corruption

The Hypocrisy of the Faux-green wind promoters!

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ENVIRONMENTAL DEFENCE’S HYPOCRISY ON FULL DISPLAY AGAIN. THIS TIME WITH BISPHENOL A.

We all know that one of the components of wind turbine blades is Bisphenol A, which breaks down over time and exposure to the weather, feeding into the air.  The internal Vestas report which states that over 1 ton of hazardous waste is created with the production of every single turbine blade is well documented and has been discussed many times on this site.  Bisphenol A is one of those wastes that Vesta was referring to.

From the Greeley report:

“In a report released by the company, it was revealed that over the last four quarters waste from the Windsor facility increased by 44.7 percent and produced 36 percent more toxic waste than in the previous quarter.

Of that waste, almost ¾ of it was sent to landfills in the state. The waste consists of fiberglass epoxy resin, plastic, fiberglass dust and other items.

A Vestas employee, who wishes to remain anonymous, told the Gazette that he needs to shower every day prior to coming home to avoid harm to his children from the resins that get on his skin. The company has been cited by OSHA for violations related to chemicals used at the facility that have caused injury to employees.

The Greeley Report said an inside report indicates the plant produces approximately 40 blades per week with each blade generating 1 ton of waste.
Andrew Longeteig, A spokesman for Vestas, explained the reason for the increase in the amount of hazardous waste produced in 2011 was because of increases in production related to a record-breaking year for Vestas wind turbine sales in the United States and Canada in 2010.

He went on to say that none of the hazardous waste was considered toxic.”

Well, if hazardous waste isn’t toxic, exactly what is it?

Click here to see the Vestas report which states that they’re trying to reduce waste from the production of each blade to 2716 kg.

Anyway, back to Environmental Defence….They’ve published an article on their site stating that human exposure levels to Bisphenol A deemed ‘safe’ may be over-estimated.

“Their research found that human testes were more than 100 times more susceptible to some compounds, including BPA, compared to those in rodents. BPA is linked to prostate cancer, obesity, heart disease and possibly breast cancer. This means that current standards may be based on an underestimate of the risk posed to humans by BPA exposure.

Considering that according to the Canadian Health Measures survey 95 per cent of Canadians aged 3-79 have BPA in their bodies, this is a huge cause for concern. BPA was banned from baby bottles because it was declared toxic by Health Canada. However, it is still far too widespread in other consumer products like receipts, cans, and plastic food containers, and it may be worse for our health than previously thought.

More needs to be done to protect Canadians from toxic chemicals like BPA.”

Yet, when I contacted Environmental Defence a couple of years ago to try to get them to take action against the negative environmental effects of wind turbines on Ontario residents, they advised me that they don’t get involved in such matters.  Really?   So whose environment are they defending?  And what’s their criteria?  It seems they’re up in arms about Bisphenol A polluting the air, but if that material comes from wind turbines, then it’s okay?

At the same time, I tried to see if Environmental Defence would support an initiative to get industrial wind turbines built in and around the GTA, including along the shoreline.  Since they’re avid supporters of wind energy, I thought I could get them on board with getting them built near where they live.  Again, I was advised that that’s not an area that they get involved with.

Ahhh….green hypocrisy.  Always so easy to expose. — DQ

Scientists betting on “Global cooling”!

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Climate change sceptics bet $10,000 on cooler world

Russian pair challenge UK expert over global warming

Two climate change sceptics, who believe the dangers of global warming are overstated, have put their money where their mouth is and bet $10,000 that the planet will cool over the next decade.

The Russian solar physicists Galina Mashnich and Vladimir Bashkirtsev have agreed the wager with a British climate expert, James Annan.

The pair, based in Irkutsk, at the Institute of Solar-Terrestrial Physics, believe that global temperatures are driven more by changes in the sun’s activity than by the emission of greenhouse gases. They say the Earth warms and cools in response to changes in the number and size of sunspots. Most mainstream scientists dismiss the idea, but as the sun is expected to enter a less active phase over the next few decades the Russian duo are confident they will see a drop in global temperatures.

