More coal on way in North Dakota

Filed under:News coverage — posted by admin on January 25, 2008 @ 11:05 am

… sigh… no surprise, but here we go… but for CapX 2020, this wouldn’t happen, COULDN’T happen…

Selby awaits decision

Announcement expected on $1.7 billion power plant soon

Basin Electric Cooperative of Bismarck, N.D., might be on the verge of announcing whether it will build a $1.7 billion power plant in Walworth County.

The word could come “very, very soon,” said Gary Steuck of Mobridge, chairman of the North Central Power Plant Task Force, a group that has been working for years to lure the power plant to Walworth County.

Steuck reported these developments that fuel hope Walworth County might be chosen:

# Basin Electric is test drilling offshore in the Missouri River, near where the water intake pipes for the coal-fired electrical plant would be.

# The co-op has purchased Walworth County land in the Selby area. Last year, Basin Electric secured options to purchase the land as a plant site.

# At its annual meeting, Basin Electric eliminated the option of building on a site in the Pierre area. That leaves two contenders: Walworth County and a site near Stanton, N.D.

Four-lane expansion: Steuck made his comments Wednesday night in Aberdeen at a session on a different-though-related topic: a proposal to make U.S. Highway 12 four lanes from Aberdeen to Mobridge and perhaps farther west. Twenty-five people from Aberdeen, Bowdle, Hosmer, Ipswich, Mobridge, Roscoe and Selby attended the meeting of the Dakota Expressway Extension Task Force.

If the Selby area gets the power plant, it would serve as another example of economic development in northeast South Dakota and the need for infrastructure – such as four-lane highways – to meet the needs of growth, Steuck and others said Wednesday.

There are also plenty of here-and-now reasons to support four lanes, according to these comments made at the meeting:

# North Central Farmers Elevator’s new grain terminal west of Bowdle has increased highway traffic in that area, including a significant number of semis from North Dakota.

# Truck traffic will increase when the new Aberdeen Energy ethanol plant opens later this year west of Aberdeen in Edmunds County opens.

# Molded Fiber Glass Cos., which is building an Aberdeen plant to make blades for the windmills found on wind-power farms, needs four-lane highways to ship the mammoth blades east and west from Aberdeen.

Molded Fiber Glass would not be coming to Aberdeen if not for the four-lane U.S. 12 from Aberdeen east to Interstate 29, said Aberdeen Mayor Mike Levsen.

# Truck traffic from Mobridge to Aberdeen will increase when Northern Beef Packers opens its processing plant south of Aberdeen.

To this point, the four-lane task force has concentrated mainly on enlisting the support of cities and counties, said Dennis Wheeler of Mobridge, task force chairman. On Wednesday, the group reached consensus to seek backing from other entities with stakes in the proposed four-lane: trucking companies, area manufacturers that receive and ship goods, ambulance services and farmers’ organizations, as examples.

The task force meets next on May 21, with the time and place to be announced. 

The eastern side of CapX 2020

Filed under:Reports - Documents — posted by admin on @ 6:37 am

ATC in Wisconsin!  That’s what’s on the eastern side.  ATC is to Wisconsin what TRANSLink was to MN, except that ATC is happening and TRANSLink “isn’t” … until you look at CapX.

ATC clearly states that “it’s all connected.”

Portions of the lines also will require approvals by federal officials and by regulators in North Dakota, South Dakota and Wisconsin.

Along with Great River Energy, Elk River, Minn.; Otter Tail Power Company, Fergus Falls, Minn.; and Xcel Energy, Minneapolis, utilities or groups that expect to participate in one or more of the CapX 2020 projects are: Dairyland Power Cooperative, La Crosse, Wis.; Midwest Municipal Transmission Group, Des Moines, Iowa; Minnesota Power, Duluth, Minn.; Minnkota Power Cooperative, Grand Forks, N.D.; Missouri River Energy Services, Sioux Falls, S.D.; Rochester Public Utilities, Rochester, Minn.; Southern Minnesota Municipal Power Agency, Rochester, Minn., and Wisconsin Public Power Inc., Sun Prairie, Wis.

They have LOTS of plans, and I’m trying to find the one map with everything on it… one moment please…