Letter omitted important facts about power companies' plans and resources
Editor, West Central Tribune –
The Tribune's Friday, December 14, 2007, edition featured a letter from Patrick J. Moore and Duane Ninneman of CURE. The letter applauded Willmar Municipal Utilities Commissioner Mike Burgett for “asking questions before committing to buying more power from the proposed Big Stone II plant.”
Because I was also mentioned in the letter, I feel compelled to respond to some of the points Moore and Ninneman make. But first, I also want to recognize Mike Burgett for asking questions because, as a utilities commissioner, he is responsible for ensuring reliable, least-cost power for the citizens of Willmar. He and the other members of the municipal utilities commission must ask every relevant question before committing financial resources to Big Stone II or any other future energy resource path.
Moore and Ninneman state that Xcel Energy, Minnesota Power and Great River Energy have all announced they will build no new coal plants. First of all, the supply situations of individual utilities are different. So, the conclusions of one utility do not necessarily apply to other utilities as the CURE writers suggest. Furthermore, Moore and Ninneman only provide part of the story in their letter.
While Great River Energy exited the Big Stone II project in September, on November 6, 2007, the cooperative held dedication ceremonies for a new 99-megawatt, lignite coal-fueled power plant at Spiritwood, North Dakota. Great River issued a news release about the groundbreaking, which was led by North Dakota Governor John Hoeven. Moore and Ninneman elected not to mention that coal-fueled project.
Their statement about Minnesota Power's announcement to avoid new coal-fired generation is also misleading. Over the past several years, Minnesota Power has acquired several hundred megawatts of older coal generators. The plants were formerly owned by now-defunct iron processing facilities and have few environmental controls. Although Minnesota Power has pledged to upgrade the plants, they will not approach the environmental cleanliness of Big Stone II. Again, there was no mention by Moore and Ninneman of these coal developments while they praised Minnesota Power.
Similarly, Xcel Energy, in its 2007 Resource Plan proposal filed with the State of Minnesota on December 14, envisions increasing output and energy production from their Sherburne County coal-fired plant, and also their nuclear facilities. This again illustrates that individual utilities will have unique resource plans going forward.
Finally, the big question that the CURE writers do not talk about is that they do not have a real, viable alternative to Big Stone II. The Big Stone II participants are already assuming we will do large amounts of renewables (primarily wind energy) and energy conservation. So, the remaining alternative to Big Stone II is to produce electricity using additional large quantities of natural gas – the same resource with the high and volatile prices we have already witnessed in our home heating bills the past couple of years.
The Big Stone II participants' planning analyses show Big Stone II, together with more renewables, increased energy conservation goals and other resources, to be a least-cost generation resource for their customers. Our analyses for Big Stone II include the impact of Minnesota 's recently enacted Renewable Energy Standard and energy conservation goals, plus the impact of a reasonable future cost of carbon dioxide. This is hardly “high risk” as Moore and Ninneman claim. This includes the City of Willmar, which is participating in the Project via the Central Minnesota Municipal Power Agency (CMMPA). Willmar also needs to replace a large existing capacity and energy purchase from Great River Energy in 2016 – another factor the CURE writers overlooked.
Yes, the City of Willmar Utilities Commission is doing their job by asking a lot of good, responsible questions and looking at the entire picture – not the partial picture that Moore and Ninneman would have you believe.
Robert H. Schulte
Interim CEO
Central Minnesota Municipal Power Agency
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