Big Stone ll Thrown into Environmental Pool

Big Stone ll Thrown into Environmental Pool

Splash Waves Less Damaging Further from Source

Even if one maintains a virulence in media news; keeping track of all the reported news subjects is often overwhelming. Three news subjects are connected but are only related because of our continuation of the fossil fuel economy.

The three news subjects are: Big Stone II Coal Power Plant, Electric Transmission Line and, the D,M & E Railroad's Wyoming through South Minneapolis coal line. Actually a fourth could be added to this essay; but at the time of composing this essay a CO2 sequestration plant is only a news blip heard on MPR (Minnesota Public Radio).

A replacement coal fueled electric power plant to replace the older less productive Big Stone in Milbank South Dakota is proposed. With the proposed Big Stone ll it is necessary that a electrical transmission line be built to and from other production plants. Proposed increased Electrical demand is the objective to all three projects.

Although young at the time the last major electrical power transmission line is constructed through the Heartland of Minnesota; I recall the Minnesota National Guard being implemented as security to the construction crews. The residents of rural Stearns County were almost militant in their protestation to the power line crossing their property.

The latest proposed transmission line from South Dakota to the metropolis of Minneapolis and vice viruses is not likely to be a similar issue as the transmission line that crossed Stearns County in the Seventies. The population in Minnesota is not confronting community members returning in caskets by the hundreds due to the Vietnam Conflict.

Other reasons why this transmission line is not likely to be contested is; the rural economy is depressed, therefore, payments for right of way for the transmission line may be welcomed. The line is partially funded by the Federal Department of Energy, DOE..

Even if a an leader could group the disconnected individuals that own the property that the power line crosses; their opposition will be assayed as contradictory to President Barack Obama's ideology implementing wind energy.

Both the transmission line and the Big Stone ll coal power plant are necessary components to utilization of wind power. Without either one renewable energy production in the Midwest is void.

Dakota Potential

Industrial kinetic electric energy derived from wind is restricted by location, location and location. Wind turbines need a significant and constant wind speed and density to assure a financial return of investment. The best location for industrial wind turbines in Minnesota is the Southwestern part of the state.

Xcel Energy already has four hundred fifty wind turbines producing up to 300 mega watts in in the Southwestern corner of Minnesota. The area location is addressed as Buffalo Ridge.

Xcel selected this particular location in Minnesota because the prevailing wind speeds average sixteen miles per hour. Less than four fifths of Minnesota have an average wind speed greater than nine miles per hour.

There are many geographic location throughout Minnesota that are great locations to capture wind power but not large enough for more than a handful, at best, of industrial sized wind turbines. That is the second restriction necessitated by location.

The third restriction to implementing industrial wind power is the location of the demand. The greatest electrical demand area is an area of great population. Transmitting electric power over current land line technology is costly due to land values, metal prices, and current lost through resistance. The best wind speeds are a greater distance from demand.

The further the distance between demand and production the greater the amount of voltage originated from the power plant will be lost through resistance. Resistance is the amount of electric energy (heat) lost through travel on the transmission line.

Electric energy are electrons traveling from more to less. Those electrons will attempt to escape through conduction, convection, or radiation. In the case of transmission lines convection is loss revenue to the electric power producers.

The amount of electric energy (heat) lost between source (power plant) and users is variable. The diameter of the metal cable and the amount of current produced that is traveling, and the length of travel along the cable will determine the amount of electricity (heat) lost through convection.

A small percentage of mega-volts, in temperature measurement, traveling through the transmission cable will escape to the lesser ambient environmental temperature. The average ambient temperature in Minnesota is 65 degrees. The high volt, high temperature transmission lines loses up to twelve percent of electric energy per 100 miles of travel because of electrical resistance.

From the restrictions explained above most electric consumers can understand why the electric power generators have stayed away from wind power. The cost of implementing the cleanest, safest, yet inconsistent wind electric will add to the cost of electric power and reduce consumers demand for the electric power.

Reality Check

If the actual cost of producing electric power from the current mass production systems were passed on to the consuming public; the amount of useless products produced would be reduced, less space would be used to dispose of the useless products, less pollution both from the production of the electric energy to produce the useless product and the disposal of the mentioned product will occur.

If nuclear power was not subsidized by the federal government the costs of production would be paid by the consumers, therefore, reducing the demand through conservation and prosumer and community production. This is not an action the electric power producers deem profitable. Electric energy is produced today at the cost paid by the next generation.

The Big Stone II coal power plant is necessary to fuel the wind turbines in South Dakota (see article The Cost http://www.progressivesurvival.net/the-cost ) and the larger transmission line is needed to deliver the electric current to the demand in the Minneapolis/Saint Paul metropolis.

If a large power plant where not near to the area where wind turbines could produce electric power the amount of kilowatts produced by the wind turbines would not be worth the cost of transmitting the energy to the demand.

Most electrical consumers understand little about how the electric energy delivered is below cost, overly polluting and subsidized by the taxes paid to the Federal Government; or that electric power is another form of heat; both from production and use. The Obama Administration's DOE needs to discontinue subsidizing energy production through nuclear and coal in order to balance the Federal Budget and reduce the CO2 and heat emitted through combustion.

DM&E – Canadian Pacific (CP)

The Dakota Minnesota and East (DM&E) railroad proposed updating its rails from Wyoming's low sulphur coal mine to a proposed coal electric power plant Big Stone II in Minnesota. This rail line has its' opponents that suspect that coal train traffic will increase the noise, traffic congestion and, impose public safety concerns.

Most of the opposition to DM&E upgrading the rail line from the coal fields in Wyoming through southern Minnesota came from the residents of Rochester, MN. The city of Rochester hosts the world renown medical institute the Mayo Medical Clinic.

The Mayo Clinic has the political clout to oppose a small rail line like DM&E.. That the populace of Rochester did and the small railroad saw that their resources were inadequate. The rail line had to get approval from the Surface Transportation Board (STB) for funding of the upgrade of the seventy year old line.

The STB is a Federal agency that funds transportation projects that are an economic benefit to the United States. The details of the consolation of DM&E with the rail giant Canadian Pacific are not available but it is probable that DM&E was not large enough to qualify for STB funds. Canadian Pacific, the third largest rail company operating in the US, merged with DM&E to qualify for the STB funds.

Soon after the two rail lines merged the opposition to the rail upgrade is concluded by the city residents of Rochester. Canadian Pacific is permitted to upgrade the rail line with small consolations to the residents of Rochester. Money talks.

How the STB got involved with a seemingly state issue such as an intrastate rail issue is because the delivery of coal to an electric power plant that is part of the Grid. The Grid is a electrical distribution system that is interdependent of the whole system through the U.S..

Canadian Pacific will not state that the upgrade of the once DM&E tracks are for the specific purpose of transportation of coal, but if CP was not proposing transporting coal from Wyoming thru South Dakota then Minnesota and onward why would STB fund the upgrade?

With the expensive electric power upgrades: wind, coal, and transmission lines, there is little doubt that the economic down turn occurring today will either postpone these projects through legislative law, or we consumers will pay a greater rate per kilowatt hour for a wasteful, inefficient and polluting electric generating system.

Copyright 2009 Best Energy Conservation Opportunities, Inc.

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