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Major (and baffling) changes coming to Mesaba Energy Project?
Business North‘s Beth Bily is reporting that Excelsior Energy, an eight-year-old start up company, received some rather hushed assistance in the waning hours of this year’s legislative session from gubernatorial candidate Sen. Tom Bakk (DFL-Cook). It now appears the company is exploring the option of building a 100 mW natural gas peaking plant on the…
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Psychology of failed Iron Range project’s ‘sunk cost’
The agreement by the IRRRB to extend the loan, reduce the payments and otherwise throw a life line to Excelsior Energy last week escaped with relatively little outrage. Even my own response to this topic I’ve written hundreds of posts about was rather muted. It got a local story in the Grand Rapids and Hibbing…
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Minnesota Power to convert major Range plant from coal to gas
This week, Minnesota Power announced it would convert its coal-fired Laskin Energy Plant near Hoyt Lakes to natural gas generation in coming years. The $15 million conversion will eventually join the closure of one of Laskin’s MP’s Taconite Harbor units, but company officials are hopeful there will be no layoffs. The plan allows Minnesota Power…
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Range coal gas plant dealt setback in court
Oh, how I’ve enjoyed not writing about Excelsior Energy’s proposed Iron Range coal gasification plant, dubbed the Mesaba Energy Project, these last several months. Fans of this blog might remember my tireless bellowing about this topic over the past four years … no wait, it’s actually been seven. I could rehash it now, but let’s…