For immediate release
January 31, 2007
News Release …News Release … News Release
Contact:
Beth Goodpaster, Lawyer
Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy
(651) 223-5969
bgoodpaster@mncenter.org
Chuck Laszewski, Communications Director
Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy
(651) 223-5969
claszewski@mncenter.org
Barbara Freese
Union of Concerned Scientists
(651) 227-5127
barbarafreese@comcast.net
New laws, new evidence show Big Stone II plant is worst choice
Energy and environment opponents gain some support from state agency
ST. PAUL, MN— Current events and a poor analysis done by the owners of the proposed Big Stone II power plant provides ample reason for the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission to reject their request to build power lines into the state, opponents of the plant said in briefs filed late Tuesday.
The 630-megawatt coal-fired power plant, proposed to be built just across Big Stone Lake in South Dakota, would be a major contributor of global warming pollution, as well as contribute other air pollutants.
“Minnesota law appropriately places upon applicants the burden of proving the need for such a high-risk option, and this brief shows how utterly applicants have failed to carry that burden,” the opponents stated in their brief.
The groups opposing the plant—Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy, Fresh Energy, Izaak Walton League of America’s Midwest Office, Wind on the Wires and Union of Concerned Scientists—also pointed to testimony from Gov. Tim Pawlenty’s Department of Commerce that was critical of the utilities’ proposal.
Technically, the case before the Minnesota regulators is whether the utilities should receive a certificate of need to build two power lines to deliver the bulk of the electricity from the proposed plant to Minnesota customers. The South Dakota Public Utilities Commission already granted site approval to build the plant, but without permission to build the power lines, the power plant couldn’t exist.
“We have been warning for a year that Big Stone II is an obsolete technology that does not fit with the key environmental realities of the 21st century, while at the same time costing electrical customers more than the cleaner alternatives of wind and energy-efficiency,’’ said Bill Grant, associate executive director of the Izaak Walton League of America. “The pace of change in Minnesota and the United States is proving us right.”
This hearing is one of the biggest test cases into whether utilities regulators in the United States have the will to prevent construction of major new sources of global warming pollution. In fact, the opponents brief was filed the same day a Lutheran bishop and Catholic archbishop called stopping global warming a moral imperative and artic explorer Will Steger detailed the dramatic changes he has witnessed because of the warming before an historic gathering of lawmakers at the Minnesota Legislature.
Gov. Pawlenty’s own proposals to cut greenhouse gas emission in Minnesota, as well as recent actions by the U.S. Congress to require mandatory reductions in emissions at the federal level, will make the power plant proposal more expensive than cleaner alternatives such as increased energy-efficiency and wind power, according to the briefs filed with the administrative law judges hearing the case. That is on top of the regular capital costs for labor and materials which have dramatically raised the price of the power plant project.
For example, in doing the cost comparison between wind and coal, the power companies, including Otter Tail Power of Fergus Falls, assumed that the federal production tax credit for wind power would not be renewed by Congress when it expired at the end of 2007, thus increasing the cost of wind.
On Dec. 9, Congress renewed the credit, undermining one of the utilities’ major assumptions to make the proposed Big Stone II look cheaper than the alternatives.
The utilities also refused to consider in their computer modeling the possibility that Congress would enact carbon dioxide regulation in the next five years. Carbon dioxide is the primary global warming gas. However, even with a Republican majority, several carbon dioxide bills were introduced, and the recent election of a Democratic majority “does improve chances for near-term passage of significant climate change legislation,’’ according to the brief.
In addition, the utilities assumed they would achieve less energy savings through energy-efficiency programs than are actually achieved by utilities throughout Minnesota and they claimed it would cost more than was the actual experience of Minnesota utilities, according to commerce department testimony.
Using the accurate numbers, more than half of the 630-megawatt Big Stone II plant could be eliminated, according to the brief. But even that doesn’t account for new proposals to increase energy-efficiency requirements for utilities in the state. Gov. Pawlenty’s plan calls for electric utilities to greatly increase energy savings, meaning that even more of the plant would be unnecessary, according to the brief.
Besides being out of step with current and proposed energy and pollution policies, the utilities did a poor job of setting up their computers models for determining whether a new coal-fired power plant would be the cheapest alternative for its customers.
At every step, the power companies underestimated the costs of building their coal plant and overestimated the cost of wind and energy-efficiency, assuring that the outcome would pick the Big Stone II plan.
However, the examination of the models by experts hired by the opponents picked apart the flawed assumptions. By the end of the live testimony last month, the analysts for the commerce department were agreeing with opponents that Otter Tail Power Co. and its partners had fallen short of proving their case.
“With all the faulty inputs biasing these models toward the selection of Big Stone II, the models in no way represent credible evidence that Big Stone II costs less than (energy efficiency) and renewable energy,” the opponents concluded in their brief..
The administrative law judges will review the record and the briefs and make recommendations on the case in March, with the public utilities commission making its decision about a month later.
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