Megan Wittman, megan.wittman@sierraclub.org
Montevideo, MN – This week, Sierra Club and CURE submitted comments to the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) challenging the agency’s environmental analysis that expressed approval of “Project Tundra,” a proposed large-scale carbon capture and storage project in North Dakota.
Project Tundra is a proposal from Minnkota Power Cooperative, a rural electric cooperative that provides power to communities in Minnesota and North Dakota. Minnkota seeks to retrofit its aging Milton R. Young coal power plant with equipment to capture some portion of its excessive carbon emissions. The utility is seeking hundreds of millions of dollars from the federal government to help pay for the costs.
Already this year, the U.S. has spent $57.6 billion in climate disaster relief. Sierra Club and CURE comments to the DOE show that Project Tundra would do little to mitigate the climate crisis, and could make it worse. The comments note that Project Tundra would likely worsen drought conditions for North Dakota while the state is experiencing abnormally dry conditions by withdrawing nearly 5 billion gallons of water while capturing less than 75% of the plant’s carbon emissions.
“Minnkota is a cooperative that is not listening to its members, we are concerned about expenditures on poorly designed technology and costs to member customers. Another regional power company tried this and rates went up substantially to pay off debts,” said Todd Leake, Chair of North Dakota Chapter, Sierra Club and Minnkota Customer.
“Project Tundra is a boondoggle that needs to be stopped. The Milton R. Young coal plant is 50 years old and likely more expensive to operate than clean energy alternatives. Project Tundra would put billions of dollars more into this plant– all paid for with federal tax dollars. We can’t entertain any proposals that keep this plant open. Instead of flushing taxpayer dollars down the drain with the poorly designed and inefficient project, the Milton R. Young coal plant should be retired as soon as possible and replaced with a significantly more economic solution: clean energy. Our money would be much better spent advancing decarbonization rather than subsidizing this outrageous project,” said Laurie Williams, Senior Attorney at Sierra Club.
“Project Tundra’s design is so problematic that it is unclear whether it would even qualify for the massive federal tax credit needed to make it financially viable. And if it did somehow manage to claim the credit, it would be a blatant abuse of taxpayer dollars. DOE and the project proponents buried the fact that this project would consume nearly half of the energy produced at Milton Young in the first place. So when we stack together this project’s inadequate carbon capture and enormous energy demands, you get a coal plant with worse emissions than a gas plant, and a $5 billion taxpayer bill. We’re pretty sure that Project Tundra would just add more years of emissions to this coal plant, so at the end of the day, taxpayers would be paying to increase emissions. That’s just unacceptable,” said Jeremy Fisher, Senior Advisor at Sierra Club.
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About the Sierra Club
The Sierra Club is America’s largest and most influential grassroots environmental organization, with millions of members and supporters. In addition to protecting every person's right to get outdoors and access the healing power of nature, the Sierra Club works to promote clean energy, safeguard the health of our communities, protect wildlife, and preserve our remaining wild places through grassroots activism, public education, lobbying, and legal action. For more information, visit www.sierraclub.org.