Picture a long winding road with lots of hills and valleys and a big sign by the side of it that says, “Difficult Decisions Ahead.”  That’s what I see when I think about the future of energy generation for Cass County Electric members and the Minnkota Power Cooperative family as a whole.  A member recently submitted a question for our CCEC annual meeting that asked, ”since Project Tundra will cost $1.1B and not generate additional electricity, will the CCEC board oppose the project?”. How I wish the answer to that question could be boiled down as simply as the question! All forms of energy generation have their advantages and challenges. I know that statement raises the hackles for some of you, but it is true – for renewable generation as well as fossil fuels. Before I get to Project Tundra specifically, I’d like to give you a brief glimpse into the discussions/conference sessions/meetings I’ve been a part of over the last two years as I’ve served on the Square Butte Power Cooperative (owner of the plant being proposed for the carbon capture project) board as well as the CCEC board.

We have coal plants that are 50 years old, and we know it’s time to start planning for the future. Pushing that decision process is the concern over carbon emissions and what impact that has on our environment. One idea that comes up frequently is that we should just build a natural gas plant and shut down the coal plants. While that seems like a simple solution, our problem is that the coal plants aren’t debt-free. Approximately ten years ago, Minnkota spent $425M to  add and enhance existing emission controls on those plants to meet federal and state air quality standards - those controls did not generate any additional electricity, but they performed exactly as expected.  If you look at a chart of where the emissions were then and where they are today - you will see a cliff event at the point the controls were installed. At the time we upgraded our coal plants, natural gas was an option. However,  no one knew western ND was an abundant resource of natural gas. Natural gas prices were extremely volatile - and could be again - all it takes is a pipeline problem. Pipelines have challenges! Easements for pipelines can be very difficult to procure. Recently a company pulled the plug on finishing a pipeline to bring additional natural gas to the east coast due to overwhelming legal challenges - after spending $3.2B. Natural gas is also a fossil fuel that emits carbon dioxide when burned.  When the coal plants are all shut down, will natural gas plants be next on the list? Will members want to pay higher rates because we are paying off the remaining debt on our coal plants as we assume the cost to build a natural gas plant? Especially when our coal plants are producing as much electricity, and some years more than when they were first built? Coal is a stable, low-cost fuel source that provides power 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The coal mine has received awards on the reclamation work that has been done after that coal is removed, and the land is restored to full productive use. Do we abandon working plants with useful life left that meet air quality standards just because we don’t like the fuel source?

Some would say yes to that question, and for them, renewables are the only answer - 100% renewables. I love renewables! I love the fact that Minnkota was an early adopter of wind energy, and 34% of Minnkota’s energy capacity comes from the wind! CCEC built a solar farm so that we could educate ourselves and our members.  But renewables have a problem - they are an intermittent energy source. Sometimes the sun doesn’t shine, and the wind doesn’t blow, and we still need power. Until there is a technological breakthrough that will allow us to store electricity on a large scale for a significant amount of time, renewables cannot be our only energy source. Basically, we are talking about battery storage. If we do develop that type of storage, it’s entirely likely that the battery will include rare earth minerals and precious metals. Unfortunately, that involves mining those minerals and metals, and where are the largest known deposits in the world? China and South Africa. That may be a challenge for us.

Renewables have other challenges besides being an intermittent form of power. Recently, many of the wind towers at the Ashtabula wind farm were “repowered.” That means they installed new hubs and blades on the towers that made their energy generation a little more efficient. For example, instead of the towers shutting down at 20 degrees below zero, they can now continue to produce energy at an additional 3 to 5 degrees lower temperature than before. One little known fact is that in cases of extreme cold when the blades aren’t turning, wind towers actually draw power from the grid to protect the components in their hub. Because I live in the area and watched with fascination as they rebuilt the towers, I was curious about what they did with the old blades. I found out that they cut each blade into three pieces and hauled them to Wyoming, where they crushed them and buried them in a landfill. I’m pretty sure those blades are not biodegradable. Somehow, that’s not what I envision when I think about renewables and conservation. Again, all forms of electrical generation have their challenges.

Which brings us to Project Tundra - a $1.1B project that would use a facility to capture and compress nearly all of the carbon dioxide emitted from the power plant and store it more than a mile below the surface in a geologic formation.  It is crucial for members to know that Minnkota is not contemplating spending $1.1B for this project and having the members pay for it in their rates. Almost all of the advance work that has been done to date has been paid for with state and federal grants. This is not new technology. Texas has a coal plant that has already successfully utilized this carbon capture technology.   They used the captured CO2 for enhanced oil recovery.  That plant is currently idle due to economic conditions during the pandemic but is expected to be back online when those conditions improve.  North Dakota is different than Texas because of coal types and climate but we know already that we have ideal geological layers for CO2 storage under the proposed capture facility.  There are still many hurdles that the project has to study and solve before it may come to fruition. The biggest obstacle could well be finding investors willing to utilize the 45Q tax credits that are available to fund the project.

I can think of three reasons why we may choose to proceed with this project. First, it lets us finish out the useful life of our coal plants, another 20 to 25 years, pay off the existing debt while capturing almost 100% of the carbon emissions and providing members with consistent baseload generation to meet their needs. Second, it gives us time to see what technology advancements will occur in the next ten to twelve years before we have to  decide on a new energy generation source. Why that time frame? Any new generation plant will require permits, easements, and a whole host of other things that are very time intensive before they ever produce a kilowatt of electricity. Third, and probably most important, this carbon capture facility can serve as a model for other coal plants around the world. Let’s face it, we may be shuttering coal plants in the US, but other parts of the world are building them. If we genuinely care about our environment, we need to think globally. Developing proven technology to capture carbon emissions from coal plants could significantly impact the world’s carbon emissions in the future.

The Minnkota family, of which CCEC is one of eleven distribution member owners, will continue to evaluate all the information available, ask questions and seek answers and eventually make the difficult decision whether to move forward or abandon Project Tundra. The primary concern has always been and will be to choose a path ahead that is in the best interest of the membership. That was the concern when we built our coal plants decades ago; when the decision was made to invest in emission controls; and as we look to the future in making sure we have affordable, reliable electricity for members.

In conclusion, I believe that there is nothing that we take more for granted than electricity. That’s saying a lot because there are so many things we take for granted - freedom, democracy, health, abundant food, clean water, and air, etc. Electricity provides everything that we have come to depend on in our lives.  We assume when we turn on a light switch - power will be there. In the middle of a raging blizzard and 20 below zero temps, we expect power will be there. For most of us today, we have never been without power longer than a few hours. I sincerely pray that we never have our assumption proved wrong. Until we have the technology for mass storage of electricity - our nation needs an “all of the above” energy generation mix that includes wind, solar, hydro, nuclear, natural gas, and coal.

Marcy Svenningsen, Cass County Electric Cooperative Board Chair