Dr Annan, who works on the Japanese Earth Simulator supercomputer, in Yokohama, said: “There isn’t much money in climate science and I’m still looking for that gold watch at retirement. A pay-off would be a nice top-up to my pension.”

To decide who wins the bet, the scientists have agreed to compare the average global surface temperature recorded by a US climate centre between 1998 and 2003, with temperatures they will record between 2012 and 2017.

If the temperature drops Dr Annan will stump up the $10,000 (now equivalent to about £5,800) in 2018. If the Earth continues to warm, the money will go the other way.

The bet is the latest in an increasingly popular field of scientific wagers, and comes after a string of climate change sceptics have refused challenges to back their controversial ideas with cash.

Dr Annan first challenged Richard Lindzen, a meteorologist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who is dubious about the extent of human activity influencing the climate. Professor Lindzen had been willing to bet that global temperatures would drop over the next 20 years.

No bet was agreed on that; Dr Annan said Prof Lindzen wanted odds of 50-1 against falling temperatures, so would win $10,000 if the Earth cooled but pay out only £200 if it warmed. Seven other prominent climate change sceptics also failed to agree betting terms.

In May, during BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, the environmental activist and Guardian columnist George Monbiot challenged Myron Ebell, a climate sceptic at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, in Washington DC, to a £5,000 bet. Mr Ebell declined, saying he had four children to put through university and did not want to take risks.

Most climate change sceptics dispute the findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change which suggest that human activity will drive global temperatures up by between 1.4C and 5.8C by the end of the century.

Others, such as the Danish economist Bjorn Lomborg, argue that, although global warming is real, there is little we can do to prevent it and that we would be better off trying to adapt to living in an altered climate.

Dr Annan said bets like the one he made with the Russian sceptics are one way to confront the ideas. He also suggests setting up a financial-style futures market to allow those with critical stakes in the outcome of climate change to gamble on predictions and hedge against future risk.

“Betting on sea level rise would have a very real relevance to Pacific islanders,” he said. “By betting on rapid sea-level rise, they would either be able to stay in their homes at the cost of losing the bet if sea level rise was slow, or would win the bet and have money to pay for sea defences or relocation if sea level rise was rapid.”

Similar agricultural commodity markets already allow farmers to hedge against bad weather that ruins harvests.

Collusion Between Government and “Renewable energy”.

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Standing with rancher Cliven Bundy

Posted on 04/17/2014by 

bundy1Wind Turbine Syndrome, Calvin L. Martin
The other day, something significant happened in American history.  This man stood up to the American government  — and the government backed down.  (The “American government” consisting of a small army of heavily armed cops.)

This is a story about a number of things:  (a) The renewable energy scam.  (b) A foreign energy company taking adverse possession of rangeland used by this rancher’s ancestors going back 150 years, give or take.  (c) An unseemly collusion between a powerful U.S. Senator, the Director of the Bureau of Land Management, and a Chinese energy company.

The bullying and sleaze of wind energy companies inevitably come to mind.

In this case, it’s not wind energy, but another non-starter:  solar energy.  Involving U.S. Senator Harry Reid (Nevada) negotiating with a Chinese energy mogul to build a huge solar energy plant on Bureau of Land Management (BLM) administered rangeland — right smack where this rancher and his forebears have traditionally grazed their livestock.  The Chinese company being legally represented, incidentally, by Senator Reid’s son, a prominent Nevada attorney. Read article

 

 

The Collusion between the Wind Industry, and the Provincial Liberal Government!

