Carol Overland - Legalectric

Here are Comments filed on behalf of Association of Freeborn County Landowners:

Association of Freeborn CountyLandowners_Petition & Initial Comments – Filed July 6, 2017

Association of Freeborn County Landowners — Add to Service List

Process Issue – Timing of Request for Contested Case

Reply CommentsCompleteness – Association of Freeborn County Landowners

What do the Benson turkey shit burning plant, the HERC garbage burner, and a couple other plants have in common?  The have Power Purchase Agreements that Xcel wants to get out of or modify in its favor.  Funny how that works.  These things were bad from the get to, make no economic sense except to those selling what little power is generated.  Now, it appears that Xcel Energy (and therefore us, Xcel’s customers), is tired of being screwed and are not going to take it anymore!

What’s Xcel Energy’s view of these Petitions?  To save money, of course, and it looks to be about $53.1 million annually.

These Petitions were filed just now by Xcel Energy:

17-xxxx+Initial+Filing+Benson+063017+NSP+PUBLIC

With a $20 million kicker to the City of Benson, here’s what Xcel Energy plans to do, including demolition of the plant:

Next up?  The Hennepin Energy Recovery Center (HERC) garbage burner:

HERC+PPA+Petition+PUBLIC

The plan for HERC?  Cut the PPA amount, by how much, we don’t know, it’s all “PROTECTED DATA” and top secret:

What does that mean for Hennepin County?  The HERC garbage burner has never been a money maker, and has always been a money loser.  So now what?  Does it make any sense to keep it open, or is it time to shut it down?  Allow me to rephrase… is there any reason to keep it open?  Seems like this is a convenient time to close it.  Neighbors Against The Burner, are you listening?

Next up?  Pine Bend, another “waste-to-energy” garbage burner, and another PPA that Xcel Energy wants to terminate:

Pine+Bend+PPA+Petition+PUBLIC

And about the Sherco site and moving part of Northern Metals operation to the Sherco site, and that’s not all they want to do:

17-xxxx+Sherco+Land+Sale+Petition+NSP+063017

The point of this Sherco Petition?

And last but not least, a sale of assets to Flint Hills:

17-xxxx+Inver+Hills+Asset+Sale+Petition+063017

 

 

For years, for decades, I’ve been going on and on about the inefficiency of transmission, the electric system, and line losses ad nauseum.  Y’all know that, if you’ve been paying attention.  And here we are, back to discussing inefficiency in the electric system.

The SW MN 345 kV Transmission Lines (PUC Docket 01-1958) turned on line losses.  After that close call, line losses were calculated and considered on a very different model, framing it as a percentage of THE ENTIRE EASTERN INTERCONNECT.  So what’s a little loss of 0.1%, who cares… well, as a part of THE ENTIRE EASTERN INTERCONNECT, it adds up fast.  Let me make this perfectly clear, transmission line loss is substantial.  It’s particularly substantial when you’re talking about using transmission to ship lower capacity energy, like wind and solar.  If you have long, hundreds of miles long, transmission lines, there’s not much, if any, of that energy that would find its way to its destination.

This is not news.  My engineer, Art Hughes, PhD EE, taught me so much about power engineering.  It was a struggle to keep up with him, but the knowledge I gained working with him opened doors in challenging utility infrastructure projects.  Here he is at a public hearing in Peosta, Iowa,  telling people a thing or two about transmission: Art Hughes filed testimony in the SW MN 345 kV Transmission Lines case, PUC Docket 01-1958) — search the testimony for “losses” upon which this case turned, and was erroneously granted a Certificate of Need, and later a Routing Permit: Direct Testimony of B. Art Hughes, PhD EE CV of B. Art Hughes, PhD EE Rebuttal Testimony of B. Art Hughes, PhD EE Oh well.   It’s long done, this transmission project and many others, the horse is out of the barn, dead, and beaten to a pulp.  There’s been a massive transmission build-out, and now they want to build yet another “transmission overlay.”  Great idea, MISO, Xcel, and all of you dreaming of this revenue generation via capital investment and ROI scheme. Anyway, back to today’s email.

There’s a “Stakeholder Meeting” coming up:

Register here

Those words, “Stakeholder Meeting” get my attention, because just who is a stakeholder, who decides.  I don’t recall getting this email, but thankfully a client who is regarded as a “Stakeholder” did, so I’ve signed up and will spend the time to show up and raise a few points.

Upcoming Stakeholder Meeting: Opportunities and Barriers to Utility Infrastructure Efficiency Friday, July 28th from 8:30 a.m. – 12:30  p.m. Wilder Center – 451 Lexington Pkwy. N, Saint Paul, MN 55104 Register for this free public meeting

Meeting Details

An estimated 12-15% of the nation’s electricity production is consumed by generation auxiliary loads, transmission and distribution losses, and substation consumption. As such, there is significant potential to increase utility infrastructure efficiency by decreasing conversion losses, improving plant operations, and mitigating transmission and distribution losses throughout Minnesota’s electric grid.

The Minnesota Department of Commerce invites you to participate in a stakeholder meeting to explore opportunities and barriers to utility infrastructure efficiency projects, and to begin developing a framework to improve the overall generation, transmission, and distribution efficiency of Minnesota’s electric system.

Meeting attendees will hear from national and local experts and gain insight into how existing, new, and on-the-horizon utility infrastructure technologies can increase system efficiency, including:

• A presentation by the Electric Power Research Institute, highlighting innovative utility infrastructure efficiency projects and approaches from around the country.
• A presentation from Minnkota Power Cooperative, discussing lessons learned from implementing infrastructure efficiency projects in Minnesota.
• Information about next steps in the stakeholder engagement process, including a deeper-dive examination of supply-side efficiency policy issues.

Register here

click for larger version

Congratulations to Neighbors United Against Ameren Power Line, and to their attorney, Paul Henry, on this victory against Ameren’s Mark Twain  Transmission Project  (How dare they name something like this after Mark Twain, he”d be rolling in his grave).  The Missouri Supreme Court will not take up the Court of Appeals decision that Missouri does have jurisdiction over Ameren’s transmission project.  Here’s the decision from the Court of Appeals:

Ameren (ATXI) – Missouri Court of Appeals

Ameren claims were bizarre:

And the Missouri Court said, “We don’t think so.” Ameren tried to get it before theMissouri Supreme Court, and failed.

As recently as April, Ameren was proposing new routes through Missouri.  Guess again!

The U.S. Supreme Court has partially reinstated Trump’s EO13780 Travel Ban.  Here’s the Supreme Court decision:

U.S. Supreme Court_Case No. 16-1436_l6hc

KARE 11 photo

This is the transcript of the BCA interview shortly after Yanez shot and killed Philando Castile.  This is the interview that the jury did not know about, did not see or read, was not entered in as evidence:

Yanez-BCA-Interview-Transcript-7-7-16

I haven’t read the trail transcript, don’t know why this was not part of the record…

Notice that many of his statements are in passive voice, or 3rd person.  He’s not taking ownership of his part in this.