Tag: Presque Isle

While the Republican controlled congress fiddles with bills and resolutions that will never make it to the President's desk, the damage is already being done. The EPA has made it unprofitable for a power company to do business in the UP.  As the Candidate Obama put it so bluntly in 2008:

"If someone wants to build a new coal-fired power plant they can, but it will bankrupt them because they will be charged a huge sum for all the greenhouse gas that's being emitted."

The Presque Isle Power plant in Marquette faces a shutdown as a major buyer seeks electricity off the grid from elsewhere. From Energy Biz:

"Cliffs Natural Resources Inc., which operates two iron ore mines in Michigan, has notified We Energies that it will begin buying electricity from Integrys Energy Services, a retail electricity provider that sells electricity in states that have opened up their power markets to competition, Cliffs spokesman Dale Hemmila said.

Cliffs spent $120 million with We Energies last year, according to a filing with the Michigan Public Service Commission."

While the competitive forces are straight up and legitimate, A shutdown of this plant due to a federal regulatory nightmare will have an unpredictable effect on the stability of electricity in the Upper peninsula.  Costs for residents will likely skyrocket, and service will become sub-par.

via FoxNews.com

Wind farms in the Pacific Northwest -- built with government subsidies and maintained with tax credits for every megawatt produced -- are now getting paid to shut down as the federal agency charged with managing the region's electricity grid says there's an oversupply of renewable power at certain times of the year.

The problem arose during the late spring and early summer last year. Rapid snow melt filled the Columbia River Basin. The water rushed through the 31 dams run by the Portland, Ore.-based Bonneville Power Administration allowing for peak hydropower generation. At the very same time, the wind howled leading to maximum wind power production.

Demand could not keep up with supply, so BPA shut down the wind farms for nearly 200 hours over 38 days.

Read more (with video)

And even that isn't a guarantee they will ever see it.

In fact civilization is moving along rapidly enough that the populations of the UP are being drawn out except in the most concentrated population centers.  And in THOSE places, federal grants for housing, and assistance measures are being increased.  It draws those living in the rural outlying zones in to the town centers.  For some of the poor folk who face increasing government punishment for modifying land to suit their needs, additional fuel costs, and the pledge of subsidized urban housing it makes sense to take a path of least resistance.

Then add to this a increase in the cost of electricity that is as guaranteed as craftsman tools, and the landscape becomes fundamentally different.

The cost of electricity BTW because of such measures that would bankrupt those who would build coal fired plants, which was the promise of then Senator Obama, speaking to an interviewer on clean energy options.  THAT promise is now being kept, as the out of control EPA brings the hammer down on Upper Michigan's coal based energy producers.

"Looming environmental rules may lead We Energies to shut down the only major power plant serving Michigan's Upper Peninsula in the next five or six years."