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MUST LISTEN: MIKE CRAWLEY & FIT CONTRACTS — LIBERAL CORRUPTION MAKING MILLIONS

Tip o’ the hat to Robert Stocki for this find. Lowell Green from CFRA 580 in Ottawa, talks about the widespread corruption in the Liberal Party surrounding the FIT contracts. “Mike Crawley Liberal insider and NOW President Of International Power Canada once the Wind Power Guru Of the Dalton Mc Guinty Liberals Party and Past President of the Fderal Liberal Party is now on the RECEIVING END OF the Multi Million dollar FIT CONTRACTS he helped set up under the GREEN ENERGY SHAM….. this is the Crime of the Century and you will be paying for it for 20 years.”
Check out this video….a must see! *****Mike Crawley and FIT CONTRACTS Liberals Making Millions Off of Ontario …: http://youtu.be/e6Nti3z5k_Y via @YouTube
liberal 2012391

More on Climate Alarmism!

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Via.GREENIE WATCH.

17 April 2014

Crooked old Joe Romm defends Showtime’s Series On Climate Change

Note: Romm served as the series’ Chief Science Advisor. He doesn’t mention that in his article.

Romm also quotes “the country’s top climatologist” Michael Mann to support his temper tantrum. Mann is also a Science Advisor for the series. Romm didn’t mention that, either.

Romm repeatedly uses the word “they” rather than “we” to describe the film project.

The closest he comes to transparency is near the very end of the article when he writes, “I was not one of the producers of the show, but I have worked with them long enough to know that that sentence sums up their guiding philosophy.” True, he was not a “producer,” but his statement gives the impression he merely “worked with them” in some sort of minor, outside way. He never mentions just how central his role was as Chief Science Advisor.

Ironic that Romm’s article title accuses people who criticize the series as “dishonest,” yet he fails to be forthcoming about his role in the series and his lack of objectivity writing the article.

As soon as I saw the much discredited Michael Mann described as “one of the country’s top climatologists”, I stopped reading. Sometimes total detachment from the facts makes itself obvious — JR

The good news is the video of episode one of Showtime’s climate series, “Years Of Living Dangerously,” has been getting great reviews in the New York Times and elsewhere.

The bad news is the Times has published an error-riddled hit-job op-ed on the series that is filled with myths at odds with both the climate science and social science literature. For instance, the piece repeats the tired and baseless claim that Al Gore’s 2006 movie “An Inconvenient Truth” polarized the climate debate, when the peer-reviewed data says the polarization really jumped in 2009 (see chart above from “The Sociological Quarterly”).

As I said, “Years Of Living Dangerously” — the landmark 9-part Showtime docu-series produced by the legendary James Cameron, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Jerry Weintraub — has been getting great reviews. Andy Revkin, often a critic of climate messaging, wrote in the NY Times Monday:

“… a compellingly fresh approach to showing the importance of climate hazards to human affairs, the role of greenhouse gases in raising the odds of some costly and dangerous outcomes and — perhaps most important — revealing the roots of the polarizing divisions in society over this issue….”

George Marshall, “an expert on climate and communication,” — who is also often a critic of climate messaging — wrote me:

“What impressed me about the two episodes I watched was the respect that it showed to conservatives, evangelicals and ordinary working people…. it is still the best documentary I have seen.”

The New York Times op-ed is from the founders of the Breakthrough Institute — the same group where political scientist Roger Pielke, Jr. is a Senior Fellow. It pushes the same argument that Pielke made in his fivethirtyeight piece — which was so widely criticized and debunked that Nate Silver himself admitted its myriad flaws and ran a debunking piece by an MIT climate scientist.

Ted Nordhaus and Michael Shellenberger, two widely debunked eco-critics who run The Breakthrough Institute (TBI), begin by asserting “IF you were looking for ways to increase public skepticism about global warming, you could hardly do better than the forthcoming nine-part series on climate change and natural disasters, starting this Sunday on Showtime.” But they never cite anything other than the trailer in making their case, dismissing the entire enterprise on the basis of 2 minutes of clips!

They base their entire argument on a misrepresentation of climate science and a misrepresentation of social science. They assert:

“But claims linking the latest blizzard, drought or hurricane to global warming simply can’t be supported by the science.”

