fusclimate Mailing List: Fwd: Fwd: Fresh Energy's Global Warming Action, February 2014

[Scott Jackson (sjackzen46]

Here's the latest update about Sherco 1 and 2 from Fresh Energy (although I
couldn't find it at the Fresh Energy website) by way of the MN350 Tar Sands
Google Group (which uses color and different font types and sizes, though
that won't be apparent to you, thus providing better copy than a listserv;
it also doesn't require an administrator).

Further public hearings on Sherco 1 and 2 seem unlikely until after Xcel
files its 15-year Resource Plan.

Scott Jackson
sjackzen46 [at] gmail.com


---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Terry Hokenson <terryhokn [at] visi.com>
Date: Fri, Feb 28, 2014 at 11:39 AM
Subject: Re: Fwd: Fresh Energy's Global Warming Action, February 2014
To: mn350-tar-sands-team [at] googlegroups.com


 This is great!  I believe there is a convergence of efforts from many
directions that is creating geometrically increasing momentum toward a
clean renewable energy future.  Single efforts or vectors begin to cross
paths and combine with others, like condensing water droplets increasing in
size until they touch and merge with their neighbors.  I wonder what is
going on inside the conservation vector, which has the single greatest
potential to reduce carbon pollution?  (Please excuse the mixed metaphor!)



On 2/28/2014 10:50 AM, Sattinss [at] aol.com wrote:

 PUC becoming proactive for the climate!

 *Fresh** Energy*

*Global Warming Action*

*February 2014 *

*Minnesota orders Xcel Energy to analyze replacing Sherco 1 and 2 by 2020*

On February 27, the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission (PUC) followed
Fresh Energy's advocacy lead in requiring the state's largest electric
company, Xcel Energy, to analyze retiring the state's largest carbon
polluters--the Sherco 1 and 2 coal-burning power units in Sherburne County,
MN--in 2020 and thereafter. In addition, the PUC ordered Xcel to include any
updated "externality" values of burning coal--what we know as the
*real*health and environmental costs of coal, which are at least $2.1
billion
each year in Minnesota alone. These new requirements apply to Xcel's
15-year Resource Plan, due on July 1, 2014. Finally, the PUC accepted a
recommendation from the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency that Xcel
evaluate a possible increase in the renewable energy standard to 40 percent
by 2030. Currently, Minnesota law requires Xcel to achieve 30 percent
renewable energy by 2020, as well as 1.5 percent solar energy in that same
year, for a total of 31.5 percent renewable electricity by 2020.



These new requirements apply to Xcel's 15-year Resource Plan, due on July
1, 2014.

What's at stake is how fully Minnesota will embrace economic opportunities
from clean energy jobs, and achieve the health and environmental benefits
for Minnesotans from moving more quickly to economical clean, efficient
energy.