Rethinking Electricity Policy

Thursday morning, I had the privilege of presenting the electricity chapter of the Center of the American Experiment’s new Minnesota Policy Blueprint.

We were hosted by the River Heights Chamber of Commerce and in the capacity crowd, elected officials, candidates, policy wonks, and utility managers were well represented.

Just a couple of days before our launch, I was pleased to see columnist Joel Kotkin echoing many of the themes from our report in a recent piece written for the Orange County Register.  Green energy policies are increasing the costs of energy and the working classes are the hardest hit.

We’re hoping to start a conversation about energy policy in Minnesota, which has seen the price of energy go from among to most affordable in America to among the least.

Cities, Solar Power and the Irresistible Lure of "Free Money"

Over at the Center of the American Experiment, I co-wrote this piece with Kim Crockett on solar power.  We discuss how cities can't turn down "free" money to pay for uneconomic solar projects.

Geronimo!

The Minneapolis Star Tribune has on its website a fawning profile of Edina-based wind and solar power company Geronimo Energy.  The company is set to make a fortune from developing a large solar power project for electric utility giant Xcel Energy.

The Star Tribune would have you believe that Geronimo's success is attributable to the company's clever business plan and savvy marketing.  In fact, renewable power in Minnesota would be nowhere without round after round of mandates imposed by the state government on electric utilities.

What the Star Tribune also doesn't mention is that Geronimo's director of solar power, Nathan Franzen, is married to Edina Democrat state senator Melisa Franzen.  In 2013, Sen. Franzen voted for the latest round of solar power mandates that benefit her husband's industry.

Beyond state mandates, renewable energy is also dependent on Federal tax breaks and favorable regulatory treatment.  You and I pay the difference, in higher taxes and/or higher electricity prices, that makes wind and solar power appear viable.

I'm having a hard time seeing the public purpose served by increasing the personal wealth of Sen. Franzen and her spouse.  It sure looks like classic crony capitalism, of the variety more often seen in places like Chicago and Louisiana.

Science Has Left the Building

Over the past few days, we’ve been having some fun on Twitter regarding the Democrats and “Science.”  The Democrat-controlled Minnesota Legislature is about to ban electronic cigarettes.  The Democrats (styled “DFL” in Minnesota) will accomplish this feat by declaring e-cigs to be tobacco, the physics and chemistry of the matter, notwithstanding.

In that context, political operative Brian Cook recalled this "news" story in the Minneapolis Star Tribune from a year ago.  The Star Tribune piece opened with this startling sentence,

Science made a comeback at the State Capitol on Tuesday.

Headlined “Minnesota legislators and scientists team up on climate change,” the article promises that the then newly-installed Democrat majority would elevate the role of “science” in their decision making and would tackle the issue of global warming.  In the event, they have done neither.

As I pointed out recently, Minnesota is about to miss its first statutory deadline (2015) for reducing greenhouse gasses.  State Democrats—who enjoy a complete monopoly on power—are oddly silent about the failure of one of their signature issues.

The Star Tribune wrote a year ago,

The point, Reps. Jean Wagenius and Alice Hausman said, is that the DFL-controlled House intends to base new laws and policy decisions--especially those related to climate change--on research rather than dogma.

"It's science vs. ideology," said Hausman, a DFLer from St. Paul and chairwoman of the House Capital Investment Committee, describing a debate that is going on nationally as well. "There are still some that question the science."

The Star Tribune wrote this week,

“I have not seen the scientific data that says this is dangerous if you’re simply in the same room as someone using an e-cigarette,” said Rep. Will Morgan, DFL-Burnsville. “I’m a physics teacher. I think we should rely on science for decisions like that.”

At some point in the last year, it seems, “science” has left the building.

There are Laws and Then There are Laws

In 2007, the Minnesota legislature passed a law requiring that the state reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent by the year 2050.  The law featured interim deadlines, including a requirement to reduce emissions by 15 percent by the 2015.