I asked one of the country’s top climatologist, Michael Mann, to respond to that….

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/04/09/3424593/showtime-years-dangerously-response
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Wind Company buys home of people suffering from wind turbines!

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Steven N Luann Therrien 7:11am Apr 17
4/15/2014 Wind Opponents Call The Nelsons Heroes, Predict More Buyouts Robin Smith Staff Writer

Wind opponents from across Vermont reacted to the settlement between Green Mountain Power and Don and Shirley Nelson of Lowell on Monday, calling them heroes.

They said they hope the buyout could spur more as the state begins to realize that industrial wind projects have an impact on human neighbors and they vowed to continue fighting them.

Luann Therrien of Sheffield, who also lives near industrial wind turbines, said she cried for joy when she heard the news that the Nelsons had struck a deal and would be paid for their property.

“We are so thrilled for them. We are so excited that they can get out and get healthy,” she said.

Her husband Steve said he had been to the Nelsons’ farm and understood their experience. “I wouldn’t have wanted to be there another day,” he said.

Therrien said he hoped that this settlement creates a pathway for others who are experiencing health impacts.

They have tried for years to get First Wind to purchase their property.

Steve Wright of Craftsbury, president of Ridge Protectors, said the Nelsons had the Vermont dream, until they were forced from their land by a foreign-owned corporation.

“Yes, they were paid for that property, but money runs a poor second to beauty, peace, quiet and a love for your land.

“Don and Shirley are heroes. They represent the long-held Vermont values that live on in the struggle for an energy policy we know is possible, one that doesn’t drive people from their homes, damage their health, and wither hope.

“The Nelsons are not the only ones forced off their land; already, at least three other families near the Lowell project have experienced a similar fate. More are expected,” Wright said.

Annette Smith of Vermonters for a Clean Environment said her group supports the Nelsons’ decision to agree to a settlement.

“At the same time, we and many others in the community know that they have been damaged by Green Mountain Power far beyond what any monetary settlement could provide,” Smith stated.

“Any time a utility has to buy out a neighbor, it is not a ‘win’ for the corporation.”

“We expect this is just the beginning of litigation and settlements … ,” Smith stated.

“We at Energize Vermont are saddened that the Kingdom Community Wind tragedy has driven Don and Shirley Nelson from their home,” executive director Mark Whitworth of Newark said.

GMP’s settlement “represents just the latest in the series of unanticipated costs” from the wind project that will be passed on to consumers “who are weary of hearing about the cost-effectiveness of wind-generated electricity,” Whitworth stated.

Neighbors are being hurt, Wright said, even though industrial wind projects have “no effective climate change benefit.”

“Industrial wind technology does not work on the New England landscape and the Lowell Project, in spite of GMP’s claims, is clear proof,” he said.

“Complicit in this sad tale is the Shumlin administration, aided and abetted by the so-called ‘environmental’ community. Together, they continue to advance statewide energy policy that even the Public Service Board acknowledges worsens Vermont’s carbon footprint,” Wright stated.

“The negative impacts of the Lowell turbines are far greater than Green Mountain Power has disclosed and the benefits to society that they promised will never be realized,” Whitworth stated.

“The turbines will have no impact on global climate change. Their damage to the land is permanent,” Whitworth stated.

“Wind energy generation is simply inappropriate for Vermont,” Smith stated.

“It does not live up to the promises of ‘free fuel,’ but instead comes at tremendous and unaccounted-for costs. The harm done to the Nelson’s property which now has no value in the real estate market, to Don and Shirley’s health and quality of life which is degraded on a daily basis, and to the wildlife, water resources and landscape are evidence that big wind turbines have no place in Vermont,” Smith stated.

The Nelsons will remain “a symbol to the rest of Vermont” of the sacrifices demanded of those who are forced to live near wind turbines. “In the end, we believe the Lowell wind turbines must come down,” Smith said.

“The Nelsons are not the only Vermonters who have suffered ill health and financial damage because of industrial wind turbines,” Whitworth stated.

