Congrats to PolyMet! PolyMet Mining Corp. has received the final permit it needs to proceed with building Minnesota's first copper-nickel mine, the company and the Army Corps of Engineers announced Friday....
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Governor Walz has made expanding electric vehicle (EV) usage in Minnesota a high priority for his administration. In February, the Department of Transportation announced that transit officials want 20 percent of all cars, SUV's, and light-duty trucks to be electric by 2030, an increase of nearly 194,000 new electric vehicles on the road. We all know that EV's have serious shortcomings in the cold, losing up to 40 percent of their power output when it is 20 degrees above zero, but what will Walz's push for EVs do to the environment? It's a question that is worth examining, because despite the clean...
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Gov. Walz’s 100 percent carbon free energy proposal is a government-mandated wealth transfer from Minnesota families to the monopoly utilities that helped write the legislation. This is crony capitalism at its worst....
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Renewable-energy advocates often cite increasing demand for steel, copper, nickel, and cobalt as a reason why Minnesotans on the Iron Range should support more renewable-energy mandates. There is no doubt that doubling the renewable-energy mandate would increase Minnesota's demand for these metals, but we won't be able to afford to mine them here....
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Kids around the country are skipping school to draw attention to climate change, but why don't these kids demand real solutions to a problem they find so severe they must skip school? Minnesota has it's own coalition of astroturf youth climate groups, iMatter, Climate Generation etc, but maybe these kids should read the article below rather than storming the capitol to support inefficient and unreliable wind and solar power. If these students are so concerned about climate change, why aren't they advocating for the legalization of new nuclear power plants in Minnesota? The following article was written by Bjorn Lomborg, and originally...
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DFL Governor Tim Walz is making Mark Dayton look downright moderate. Just this morning the newly-elected governor held a press conference stating his goals for making Minnesota's electricity sector 100 percent free of carbon dioxide emisisons by 2050. Walz's Minnesota Green New Deal is straight out of the radical, energy-illiterate playbook. This policy, which would require Minnesota electric facilities to use only carbon-free energy resources by 2050, would cause massive increases in electricity prices for no measurable environmental benefit. Governor Walz should actually ‘follow the science,’ and realize this proposal is all pain and no gain for Minnesota’s families and communities....
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The Green New Deal (GND) has become the talk of the down despite the fact that Ernie Moniz, the head of the Department of Energy under the Obama administration, has called the deal impractical. However, renewable energy advocates are pressuring lawmakers in St. Paul to push ahead with their own GND for Minnesota, but the question remains, where will the copper, nickel, cobalt, and manganese come from? An article from Geologyforinvestors.com suggests there will be as many as 125 million electric cars on the road within the next decade, which may be overly optimistic, but we'll see. The more important point...
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California has mandated rooftop solar units be placed on every new home built in the Golden State. Given Minnesota winters aren't as conducive to rooftop solar as sunny California, should Governor Walz push for similar measures in Minnesota, only requiring rooftop wind turbines for new and existing homes? The short answer, obviously, is no. I've posted an article from engineering.com to demonstrate just how terrible such a mandate would be....
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Governor Walz talked a good game in the interview by saying he supported copper-nickel mining in Minnesota and that we must follow the science, but his selection of Sarah Strommen as the new commissioner of the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, who has ties to anti-mining groups, is concerning....
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MPR recently ran a piece describing the issue of mining may have on the upcoming elections. The story cites our research, and then goes on to describe the positions politicians have staked out on mining, whether for, or against. Last week, when I scheduled this piece to run on our website, I figured this piece would still be timely by today, but the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources decided to throw a wrench in my plan by granting PolyMet a permit to mine for it's NorthMet project, significantly changing the way mining may impact the way people view the mining issue...
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