groups such as Clean Up our River Environment, Clean Water Action, Dakota Resource Council and Sierra Club-North Star Chapter, have waged a grass roots effort in Minnesota, South and North Dakota the past three years.
It was clear from the debate that two of the commissioners wanted to approve the certificate of need for the power lines and two of the commissioners wanted to follow the recommendation made last month by two administrative law judges to deny the certificate of need. The judges and the two commissioners said the five power companies had failed to prove the power they will put on the lines couldn’t be more cost-effectively supplied with renewables or the need reduced through energy efficiency. As part of that, the judges and commissioners found that the utilities had badly underestimated the costs of global warming pollution. That left new commissioner J.Dennis O’Brien as the deciding vote and he wanted more information.
“I don’t think there is anything to celebrate,” said Bill Grant, associate executive director of Izaak Walton League of America. “The commission punted on a decision they have been struggling with for more than three years. We understand this is a difficult decision, but extending the process will not make it any easier. In the end, the decision to build Big Stone II is a bad idea and the utilities’ failure to produce an adequate record to support it is all the proof the Public Utilities Commission should need.”
The Big Stone II opponents were hoping Minnesota would join a growing number of states that have turned their back on the higher costs and damaging global warming pollution from coal-fired power plants. Regulatory commissions in Oregon, Oklahoma, Kansas, Florida, Virginia and North Carolina all voted down coal plants in the past year. Utilities, including Xcel Energy in Colorado and Minnesota, the Idaho Power Co. and Westmoreland Power Co. in North Dakota, have voluntarily moved away from coal. Both Xcel and Minnesota Power Co. officials have said they won’t build new coal-fired plants in Minnesota during the next 20 years because of the coming regulations on carbon dioxide and the state’s recently passed laws requiring dramatically more energy efficiency and renewables.
“Four years of building up this record in South Dakota and Minnesota and they don’t have the information they need to approve a coal plant,” said Michael Noble, executive director of Fresh Energy. “Could it be that modern energy-efficiency and wind energy makes more sense? The record speaks for itself: this coal plant makes no sense.”
Plans for scores of coal-fired plants have been scrapped the past two years and yet the commissioners said they didn’t have enough information to go against the trend and approve the power lines in the Big Stone II case.
In July 2006, the then seven utilities received the South Dakota permits to build a 630-megawatt power plant, despite testimony that wind power alone would provide more jobs and economic activity for South Dakota, while the coal plant would produce 4.7 million tons of global warming pollution every year for 50 years. That is the equivalent carbon dioxide produced by all the cars, trucks and trains in South Dakota. The five environmental and clean energy groups sued all the way to the South Dakota Supreme Court, but lost.
The groups suffered another setback in August when the two administrative law judges recommended for the power lines. But then a major change occurred. Two of the utilities dropped out, and one of them, Great River Energy, echoed many of the points the opponents had raised. When the remaining utilities returned with a new, smaller project in January, the landscape had shifted and new evidence caused the administrative law judges to rule against them, paving the way for today’s decision.
“It is time to close the door on a polluting, 19th century technology,” said Steve Clemmer, Clean Energy Program Research Director at the Union of Concerned Scientists. “Major electric utilities, investors, consumers and state officials have abandoned 60 proposed coal projects in 2007 alone. The Big Stone backers downplayed future pollution costs, and the commissioners need to see through that.”
The utilities backing the Big Stone II proposal are Otter Tail Power Co., Central Minnesota Municipal Power Agency, Heartland Consumers Power District, Montana-Dakota Utilities Co., Western Minnesota Municipal Power Agency/Missouri River Energy Services.
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