Twin Cities Daily Planet (https://www.tcdailyplanet.net/tag/energy/page/5/)
A controversy in Colorado has flushed out information about a Minnesota-based company’s former ties to the American Legislative Exchange Council. The kerfuffle may be instructive to understanding the ALEC origins of some of the politics of net metering of consumer-generated solar power that we hear in Minnesota. Continue Reading
There’s a beauty in the breath of horses, fall mornings a bit of breath seen in the air and the smell and sound of horses. One hoof at a time. Bebezhigogonzhiig … one at a time, a one hoofed being. On Nov. 14, Michael Dahl and I, both Mississippi Band members rode horses from the headwaters of the Mississippi along a proposed route of a new oil pipeline, which would cross the reservation.
Lake Superior is virtually unique as a thing. It is a huge lake, it is far from the equator, it is very very deep, and it is a freshwater lake. That combination is hard to come by. It is therefore almost always going to be true that a major environmental disaster such as the sinking or wrecking of a tar-sands boat on that lake will not have a precedent. If there is a huge tar sands disaster on Lake Superior it will not be possible to clean it up, most likely. And there will be such a disaster; this is almost guaranteed. Continue Reading
Via MSN, Michael Virtanen of the Associated Press is reporting in Spoils of war: Police getting leftover Iraq trucks: Continue Reading
It’s no secret the energy fueling our nation comes at a heavy cost to the environment and human health. What we don’t talk about is that a good portion of our domestic energy and other vital resource procurement occurs on publicly owned land. Continue Reading
On the morning of September 29, North Dakota farmer Steven Jensen discovered a gurgling pool of oil in his wheat field. From a quarter-inch hole in the pipeline, 865,000 gallons of crude oil from the Bakken oil field leaked into his fields. It was 11 days before there was any public notification of the spill. In the last two years, North Dakota has had over 300 pipeline oil spills that were never publicly reported. Continue Reading
The Sierra Club is demanding that Xcel Energy retire part of a power plant on the Mississippi River.
In building upon Veronica Schwenn’s article on the September 21 ward 9 candidate forum, I would like to include what all of the candidates had to say in response to the question relating to Minneapolis Energy Options from the notes I took while attending. It was not a direct question on whether or not they supported municipalizing Minneapolis’s energy given that question is not going to be on the city ballot this year. The question referred to basically read “What would you do as a city council member to hold Xcel and Centerpoint accountable to the clean energy concessions they offered to the city as a result of the Minneapolis Energy Options campaign?”In response to the question on Saturday, there was a broad consensus around holding Xcel Energy accountable to the sustainability goals of the Minneapolis Energy Options campaign.For the most part, this echoed the ward 9 candidate forum on May 1st that was actually sponsored by Minneapolis Energy Options where all six candidates in attendance publicly endorsed the campaign. But what was interesting is that each candidate had their own unique angle to view the situation from.Pat Fleetham’s angle on the situation is that we need detailed explanations and transparency as to what exactly we as the city are holding Xcel and Centerpoint accountable to rather than it all happening behind closed doors. And it will be hard work for the city council and state legislature to try to get the vital information we need.Ty Moore lauded The Minneapolis Energy Options campaign for “doing an amazing job” making clean, reliable, affordable energy an issue in Minneapolis. Continue Reading
On the heels of a severe drought across the Midwest; summer storms that caused record power outages in the Twin Cities; the third largest wildfire in California history and devastating, record-breaking floods in Colorado, the Obama administration proposed a major new rule last week to curb carbon pollution spewing from power plants. Scientists warn that without major reductions in carbon pollution, climate change will cause extreme weather to become even more frequent and severe. Continue Reading
As controversy over TransCanada’s Keystone XL pipeline has captured most of America’s attention, Minnesotans have been dealing with a different pipeline carrying tar sands bitumen to the United States. On July 17, 2013, the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission (PUC) granted Enbridge, L.P. a 120,000-barrel-per-day (bpd) capacity increase to line 67, the “Alberta Clipper”, from 450,000 bpd to 570,000 bpd. Continue Reading