“We call upon Green Mountain Power, First Wind, and Georgia Mountain Community Wind to make reparations to the other Vermont victims of their industrial wind projects.

Steve Therrien said he has asked First Wind three times to buy them out.

They have tried to find an attorney who would work for free to help them sue the developer but have not been successful.

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Why I’m cheering for fossil fuels this Earth Day

John Stossel
“The heavens reek, the waters below are foul … we are in a crisis of survival.” That’s how Walter Cronkite and CBS hyped the first Earth Day, back in 1970. Somehow we’ve survived since then, and most of life got better, although I never hear that from the worrywarts. Of course, some things got better because of government: We passed environmental rules that got most of the filth out of the air and sewage out of lakes and rivers. Great — but now we’re told that we’re in big trouble because greenhouse gases cause global warming. I mean, climate change.

Time and again, environmentalists oppose the energy production most likely to make the world cleaner and safer. Instead, they persuade politicians to spend billions of your dollars on symbolism like “renewable” energy.

“Crop yields are down, deaths from heat are up,” says the Los Angeles Times. The “Worst Is Yet to Come,” warns The New York Times. This hype is not new. Alarmists always fool the gullible media. They once fooled me. A few years back, we were going to be killed by global cooling, overpopulation, pesticide residues, West Nile virus, bird flu, Y2K, cellphone radiation, mad cow disease, etc. Now it’s global warming. Reporters don’t make these scares up. The recent hype about global warming comes from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Most of its members are serious scientists. But reporters don’t realize that those scientists, like bird flu specialists, have every incentive to hype the risk. If their computer models (which so far have been wrong) predict disaster, they get attention and money. If they say, “I’m not sure,” they get nothing. Also, the IPCC is not just a panel of scientists. It’s an intergovernmental panel. It’s a bureaucracy controlled by the sort of people who once ran for student council and are “exhilarated by the prospect of putting the thumb of the federal government on the scale.” Actually, that wasn’t a quote from a global warming alarmist. It’s from anti-marijuana alarmist and former Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare Joe Califano. But it’s the same crisis mindset. Scientists who disagree, who are reluctant to put their thumbs on the government scale, don’t feel welcome in the IPCC. It’s possible climate change may become a problem. But even if industrialization brings warming, we’ve got more important problems. On my TV show this week, statistician Bjorn Lomborg points out that “air pollution kills 4.3 million people each year … We need to get a sense of priority.” That deadly air pollution happens because, to keep warm, poor people burn dung in their huts. Yet, time and again, environmentalists oppose the energy production most likely to make the world cleaner and safer. Instead, they persuade politicians to spend billions of your dollars on symbolism like “renewable” energy. “The amazing number that most people haven’t heard is, if you take all the solar panels and all the wind turbines in the world,” says Lomborg, “they have (eliminated) less CO2 than what U.S. fracking (cracking rocks below ground to extract oil and natural gas) managed to do.” That progress occurred despite opposition from environmentalists — and even bans in places like my stupid state, New York, where activists worry fracking will cause earthquakes or poison the water. Do environmentalists even care about measuring costs instead of just assuming benefits? We spend $7 billion to subsidize electric cars. Even if America reached the president’s absurd 2015 goal of “a million electric cars on the road” (we won’t get close), how much would it delay warming of the Earth? “One hour,” says Lomborg. “This is a symbolic act.” Symbolic. Environmentalism is now more religion than science. It even comes with built-in doomsday stories to warn people about what will happen if they disobey — a bit like the movie “Noah” that’s in theaters now. While environmentalists lament that our time is running out, environmental indicators get better, technological improvements reduce carbon dioxide, water gets cleaner for millions, and human life expectancy goes up. This Earth Day, instead of attacking those who sell fossil fuels, I will applaud them for overcoming constant environmental hysteria — while providing affordable energy that will allow us to fight poverty, which is the real threat to the people of the world.   John Stossel joined Fox Business Network (FBN) in 2009. He is the host of “Stossel” (Thursdays at 9 PM/ET), a weekly program highlighting current consumer issues with a libertarian viewpoint. Stossel also appears regularly on Fox News Channel (FNC) providing signature analysis.

