That’s Genoa, looking a lot like the Allis reactor that used to be up at Elk River.  Good to see Irv and George at the table yesterday!

Greetings from utility infrastructure land… next up in the transmission build-out is the Cardinal-Spring Green-Hickory Creek, or whatever name they’re putting on it these days.  I don’t like the way they reverse it as if it’s going east to west when we know better, it’s export from Iowa and the Dakotas and maybe even Minnesota!  It’s to go from west of Dubuque (connecting to MISO MVP 4, I presume) to Cardinal (which is essentially Madison).

Cardinal-Hickory Creek website

So later today, I’ll try to get a photo of that Dubuque substation and where it might cross (there’s a big coal plant downtown).  It’ll mean another crossing of the Mississippi by a 345 kV transmission line.  It’ll probably also mean another eagle take permit.  Just yesterday, between Red Wing and La Crosse, I counted 10 eagle nests, but the best one we saw was #11 near Genoa, with two eagles sitting in the tree next to the nest.

Here’s the map, and below is the Stockman plant in Cassville, with a substation that could be used, it’s in the study area on the northern end of the “study area” abutting the Mississippi (so where’s the map for the Iowa parts of this project?):

And here’s the Stockman plant, in Cassville — I wonder, do they know this could be coming their way?  Supposedly they’re doing the “public involvement” piece right now…  There is transmission going both ways out of that plant, across the river and up the bluff…