Great news! The Range is getting shafted by lobbyists!

Maybe you heard on the TV the great, fantastic super duper news that lobbyist-run Excelsior Energy got a gabildyzillion dollars in tax credits for their boondoggle Mesaba Energy Project. Wow! That's great! Except that the tax credits apply only if they build the plant, a prospect that requires private investment and a customer willing to buy the overpriced, unreliable power. Also they need to figure out how to make the vast granite shelf below the Iron Range part like the Red Sea so they can bury their carbon like they promised. I'll buy it when Moses registers as a lobbyist for Excelsior.

Literally at the same time Excelsior was sending out this press release they were ducking out of a scheduled PUC meeting that may well have put a stake through the heart of their entire project by closing off a mandated power purchase agreement they need to survive. At some point, the people of the Iron Range will grow tired of this insulting P.R. strategy and figure these people out for the hacks they are. May that day come soon.

Excelsior petitions for delay in PUC ruling on Mesaba project

Excelsior Energy's Mesaba Energy Project will not be on the docket for Thursday's Public Utilities Commission meeting. The PUC had been expected to rule on two key aspects of the proposed coal gas plant, but Excelsior asked for and received a delay.

Why? Some mumbo jumbo about an appeal to a previous administrative decision.

The truth? Either ...

1) Excelsior has reason to believe that a more favorable decision for them can be achieved in the future through political gamesmanship.

2) They are in deep trouble and know that a devastating decision will come down the next time the PUC rules.

Maybe it's both, but I forecast a battle Royal over this wasteful boondoggle (a project that, in the end, will not produce jobs or power) this summer. The amount that the public doesn't know about this company and its project is vast. When we answer some of the questions, as I and others seek to do, I don't think this project can or should proceed.

May 8 PUC meeting could reveal fate of Mesaba boondoggle

The Minnesota Public Utilities Commission will revisit the second phase of the Mesaba Energy Project Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) with Xcel at its May 8 meeting. Two major questions are to be answered. Will the PUC recognize Excelsior Energy's proposed coal-gas power plant as a "least cost" innovative project AND will they set a deadline for negotiations between Xcel and Excelsior to set prices?

An Administrative Law Judge, in an advisory ruling, told the PUC last fall that the Mesaba project is far too expensive to be in the public's interest. And Xcel doesn't need or want Excelsior's power. Unless the state PUC mandates that Xcel buy this overpriced power from this boondoggle yet-to-be-built power plant, there can be no project. This May 8 PUC meeting might be the beginning of the long overdue end of this economic development farce. Let's hope so, because if Excelsior gains new life through political dealings then Mesaba becomes an election issue that badly muddies the U.S. Senate race. I prefer not to think about that until May 8.