ND eyes suit against Minnesota over carbon tax

BISMARCK, N.D.—North Dakota Attorney General Wayne Stenehjem said he expects the state to file a lawsuit against Minnesota over its plan to tax carbon dioxide created by electrical generation. The Minnesota Public Utilities Commission wants to add a fee of $4 to $34 per ton of carbon dioxide to the cost of electrical generation starting in 2012. The majority of electricity in North Dakota is generated by coal-fired power plants, which emit carbon dioxide.

North Dakota officials consider it an unfair tax on electricity produced in the state and say it would discourage its use by Minnesota utilities.

How much is Minn. willing to pay for a ton of bullsh-t?

Sorry, we're net exporters.

Klobuchar (FamousDaddy-MN), Franken (StuartSmalley-MN).

Cheers!

>>Minnesota is restricted to only having power available that is produced within the state.

I wish surrounding/nearby states to California would go that route. It would be quite the wake up call for Callyforneyah.

>>I’d like to see California make a go of it with their windmills and solar plants (if there are any in operation).

We’ve been to Palm Springs 3-4 times in the last 7-8 years, flying into LAX or Ontario. So each time, we drove right through the valley where all the windmill farms are located.

Each time, I was amazed at how many non-running windmills there were.

>>Heck even Grey Davis understood energy policy better than Schwarzenegger.

Ouch. That’s going to leave a mark. And deservedly so, I expect.

There's a good reason for this. Windmills are very heavily maintenance intensive. They are exposed to the elements and the blades are relatively fragile. They eat ball-bearings. Sometimes the cost of maintaining them is greater than what they can sell the electricity for. This is why so many of them are not repaired when they break. The windmill owners cannot afford to keep them running. It's too expensive.

Engineers have know this for a very long time. Politicians are much dumber and they listen to environmentalists over good electrical engineers. These politicians simply are not that bright. If windmills really worked the government would not have to subsidize them and the power companies would have been using them all along. As I said they are much smarter than the politicians.

If you really want to know about windmills and how they don't work, research the experiences of the Danes. They have invested a huge amount in off shore wind mills and the cost of maintaining them are killing them. It's the salt air and such. Anyone with a boat with a diesel engine could have told them about the maintenance required to keep sea faring vessels going.

I hadn’t delved into the specifics, but that makes all kinds of sense to me. I have a couple of ME degrees, was a PE for a lot of years.

If we have the economic crash I often think we will have, it will be largely because of the triumph of “feelgood” over reality.

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