Minnesota House bill could derail Big Stone II

While the Minnesota Legislature approved a bill that will require a 25-percent renewable energy mandate by the year 2025, another bill is currently making its way through the House that could derail the mandate.

That's the message of two utilities spokesmen who visited the Independent's offices on Monday to express concern about a bill they say could kill the Big Stone II power plant expansion/improvement plan.

And if Big Stone II is killed, it would mean there would not be enough baseline energy production to support intermittent alternative energies like wind power, said Brad Roos of Marshall Municipal Utilities and John Sundvor, a Big Stone lobbyist.

Roos and Sundvor said the legislation that created the 25 by 25 mandate was based on a wind-integration study done by the state Department of Commerce. That study factors in the construction of Big Stone II and bases projections in renewable growth upon support from Big Stone II.

"Now, it's turned around," Sundvor said. "They are basically trying to kill the (Big Stone II) project."

Big Stone II would add and expand modern coal-burning processes to the existing Big Stone power plant in South Dakota near Ortonville. It would also upgrade currently outdated coal-burning processes at Big Stone I, supporters say, and the overall project will burn cleaner and be more energy efficient. But opponents worry that emissions from the plants will cause environmental problems — especially in the air and water in western Minnesota — that even the most modern of improvements won't eliminate emission problems.

However, Roos and Sundvor said, Big Stone II is a big step environmentally because of the technology it does include, and because it'll open the door for hundreds of megawatts of wind power.

A bill introduced in the House by Rep. Maria Ruud, DFL-Minnetonka, would prohibit long-term increased emissions from power plants until a process called "cap-and-trade" is fully in place. That process would have power plants cap carbon dioxide emissions, generally regarded as a major threat in the global warming process.

Ruud's bill has cleared two House committees and could reach the House floor this week, Sundvor said. A companion bill in the Senate is authored by Sen. Ellen Anderson, DFL-St. Paul.

But Sundvor and Roos said it'll take at least two years for cap-and-trade to be ready, and the delay will undermine Big Stone II. Roos said that when the technology becomes available, Big Stone II will quickly implement it to capture carbon dioxide emissions.

Along with the power plant itself, one of the other major factors of helping the 25 by 25 mandate succeed is that enough transmission lines be built in the area to carry the new wind power. Roos said that through the permitting process for those lines, no written objections to the lines themselves have surfaced — but objections do exist to the lines because of their connections to Big Stone II.

That frustrates him, because he sees wind and Big Stone II intertwined. He supports wind, but says because it is intermittent, a reliable baseline source must always be in place.

Sundvor said the general average is for a utility to have about a 15 percent energy reserve, but that has frequently dropped to 7 percent recently. And winter storms that knocked down power lines in Nebraska reduced the reserve further, to 4 percent. That forces utilities to buy power from other sources at much higher costs. Roos and Sundvor said that if they relied solely on wind, the reserve problem would be greater.

"It was dangerously low," Roos said of the reserves. "If just one facility drops off line, then we lose reliability (in service and voltage).

"We'll get back to reliability if we get back to baseline generation. Wind is intermittent. We're going to build it, but because it is intermittent, we need the base load to guarantee the reliability."

Roos said MMU is a non-corporate utility, owned by its customers. His job is to look out for those customers, meaning reliablity and low-cost energy are important to him. But he said his customers also care about environmental issues.

"Wind is a great supplemental source," Sundvor said.

The Big Stone II expansion would increase the coal production from 600 to 630 megawatts. Yet, wind power would grow even more, to 830 megawatts, under the 25 by 25 mandate, Sundvor said — growth that would be at risk without Big Stone II.

"They're trying to do the right thing," Sundvor said about the utilities behind the Big Stone II package. "The tragedy is, here they are at the table, trying to work with legislators, and the legislators don't seem to be too interested in working with them.

"I'm not sure how an attitude like that helps the environment."

A phone message was left at Ruud's office, but the person answering the phone said she'd be working until late. The Independent also e-mailed questions to Ruud, but received a form-letter response in reply.

 

Contact Dana Yost at dyost@marshallindependent.com

 



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