WE MUST RAISE FUNDS TO KEEP THE PROCESS ROLLING!
Posted on | October 11, 2008 | No Comments
Now that the evidentiary hearings and the public comment period are over, we move to the next step, in which our attorney, Paula Maccabee, prepares a written brief, including proposed findings of fact, to make our case for the judge. This brief is needed to make our case from the thousands of pages of testimony and exhibits. The utilities will pick and choose what they think helps them, and without a brief and findings, we have virtually no chance to have our view of the case accepted by the judge.
Here’s the gist of it:
- Just say NO to the La Crosse line. It isn’t needed for renewable energy or for community reliability and would negatively impact the environment, particularly at the Mississippi River crossing.
- Allow the Brookings line to be built only if there are conditions requiring it be used for wind, not fossil fuel.
- Require the utilities to commit to Minnesota community based wind, not just large corporate wind projects.
- Support conservation and renewable energy, rather than the current plan for the Fargo line which focuses on bulk power exports from North Dakota and could encourage more coal production
- Minnesota has laws requiring 1.5% energy savings, renewable energy standards and prevention of increases in global warming emissions, and the CapX projects as proposed by the utilities do are not consistent with these requirements.
It costs money to make the case in a properly technical and complete manner such that it has a serious impact on the outcome. This is your chance to make a real difference for a sustainable energy future! Please help pay for this effort; please donate now.
Smart Grids on MPR
Posted on | October 1, 2008 | No Comments
MPR’s Stephanie Hemphill had a good story on Smart Grids yesterday, in which Xcel Energy spokesman Tom Henley said
… the new technologies are expected to reduce Xcel’s power needs in the region by 7 percent.
Excel’s saying that? I wonder if they said it in the CapX2020 application’s demand forecast.
Some experts say all this potential energy saving means we should re-think the electrical system from top to bottom. Smart grid pilot projects on the West Coast have shaved 20 percent from peak demand — more quickly and more cheaply than building new power lines.
(Emphasis mine.) So while CapX2020 extrapolates old trends to forecast increasing energy usage, other regions are reducing peak demand by 20% using smart grid technology.
The federal government wants state regulators to require utilities to at least consider smart grid technologies before they propose big projects like power plants or transmission lines — including projects like CapX 2020, where several utilities want to build four big new power lines criss-crossing the state.
Yes, CETF wants this too. I guess we’ll see.
CETF on Wisconsin Public Radio
Posted on | September 23, 2008 | No Comments
CETF’s Jeremy Chipps and Guy Wolf did a half-hour interview on Wisconsin Public Radio, highlighting our concerns about the CapX2020 project, and emphasizing the need for everyone (yes, you!) to write to Judge Heydinger now.
WLSU Interview Part 1
WLSU Interview Part 2
WLSU Interview Part 3
MPR on CapX2020 opposition
Posted on | September 15, 2008 | No Comments
Minnesota Public Radio is running a brief story today saying that the CapX2020 “proposed power lines divide environmental groups”. The focus is on those who support the line but want it tied to guaranteed buys of wind power. The story also mentions that some people oppose the lines. CETF is not mentioned, but Dr. Arne Kildegaard is quoted briefly on the utilities’ failure to explore other ways to meet Minnesota’s electrical power needs. The upshot:
“The people in the position to do the best analysis have willfully let us down.”
- Arne Kildegaard
CETF’s Opposition to CapX2020: National News
Posted on | September 14, 2008 | No Comments
The Associated Press has just run the St. Paul Pioneer Press’ recent story about the growing opposition, by CETF and others, to the CapX2020 powerline project being pushed by Excel Energy, Great River Energy, Dairyland, et al. That’s right, this is now a national story, already picked up by several news outlets including the Chicago Tribune.
Proposed power line has generated lots of heated opposition
Posted on | September 8, 2008 | No Comments
That’s the headline in yesterday’s La Crosse Tribune. Here’s an excerpt, quoting Citizens Energy Task Force attorney Paula Maccabee.
“The utilities have been stacking the deck to make it look like this project is needed,” Maccabee said, “but once you get behind the data, you see how it’s not true.”
If the Twin Cities-Rochester-La Crosse line were not built, she said, power company officials have testified that enhancements to the current transmission lines would not be needed until 2026 or 2028 in Rochester.
“And that’s without studying the conservation aspects,” Maccabee said. “The benefits are not clear and certainly have been exaggerated, and the harms are unavoidable.”
Minnesota State Rep Ken Tschumper also made some good points.
“If we go to more renewables, we don’t need this expensive high-voltage system,” Minnesota state Rep. Ken Tschumper, DFL-La Crescent, said during a forum he organized July 31 at La Crescent’s American Legion for those concerned with CapX2020.
“Renewable systems can feed into the grid as well,” he said.
It’s also the law, Tschumper said, as Minnesota passed a renewable energy standard in 2007 mandating 25 percent of all electricity used in the state be generated from renewable energy sources by 2025.
Renewables are a very important part of meeting future resource needs, Xcel spokesman Brian Elwood said, but the company still needs sufficient transmission lines in order to get the resources to the customers.
Eleven percent of Xcel’s electricity now is generated from renewable sources, Elwood said, and by 2025 Xcel expects 25 percent to 30 percent of its electricity will come from wind energy, along with other renewable resources such as biomass, hydropower, and burning garbage and wastewood.
Read the whole article here. Don’t forget to scroll down and leave a comment.
And then, please, write to Judge Heydinger!
Efficiency, the overlooked energy resource
Posted on | August 27, 2008 | No Comments
Energy Efficiency-A BRIGHT IDEA
May 15, 2008-New report by the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy (ACEEE) released today shows huge energy saving through efficiency have already occurred and lots more is available.
It’s the U.S. energy boom that no one knows about. Energy efficiency may be the farthest-reaching, least-polluting, and fastest-growing energy success story of the last 50 years. But it also is the most invisible, the least understood, and in serious danger of missing out on needed future investments. In the first attempt to quantify the overall impact of the hidden U.S. energy efficiency boom, a major new report from the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE) shows that U.S. energy consumption (as measured per dollar of economic output) will have been slashed by the end of 2008 to half of what it was in 1970, from 18,000 Btus to about 8,900 Btus.
Read more
News coverage of the La Crescent CapX resolution
Posted on | August 14, 2008 | Comments Off
The La Crescent city council’s passage of a CapX2020 resolution was covered in the Rochester Post-Bulletin and the Houston County News.
Judge orders extension of public comment period
Posted on | August 1, 2008 | Comments Off
CETF has requested that the public comment period be extended until after the evidentiary hearings are completed, and Judge Heydinger has granted the request (the order is here). Keep sending those letters. You now have until September 26. Need a little help? Read this post and these sample letters for ideas.
Honorable Judge Beverly Jones Heydinger
Office of Administrative Hearings
600 North Robert Street
P.O. Box 64620
St. Paul, MN. 55164-0620
capx.oah@state.mn.us
It would be great if you would send us a copy too.
La Crescent Powerline Forum, Thursday, July 31
Posted on | July 30, 2008 | Comments Off
Minnesota State Representative Ken Tschumper (DFL - Houston and Fillmore counties) is hosting a community information forum on high voltage power lines Thursday, July 31, 7pm at the La Crescent American Legion.
Learn about the power companies’ proposal to run high voltage power lines where you live, and how this relates to your health, your property values, renewable energy, and local economic development.
For more information, see Rep. Schumper’s news release, and then call your neighbors and go to the Legion tomorrow at 7pm!
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