http://www.sctimes.com/article/20140126/NEWS01/301260004/PUC-update-external...

PUC to update 'external cost' for Minnesota power sources

Written by Kirsti Marohn, St. Cloud Times, January 26, 2014

BECKER — A new push to calculate the true cost of the environmental and health effects of producing electricity could have a substantial impact on the future of Minnesota’s largest coal plant, located in Becker. The state Public Utilities Commission agreed last month to update the values it gives to so-called external costs. Those can range from climate change to higher infant mortality to an increased number of emergency room visits due to asthma.

The values will help guide future decisions the state will make about aging power plants like Sherco in Becker and cleaner sources of electricity.

“What this would do is to cause Minnesota to take a hard look before investments are made in power plants so that ... we have a sense of what those ultimate costs would be, and we’ll make fewer bad decisions,” said J. Drake Hamilton, science policy director with the nonprofit Fresh Energy.

Minnesota law

Minnesota passed a landmark law in 1993 that requires the PUC to consider external costs when weighing various energy options.

The purpose was to create a level playing field between sources of electricity that emit a lot of pollution and those that don’t, said Beth Goodpaster, attorney with the nonprofit Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy, which petitioned the PUC to update the values.

Lawmakers recognized that there are costs associated with some sources of electricity that aren’t reflected in customers’ bills and aren’t paid for by utilities, Goodpaster said.

“That way, a dirty resource would not be able to say, ‘We’re cheap,’ because they would have to actually include all the costs associated with it,” she said.

Coal plants, for example, emit pollutants such as sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides and mercury that contribute to smog and affect human health. They also release greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide that are linked to global warming.

While Minnesota’s law was groundbreaking, the values didn’t include all pollutants and haven’t been updated since 1996.

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