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Recession seems bad, but could be much worse
This MPR story by Bob Kelliher explains in real numbers how the recession is affecting the Iron Range mining and Duluth shipping economies. Two things seem apparent: It will get worse before it gets better and that it seems the various prospective companies and their investors are not pulling the plug on development for nonferrous…
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Oberstar to champion jobs bill
U.S. Rep. Jim Oberstar, chair of the House transportation and infrastructure committee, is pushing a massive jobs bill that would move up the construction of approved transportation projects around the country. This is from a Duluth News Tribune story today by John Meyers. I’ve got to think that this works to the favor of Minnesotans…
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Blade problems slow Taconite Ridge turbines
According to a Janna Goerdt story from today’s Duluth News-Tribune, Minnesota Power’s Taconite Ridge wind energy farm on the Iron Range is reporting some engineering problems in its first year. Once repaired, MP officials say the wind turbines will function as planned. The interesting factoid from the story is that these are the biggest inland…
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Iron Range enters food stage of political calendar
In the Iron Range political universe there are two seasons. Thumpin’ season and potluck season. Thumpin’ season is when we engage our region’s unique brand of ad homonym political brutality for the cause of social justice. That ended with the election. We are now in potluck season, a time when wounds are licked and coffers…
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Agency: huge Iron Range steel project still on track, despite economic news
I may have already tubed my invitation to the Iron Range Resources teddy bear picnic, but in the spirit of the holidays I’ll take a minute to point out some pro-IRR news. My friend and fellow Cherryite Lee Bloomquist, the IRR information officer, posted a status update on the Essar Steel Minnesota combined mine and…
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‘Overburden’ tour reaches the gates of the Boundary Waters tonight
Moving away from political and economic topics (but not too far away), I remind you all of my community lecture in Ely this evening. At 7 p.m. in the CL104 lecture hall of Vermilion Community College I will give a brief lecture and reading from my new book “Overburden: Modern Life on the Iron Range.”…
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Naked emperor just keeps on chooglin’
As expected, the Iron Range Resources board voted Monday to give Excelsior Energy a sweetheart two-year extension on making any payments on its combined $9.5 million in IRR loans since 2001. Bill Hanna of the Mesabi Daily News is reporting that the vote was 9-1, with Rep. Tom Anzelc (DFL-Balsam Township) the sole “no” vote.…
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From a Blue fall to Purple times
Political junkies are still learning to cope with the dramatic emotional drop-off that has occurred after the end of the election. Sure, we still have the Minnesota Senate recount and idle chatter about President-elect Obama’s cabinet to poke at. Some of the hard cases are really tweaking out over these things. But that’s nothing compared…
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Boondoggle Monday
Today the Iron Range Resources Board meets to discuss extending the deadline for the $9.5 million in loans to Excelsior Energy for its Mesaba Energy Project. The Mesaba Project is a $2.1 billion (probably more) coal gasification power plant proposed for Itasca County and/or Hoyt Lakes. I have, at times impolitely, called for this project’s…
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The Irv Era
Doug Grow, who is apparently my blogging BFF for the weekend, wrote a great story for MinnPost about Irv Anderson, the late State Representative and Speaker of the House whose funeral was held Saturday in International Falls. The story demonstrates quite a bit about Anderson’s personality but also much about the political culture of northern…
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Conservation leads to drop in electricity use; implications abound
Xcel announces a 3 percent drop in power consumption from the August to September period from last year. (MinnPost reports on a Wall Street Journal story). That’s good from an environmental standpoint. And it further proves that the proposed $2.1 billion Mesaba Energy Project, which would produce gobs of electricity priced higher than last year’s…
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On hockey and the Iron Range’s real problems
I’ve been meaning to pass this along all week. Doug Grow of MinnPost profiled Mike Antonovich, the former Gophers hockey great and new mayor of the Iron Range town of Coleraine. Read it. The story seems to have several purposes. One, it shows how a hockey stardom is still great currency in Minnesota small towns.…
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Alaska’s new senator takes an Iron Range name to D.C.
Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich, a Democrat, has officially defeated longtime U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) after late absentee ballots were counted yesterday. There are plenty of places to read about the political implications, but I just want to point out the fact that two names originating from the Iron Range now decorate U.S. Senate offices:…
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Hot book action in Gilbert tonight! Be there!
In the early days of the Iron Range, most iron ore miners lived in company location towns where alcohol sales were restricted so that the miners would not drink too much. To defy their bosses, and also to drink vast amounts of alcohol and visit with, uh, professional ladies, these miners would trek across the…
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Cliffs coal merger is off
I hope they didn’t print t-shirts yet. Cliffs Natural Resources (formerly Cleveland Cliffs) is no longer merging with Appalachian coal giant Alpha Natural Resources even though Cliffs changed its name to match theirs. Awkward. The Duluth News Tribune has the full story. It appears that this another example of the economy influencing the long range…