Thursday, January 22, 2009

Cooperation for Sustainable Energy…

The Big Stone II power plant project has been in talks with the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission, as roughly half of the energy produced from the coal plant will be sold to Minnesota and new transmission lines will need to be built. Details here…

The PUC placed some stipulations on approval of the project, citing caps on greenhouse gas emissions and constructions costs, specifically.

Moving away from fossil fuels is a piecemeal process that will not happen in an affordable fashion overnight. A promising and untapped source of energy here in South Dakota is of course wind energy, and one of the biggest costs and roadblocks to wind energy is the cost of transmission lines. Big Stone II provides another vein in our regional network of transmission lines, and for wind energy to take off projects like Big Stone II may prove invaluable to future green energy projects.

Creating regional agreements between the windy states in our area and the states who require our excess supply of energy, we can utilize the resources we have now, both natural and monetary, to provide a necessary framework for green energy in the near future.

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