The people of Toronto have Wynne to thank for our lousy electricity system!

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Getting off of coal, is not the problem….we could have easily replaced it with a combination of gas, nuclear, and hydro.  The problem is, the money which should have gone into updating our aging infrastructure, was wasted on unreliable, inefficient, unaffordable  faux-green energy.  They made this expenditure, complete with crippling 20 year contracts,  without even doing a cost/benefit analysis, to see if it was a worthwhile endeavor, and if it would be any improvement to our environment whatsoever.  They did not do the cost/benefit analysis, I am afraid, because they would not want the public to know the answer!    Shellie Correia

Ontario goes coal-free: Toronto suffers a blackout within 24 hours

Posted: April 16, 2014 by Rog Tallbloke in Carbon cycle, government, humour, Incompetence,Legal, Nuclear power, Politics, Robber Barons, wind

6

From the too not-funny to be as funny as it should be dept:

Thunder-Bay-OPG-Generating-StationOntario is now the first jurisdiction in North America to fully eliminate coal as a source of electricity generation. The Thunder Bay Generating Station, Ontario’s last remaining coal-fired facility, has burned its last supply of coal. Operated by Ontario Power Generation, Thunder Bay Generating Station was the oldest coal-fired station in the province. The plant is scheduled to be converted to burn advanced biomass, a renewable fuel source.

The province has replaced coal generation with a mix of emission-free electricity sources like nuclear, waterpower, wind and solar, along with lower-emission electricity sources like natural gas and biomass. The move to bio-mass rather than to natural gas has raised concerns in Thunder Bay. NOMA and Common Voice Northwest, and the City of Thunder Bay have all expressed concerns.
See more

But then…

TORONTO – A large swath of the city’s west end was left in the dark for a few hours Tuesday night as a blackout hit the area. The outage began around 9 p.m. and ended about 11:30, Toronto Hydro said. The area affected was bound by Yonge St. in the east, Mississauga in the west, Lawrence Ave. to the north and Dupont St. to the south.

The power utility said the outage was caused due to a Hydro One transmission issue.

Subway service was back up and running as of 11:05 p.m., the TTC said, after having been suspended between Jane and St. George Stations due to signal problems in relation to the outage.

                                                         from Rog Tallbloke….thanks Rog!

Climate Alarmists Have an Agenda…..and it is NOT a Good One!

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HOW THE IPCC MANIPULATES SCIENCE TO PROVE GLOBAL WARMING

Kevin Mooney — Capital Research Center– April 15, 2014

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
How a U.N. group manipulates science to “prove” Global Warming (pdf here)
By Kevin Mooney

Summary: The most prestigious international group claiming we face a global warming crisis has a history of twisting the scientific evidence involved in the controversy. It is so duplicitous that it has even misrepresented the findings of its own reports.

Why do so many people believe in Global Warming theory? Global Warming theory isn’t just that the earth is getting warmer, any more than the theory of evolution is that things evolve or the theory of relativity is that everything is relative. There’s a lot more to it than just warming.

Global Warming theory (sometimes fudged as “climate change” theory), in the words of Green Watch editor Steven J. Allen, is “that the earth as a whole is getting catastrophically warmer due not to natural causes but to ‘greenhouse gas’ emissions—especially carbon dioxide (CO2)—from human industry, transportation, and energy generation, and that the looming catastrophe of Global Warming can be averted with policies that are compatible with peace, prosperity, freedom, and democracy.”

That’s a lot of believe, and it’s inconsistent with what we know about both physical science and human behavior.  Continue reading here…..

A-Year-After-UK-Bribery-Act-2010-How-does-Translation-Play-a-Role

North Dakota too smart to pay inflated renewable charges from Minnesota!