The most recent report (pdf) put out by the state government indicates that Minnesota will not meet this 2015 requirement.  We will not be close to meeting the standard.  In fact, the last report showed carbon dioxide emissions ticking up, not down.
 

Railroaded

Two Democrat state legislators got their picture in the newspaper this week for proposing a new tax and additional regulations on railroads and pipelines that transport crude oil through Minnesota.

Put aside the fact that many other flammable and explosive commodities travel by rail and pipe.  A series of high profile accidents has drawn attention to safety issues surrounding the transportation of oil.

What I find interesting is less the “what” than the “who.”  Minneapolis state representative Frank Hornstein and state senator Scott Dibble are introducing the bill.  Both hold leadership posts on transportation issues in their respective houses.

According to the Minneapolis Star Tribune, the two lawmakers are being assisted by a local non-profit, MN350.org.  The Star Tribune reports that,

The proposal also has the support of MN350, an environmental group that opposes crude oil pipelines and rail shipping.  The group’s attorney, Paul Blackburn, is helping legislators draft the language.

If you are genuinely interested in improving the safety of an activity, why would you have a group opposed to having the activity done at all write the rules for doing it?  It seems that this bill is less a safety measure than a stalking horse for a ban on transporting oil within Minnesota.  That, of course, would cause significant problems for the state’s two oil refineries.

When done by Republicans and conservatives, having an outside group draft legislation is considered a national scandal.  (Google the American Legislative Exchange Council, ALEC).   In fact, Sen. Dibble is the chief author of an anti-ALEC senate bill, SF 26, that seeks to outlaw the practice.

I’m sure safety improvements can be made, but that doesn’t seem to be the point of this exercise.

Soulless in Winona

Taxpayer-Funded Film Festival Censors FrackNation

The pro-natural gas movie FrackNation—directed by husband and wife filmmakers Phelim McAleer and Ann McElhinney—had a screening cancelled by Winona, Minnesota’s Frozen River Film Festival over the weekend.

The film festival is, of course, funded by your tax dollars.  The festival has received two grants from the Minnesota Legacy Fund.  A grant of $22,000 supported this year's Festival, while a $10,000 grant from the Legacy fund subsidized the 2012 event.  So, it turns out that your tax dollars are going to censor viewpoints they don't agree with.

For 2014, the Festival received a separate $10,000 taxpayer-funded grant from the Southeast Minnesota regional Arts Board.

Naturally, the public Winona State University is the festival's other major sponsor.  So much for higher learning.

I had the good fortune to meet Ann at a conference in Minneapolis when the movie was still in the planning stages.  I saw the movie when it was broadcast on Mark Cuban’s AXS TV last year.  It’s a great movie and a wonderful antidote to the anti-industry screed Gasland.  The Festival found room in its 2014 lineup to screen Gasland, Part 2.  FrackNation was meant to be a counterpoint in the programming.

It Lives! The Zombie Energy Bill

Last night (or was it this morning?) during the debate in the Minnesota State Senate on forced unionization of child care providers, the adjective "zombie" was thrown out to describe the bill's remarkable ability to keep rising from the dead.

Likewise, the solar power mandate bill keeps coming back, despite all efforts to bury it.  Last night, like a remora, it attached itself to the presumably more popular "jobs" bill (House File 729) and is said to be headed for the House floor tonight (Wednesday).

Sadly, the remnants of the [Sen. John] Marty Manifesto are still there, calling for an end to fossil fuel use and 100 percent renewable energy, "within the next few decades."  The blather about "the economic losses to the Minnesota economy from importation of fossil fuels" and "the economic and environmental costs of continued reliance on fossil fuels" remains.

As part of my day job, today, I attended a speech by Scott Tinker, the state geologist of Texas and a professor at the University of Texas.  Dr. Tinker, as part of an excellent presentation, made the important point that everything that was conventional wisdom regarding energy a decade ago turned out to be wrong.

