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.
“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.”
That’s hilarious – great work on an educational and entertaining blog!
Actualy Aaron, nature has already made a parting. It’s called the Midcontinent Rift. The rift starts in Lake Superior abd wanders southwest through Minnesota and Iowa, ending up in Kansas. There are a few sedmentary layers that are possible storage candidates. It’s not ideal and the whole notion of sequestration is still hokey, but don’t give up on it.
Rolf Westgard
member, Geological Society of America