Two weeks ago, Gov. Mark Dayton called for eliminating coal from the future of Minnesota’s energy production. He challenged a group of energy policy and business leaders to figure out a way to get the deed done so that “Minnesota could lead the nation” in doing so.
That doesn’t bode well for Becker’s Xcel Energy plant.
About 46% of electricity generated in the state last year came from burning coal, so eliminating coal would be a tall order.
Dayton’s comments came during the state’s first-ever Clean Energy Economy Summit in mid-July and he stressed he’d like to see the state’s coal plants convert to natural gas or other ways of renewable energy.
Minnesota is already leading the way nationally in energy efficiency and has mandated sharp reductions in energy use in every new state-financed building for more than a decade, and in renovated buildings for more than five years.
While other states and critics of the Obama administration have howled about complying with its proposed rule slashing greenhouse gas emissions from power plants, Minnesota has been reining in its utilities’ carbon pollution for decades — not painlessly, but without breaking much of a sweat, either.
Today, Minnesota gets more of its power from wind than all but four other states, and the amount of coal burned at power plants has dropped by more than a third from its 2003 peak. And while electricity consumption per person has been slowly falling nationwide for the last five years, Minnesota’s decline is steeper than the average.
While the Obama administration proposed reducing power plants’ carbon pollution 30 percent from 2005 levels by 2030. Minnesota set similar nonbinding goals for its entire economy seven years ago: a 15 percent reduction by 2015, 25 percent by 2025 and 80 percent by 2050. (Minnesota measures carbon differently; by federal standards, its reductions would most likely be greater.)
In another report, energy consumption has been reported to be growing more slowly than Minnesota’s robust economy, and greenhouse-gas emissions have basically been level since 2000.
Environmentalists and politicians are toeing the line to put an end to coal plants like Sherco in Becker.
Local lawmakers are standing with Xcel Energy and their claims the emissions the plant discharges are safe and the future of coal producing energy is practical. Two of those Minnesota lawmakers are Rep. Jim Newberger and Sen. Dave Brown.
They even purchased a billboard along Hwy. 10 in Becker to proclaim their allegiance to the cause.
The upcoming election will be critical to the future of Sherco as the governorship and terms for members of the Public Utilities Commission (PUC) are expiring.
What is the PUC?
The Public Utilities Commission is a state agency that regulates Minnesota’s public utilities. This includes electric and natural gas utilities—like Xcel Energy and CenterPoint Energy—and, to a lesser extent over the past decade, telephone service.
It’s made up of five commissioners, appointed by the governor and confirmed by the senate, who serve six-year, staggered terms. By law, no more than three of the five commissioners can be members of the same political party, and at least one commissioner needs to live outside of the Metro area. The commissioners work full time at the commission’s office in downtown St. Paul.
The PUC’s stated mission is to “create and maintain a regulatory environment that ensures safe, reliable and efficient utility services at fair and reasonable rates.” These means that, at all times, the Commission’s job is to make sure utilities’ business decisions are prudent, protect the public interest, and provide energy that’s affordable, reliable, and increasingly clean and efficient.
The commission’s tasks include the following:
• setting rates and terms of service for Minnesota’s investor-owned gas and electric utilities (like CenterPoint and Xcel Energy, among others);
• making sure utilities are planning for future energy needs and have a way to meet them affordably and efficiently;
• issuing construction permits for power plants, transmission lines, and pipelines, site permits for large power plants, including wind farms and solar projects, and route permits for transmission lines and pipelines;
• resolving disputes between the public and Minnesota’s utilities.
Currently, the five PUC commissioners are: Dan Lipschultz, Beverly Jones Heydinger, Nancy Lange, David C. Boyd and Betsy Wergin of Princeton. Boyd’s term expires in 2015; Wergin’s in 2016 and Heydinger’s in 2017. The seats will be appointed by either re-elected Dayton or a newly supplanted governor this fall.
Sherco employs a total of approximately 370 people, of which 300 are fulltime employees and 70 are contractors.