The world produces more oil today than at any time in its history.  America is poised to resume its historic role as a net oil exporter, after decades as the world's largest oil importer.  America produces more natural gas than at any point in its history, and is poised to start a massive natural gas export business.

As Dr. Tinker demonstrated--even as we develop renewable energy and more nuclear power--American and world production of oil and natural gas will continue rising for the next few decades.  We will not run out of either oil or natural gas within the lifetime of any person now living.

Sen. Marty's bill reflects a worldview based on data no longer valid (if it ever was).  Turning away from fossil fuels--if we were actually to do so--would only harm our state.

Updated: Solar Power in the Dark of Night

[Updated:  I wrote too soon.  Despite media reports that a deal was done and the report signed, the conference committee is scheduled to reconvene and continue deliberations on the solar power bill.]

As clichéd as you can get in these matters, the Minnesota state legislature’s conference committee met in the dark of last night, behind closed doors, and hammered out a “compromise” on imposing a solar power mandate on four of the state’s electric utilities.

Local media, of course, portray the bill as watered-down, from the original demand of 10 percent solar, to a mere 1.5 percent.  The timeline has been moved up a few years, which means that the 18,000 workers who will lose their jobs as a result of the mandate will see their pink slips just that much sooner.

[Sorry, solar mandates don’t create “green” jobs, higher electricity prices will reduce employment across the economy.]

Gone from the bill is the increase in renewable energy requirements from 25 percent to 40 percent.  A ten percent solar “goal” remains.  Still in the bill are big favors for well-connected solar power companies.  Also included are generous payments to non-profits who can use the money to lobby for more expensive energy subsidies.

Most disturbingly, the bill would “make Minnesota the first state in the nation to use only renewable energy.”  Yes, the bill would write into state law a requirement for Minnesota to stop “burning fossil fuels.”  The government study on how the state will implement this goal is due January 14, 2014.

I know that many dismiss such pie in the sky as merely a “goal.”  But all it will take is an activist judge or an ambitious cabinet officer, and we will all be sitting in the dark.

Legislating Away Fossil Fuels

Not long after the 2012 election, in which Minnesota’s Democrats secured one-party rule in state government, leading environmental organizations—instrumental in the Democrats’ success—declared 2013 to be the year of solar power.  Specifically, the environmentalists call for the state’s utilities to produce 10 percent of their electricity from expensive solar power.

Earlier this week, the Minnesota House of Representatives did its part, setting a goal of 10 percent solar power, setting a mandate of 4 percent solar, and placing both on top of a renewable energy mandate raised from 25 percent to 40 percent.

Up next comes the state Senate, which is expected to take up its version of the bill later this week.  The Senate’s version is portrayed as less aggressive.  True, it is missing the 40 percent provision for the “wind” standard, omits the 10 percent solar “goal,” and has the solar mandate topping out at a mere one (1) percent.

Also dropped from the current Senate version was its previous Article 1, a long, rambling diatribe that read more like a newspaper editorial than it did serious law.  I’ve heard the old Article 1 described as “Marty’s Manifesto” after the bill’s chief author, Sen. John Marty (DFL-Roseville).  If it read like an Op-Ed commentary, it’s because it was this commentary, appearing in the left-leaning news website MinnPost.

The current Article 1 is not much of an improvement, as it calls for Minnesota to be “the first state in the nation to use only renewable energy.”  A 100 percent renewable energy standard may be Sen. Marty’s vision, but I doubt that a majority of Minnesota’s voters (or even its legislators) support that goal.  Nonetheless, a 100 percent renewable energy standard is now only a few steps from state law.

How would Sen. Marty accomplish his dream?  As it turns out, central planning.  State agencies would collaborate on

a framework for the state of Minnesota to transition to a renewable energy economy that ends Minnesota's contribution to greenhouse gases from burning fossil fuels within the next few decades.

