I just printed out this Affidavit and Exhibits to bring tonight and realized it would be good to post it again so that newly involved people in Wisconsin can get a handle on potential magnetic field levels of the CapX 2020 Hampton-Rochester-LaCrosse tranasmission line.

Affidavit of Bruce McKay and Exhibits

This stuff is NOT rocket science — they’re designing this as a very high capacity line, not just bundled conductors but double circuit and/or double circuit “ready,” which means there are plans… and there are plans to connect at LaCrosse and go eastward to Madison, which they say will increase transfer capacity 3,000-5,000 MW!  That’s a lot of current (granted, not all will go through this line, that’s the MN-WI interface, there are three lines, and Arrowhead is limited by a MN restriction on the phase shifting transformer).

This Affidavit uses the Direct Testimony of Larry Schedin in the CapX Minnesota Certificate of Need case, which lists amps and MVA ratings for various configurations. this one is the third from the bottom, “twin bundled 954 kcm 54/19 ACSS, 345 kV” which has a summer rating of 3700 amps and 2211 MVA.  In the hearing, the Applicants’ engineer testified it’s more like 2050 MVA.  OK, whatever, that’s a lot more than the 600 they’re talking about!

The amps in the RUS DEIS show a few hundred amps, off by a factor of 10.  Presume the magnetic field levels are also off by a factor of 10, the potential magnetic field levels consistent with these Summer Thermal Ratings.

RUS says in the DEIS that the info has been independently verified.  INDEPENDENTLY VERIFIED?  Right…