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Border battle: ND refuses to pay millions in MN renewable energy bills

By   /   April 15, 2014  /   12 Comments

Call it this: No (renewable) electrification without representation.

A revolutionary settlement between the state of North Dakota and Xcel Energy’s Northern States Power unit will save North Dakota ratepayers nearly $6 million a year by exempting charges for higher-priced renewable energy from Minnesota.

“It is no secret that Minnesota rules, laws and policies are highly influenced by various environmental groups and ideas,” Mike Diller, director of economic regulation for the N.D. Public Service Commission said during a hearing in January. “… The environmental concerns of North Dakota are different from those of Minnesota, and the cost of compliance with the environmental and energy policies in Minnesota is becoming a burden to North Dakota ratepayers.”

North Dakota sets a voluntary goal of generating 10 percent of its power from renewable sources, ranking third on the American Wind Energy Association list of states in percentage of wind power. Across the border, Minnesota requires 31.5 percent of Xcel Energy’s power be generated by wind and other subsidized — often less competitive — renewable energy sources by 2020.

“This has not been the approach in North Dakota,” said Julie Fedorchak, a PSC commissioner. “Policy makers in our state believe it should be driven not by state mandates and government mandates, but more by the private sector and technological growth.”

ND COMMISSIONER: North Dakota ratepayers have been paying for MN’s aggressive renewable energy mandates for too long. ND PSC photo.

For years, Xcel has spread the cost of Minnesota’s renewable energy requirement to the utility’s customers in five neighboring states.

North Dakota officials grudgingly looked the other way as Minnesota regulators continued to approve more of what they viewed as inefficient renewable energy projects. Those projects increased the utility bills of Xcel’s 80,000 customers — from Fargo to Minot — by an estimated $5.7 million a year. The system wide cost for ratepayers is about $92 million.

“These policies come with a cost, and the costs under the system of Xcel Energy are shared across the border system wide in states like North Dakota and South Dakota,” said Fedorchak. “So over the years, we’ve effectively been paying for some of the policies being mandated by the state of Minnesota.”

The long-standing friction and frustration over the states’ opposing energy policies finally broke into the open during the hearings in Bismarck after Xcel Energy’s requested rate increase for North Dakota ratepayers. PSC regulators saw it as an opening to assert control over North Dakota’s energy independence and destiny. The final agreement includes a precedent-setting provision for Xcel to “re-stack” the mix of electric power allocated in North Dakota and reset rates based on least-cost conventional energy sources that match the state’s priorities.

“We are not aware of this same proposal being developed elsewhere,” said Dave Sederquist, a senior regulatory and financial consultant with Xcel Energy. “Method of allocating shared resources between jurisdictions can and do vary between states.”

It will take months to analyze the economics of about two dozen mostly smaller Minnesota community wind projects and biomass facilities, which North Dakota considers unnecessarily costly for its ratepayers to support.  If agreement cannot be reached by July 2015, North Dakota ratepayers would not be billed for the questionable Minnesota projects.

“This part of the settlement is a big risk to NSP as it will require Minnesota to begin paying for its own prescribed generation programs that North Dakota finds unacceptable,” said Diller in his hearing testimony. “If Minnesota refuses to pay for all of its programs, NSP will be stuck with stranded investment and not chance of full recovery.”

While reverse engineering renewable energy regulatory rates between states appears to be unprecedented, other states may be energized by the development.

“The costs of complying with resource mandates in any given state have traditionally been recovered in all of the states we serve,” said Sederquist of Xcel. “While we are not aware that regulators in other states in the NSP System are pursuing mechanisms to address any energy policy differences, we understand there may be some interest by those states to look at this issue as well.”

What about North Dakotans paying for their neighbor’s latest renewable energy mandate — solar?

“Solar’s coming in and I can tell you right now that our position in North Dakota will be we’re not interested in that 150 megawatts of solar power they’re building over there,” said Diller.