In developing his framework, Sen. Marty would have state agencies consult with a range of stakeholders—with the notable omission of anyone having anything to do with paying for his pipe dream.  Ratepayers are to be excluded from giving input into this grand “transition framework.”

Utopia by decree is almost at hand.  All it will take is the agreement of 34 state senators.

Be Very, Very Quiet, We’re Making Energy Policy

The Minnesota House of Representatives made history last night, passing a nation-leading 40 percent renewable electricity requirement (tied with Hawaii).  Added on top is a 10 percent solar-power-only goal, including a 4 percent solar mandate.  All told, Minnesota is requiring its biggest utilities to produce fully half of their power from renewable sources.

You didn’t hear about it?  Don’t worry, you weren’t supposed to.  The debate ran for hours, but was blacked out on public television.  Taxpayer funded radio is all but silent.

Time was, a big new renewable power requirement would make national news.  Last night, I was predicting that the House vote would get no more than a paragraph in our state’s leading newspaper.  I overestimated its newsworthiness.  Not one word of the vote appeared in today’s Minneapolis Star Tribune paper edition.

Minnesota Department of Wishful Thinking

This morning (May 2^nd) I attended an event held in the southeast metro at a conference center with floor-to-ceiling windows on three sides.  After last night’s freak, early-May snowstorm, the windows offered an excellent, 270° view of the several inches of climate change blanketing the Minnesota countryside.

In the midst of a sea of white, one speaker gamely tried to make the case for global warming. 

About 20 miles north, a subcommittee of the Minnesota State Senate was passing a bill to eliminate the use of fossil fuels within Minnesota’s borders.  Not reduce, eliminate.  I’m not kidding.

Does a Bear ---- in the Woods? Not if the MPCA Can Stop Him

On the radio this past Earth Day Monday, I put forward the proposition that the modern environmental movement is a victim of its own success.  As the obvious environmental problems are all solved—burning rivers, open waste pits, etc.), we have to dig ever deeper for new challenges and set new standards for environmental quality, no matter how unreasonable, to make environmental “progress.”

This article in today's Minneapolis Star Tribune on local smog jogged loose a nearly-twenty-year-old memory. 

Back then, scientists were searching for clues as to why certain waters in the Chesapeake Bay region were being contaminated by fecal coliform bacteria.  The usual suspects—agriculture, residential housing, and sewage treatment—appeared blameless.

Scientists from Virginia Tech studying the matter collected data showing that at some locations and times, wildlife are the primary sources of fecal pollution. 

Update on Green Energy Follies

The good folks at the Center of the American Experiment have collected and updated my series on Minnesota's renewable energy policy.

Weather Facts

This morning, I carefully scanned my newspaper's weather page for any hope of a return of Spring.

Seeing none, I checked out the weather facts for this date.  Yesterday's high temperature (34) was 23 degrees below the average high for the date (57).  In fact, we have experienced a colder than "normal" winter, as measured by Heating Degree Days: 7,105 so far this winter, slightly more than a normal to date of 7,086.

We had more snowfall yesterday, bringing the seasonal total to 56.1 inches, slightly more than a normal of 53.  We've had above normal precipitation for the month and year so far.

What does this mean?  Nothing.  We have long, cold winters in Minnesota.  That's normal for our mid-continent latitude.

Yet, somehow, Republican weatherman Paul Douglas writes on the same page that this is all somehow proof of something called "Global Weirding."  Douglas writes,

"Global warming implies steady warming, worldwide.  'Global Weirding' better describes what we are seeing."

Yes, the globe has been warming, although not so much in the past 20 years.  "Climate Change" never really worked as a label, as the climate is always changing:  always has, always will.  So now we have arrived at "global weirding."

I wish I could remember who said it, but the adage applies, "If you say that every bit of data proves your theory, the phenomenon you are describing is not science."

