For Immediate Release
April 13, 2007

News Release …News Release … News Release

Contact:

Kevin Reuther, Lawyer
MCEA
(651)223-5969
kreuther@mncenter.org

Chuck Laszewski, Communications Director
MCEA
(651)223-5969
claszewski@mncenter.org

Judges recommend denial of Iron Range coal gasification plant
Excelsior plant would not be clean technology

ST. PAUL, MN---Two administrative law judges have agreed with three environmental organizations and recommended that a proposed coal-gasification power plant on the Iron Range be denied the approvals it needs to be built.

Excelsior Energy, Inc. has proposed building a 600-megawatt power plant that would turn coal into a gas for the fuel to generate the electricity. But the two administrative law judges recommended to the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission late Thursday that the commission deny a power purchase agreement that would have required Xcel Energy to purchase the electricity from Excelsior.

The judges found that the power would be unreasonably expensive and the Excelsior plant is not clean energy technology, in part because it would not significantly reduce the pollutants from the smokestack, including carbon dioxide, which contributes to global warming. Nor would it significantly cut mercury and nitrogen oxide pollution.
Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy, Fresh Energy and Izaak Walton League of America-Midwest Office made the pollution arguments.

“We agree wholeheartedly with the recommendations,’’ said Kevin Reuther, the lawyer from the Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy who argued the case. “These two judges are taking seriously the consequences of building a new coal-fired power plant and their recommendation makes it clear that the public utilities commission has to take the pollution problems seriously as well.”

While much of the case revolved around the cost of producing the electricity and the resulting sale price to Xcel Energy, the administrative law judges also took considerable testimony involving the five million tons per year of carbon dioxide the power plant would put in the atmosphere. Carbon dioxide is the primary global warming pollutant and the target of serious reductions in the Global Warming Mitigation Act making its way through the Minnesota Legislature.

Excelsior officials indicated the plant could incorporate new technology to capture the carbon and pump it underground so it would not contribute to global warming. However, Excelsior officials said they would not use that technology.

“Had the Excelsior proponents made a clear commitment to carbon capture and storage in a reasonable time after it was built, we might have had a different view as to whether the project should go forward,” said Bill Grant, associate executive director of Izaak Walton League of America.

“The judges essentially found this is just another coal plant, but an expensive one,’’ Reuther said. “They agreed with us that without the environmental benefits of reduced emissions through, for example, carbon capture and sequestration, the added expense of this proposal was not justified.”

The Excelsior owners touted the coal-gasification process at the proposed Mesaba plant as providing a cleaner burning fuel that would cut the amount of sulfur doxide, nitrogen oxide, particulate matter and mercury that went into the air.

However, the administrative law judges found that coal-gasification would not reduce the amount of mercury and nitrogen oxides beyond what conventional coal powered plants produce. And because the owners did not intend to capture or sequester the carbon dioxide, there was no clean technology advantage there, either.

“The Mesaba coal plant would have added even more global warming pollution into our atmosphere,” said Michael Noble, executive director of Fresh Energy. “The judges made the right decision and Minnesota needs to continue on its way towards a clean and renewable energy system for the 21st century.

The Minnesota Public Utilities Commission will make the final decision later this spring or early summer and can alter or overturn the judges’ recommendations. However, with recent legislation signed by Gov. Tim Pawlenty requiring more use of renewable energy, the momentum is clearly against coal plants.

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