A New Tsunami of Cash for Political Charity

A little over a year ago, my friend Tom Steward published his eye-opening series on the tsunami of cash flooding into Minnesota from out of state to remake our energy and environmental laws.

Tom focused on the workings of RE AMP, a Minnesota-based media and policy network that operates the website Midwest Energy News.

Today, the Minneapolis Star Tribune reports on the local McKnight Foundation's new grant to RE AMP and others.  The Foundation, arising out of the 3M fortune, has pledged $25 million to fight global warming in the Midwest.  Read that last sentence again.

The Star Tribune reports,

"The two-year grants of $20 million to Energy Foundation and $5 million to RE-AMP, a network of nonprofits, extend existing funding partnerships and the philanthropy’s $100 million commitment, announced in 2008, to blunt climate change.  The two groups will focus on developing policies and public education to reduce dependence on fossil fuels in Minnesota, the Dakotas, Wisconsin, Illinois, Iowa, Michigan and Ohio."

Since when did "philanthropy" mutate into "developing policies"?  How many homeless could be housed with $25 million?  How many hungry could be fed for $25 million?  How many sick children could be healed with $25 million?

I suppose that the McKnight Foundation can spend its $ billions any way it chooses.  What I can't quite see is how global warming policy counts as charity.

Race to Oblivion

Saturday’s Wall Street Journal carries an editorial (“California's Coming Green Outs”) that warns of looming disaster for the Golden State.  The editors open with,

Regulate first, think later.  That seems to be the guiding principle of California’s policy makers.  Take the state’s renewable energy standard, which will soon cause a surge in electricity prices and could even lead to rolling blackouts when the weather heats up.

Under California’s renewable energy standard, the state’s electric utilities are obligated to obtain 33 percent of their electricity from certain renewable sources by the year 2020.

The Journal notes that,

Excessive energy costs have helped to obliterate the state’s manufacturing base.

I’m sure glad this is not California.  Wait…what’s that?

It turns out that the Minnesota legislature is considering a 40 percent renewable standard by 2030, with a 4 percent solar-only standard by 2025.

Who will be the first to reach rolling blackout?  Let the race begin!

Raising the Stakes on Renewable Energy

The latest proposal would require 40 percent of all electricity in Minnesota to come from renewable sources by 2030.  My advice:  buy a portable generator and install an extra fuel storage tank.

"It's the Same Sand!"

Here is a short piece I wrote on silica sand mining for MNPAC.  I love the graphic they came up with,

Minnesota's Green Energy Follies, Part 5

Slipping into the Minnesota State Capitol--hidden behind the louder distractions of guns, more government unions,  red light traffic cameras, and everything else other than the budget--is perhaps the single worst idea to be introduced this session:  a 10.06% mandate for solar electric power.

The bill (SF 680) would force the state's electric utilities to supply 10.06 percent of their energy with solar power.  The extra precision implied by the 0.06% is meant to show how scientific the whole exercise is.

I have estimated that if the solar mandate on electric utilities were immediately implemented, under current market conditions, it would add upwards of $1 billion a year to consumers' electric bills.

The bill's sponsor, State Rep. Will Morgan, was quoted in the local media as saying,

“This is our first effort,” he said. “We understand there are people who have some concerns. We want to work with them."

Rep. Morgan said his bill is certain to be revised.

That's the problem, isn't it?  Compromise all you will, but revising a bad idea doesn't flip it into becoming a good idea, it just becomes a slightly less bad idea.

Another story on the mandate quotes a solar-industry advocate as saying that "the cost of producing solar energy has dropped dramatically in just the past few years, and it is expected to decline further as the technology improves."

To use a poker metaphor, adopting a mandate now is like going "all in" before you see the flop.  Perhaps the costs fall in the future or perhaps not.  But you are stuck either way with the mandate.

Regardless, this new mandate is expected to begin its committee journey as early as Tuesday.  Weeping for the future has already begun.