Ely Climate Change

Summary of climate meeting March 14^th 2023 on solar installations in Ely

The full zoom recording is available but very large to upload. If you would like to watch it ask me by email (b2jonesmn@gmail.com). Almost all the information is summarized here.

Four projects were presented, one grid tied and the others off-grid. All presenters were enthusiastic about their choices. Only the grid tied system was a retrofit, the others were designed and built as the home was constructed.

Presenters were Jodi and Mike (grid tied), Kurt, Doug, and Consie and Roger all off grid.

Jodi and Mike’s system:

00:02 – 00:16 approx Grid tied, no batteries, 20 ground mount solar panels, 400W each. Installed by Wolf Track Energy https://wolftrackenergy.com/ 218 302 5601 from Two Harbors. Cost for installation and materials $31,000, plus $4800 for site clearance. Expect return on investment in 25 years but this was not the motivation. Installed in summer of 2022. By Sept 2022 they were feeding energy to Lake Country Power. LCP contact person Josh Nevela 218 742 5722 was very helpful. https://lakecountrypower.coop/renewable-energy LCP buys their energy at a slightly lower rate than market. Monitoring system from “Enphase” based in CA. J&M maintain a generator for emergencies. House heat is by propane.

There was a lot of discussion about snow removal from panels. Most agreed it was worth doing. C&R have access to the top of their panels from their deck. They push the snow off downwards, easy and quick. For a given amount of sunlight panels generate more electrical energy when they are cold. But mid-winter’s short and cloudy days limit their output. Peak energy generation is in the summer.

Kurt’s system: 00:17 – 00:30 approx Kurt designed and built his 2300 sf house with the intent to be off grid and to use solar power. He built in 1995. He runs all the usual electrical appliances on AC power including a 220V well pump. Making 200V needs 2 DC to AC converters. There was discussion about the relative merits of AC vs DC appliances especially freezers. DC is more efficient but also more expensive to buy and has less selection. Kurt showed images of his batteries, 2 converters, solar panels. He provided info on Backwoods Solar (Idaho) who provided the hardware and helped with design. Get a very useful free brochure at info@backwoodssolar.com (Note that C&R also used and recommend Backwoods Solar) Their website is www.backwoodssolar.com. Kurt’s solar array generates 10,000 watts at about 375w per panel and was made in Mt. Iron by Heliene. There was discussion about lead acid battery properties and the need to monitor and maintain the batteries carefully. His batteries are in a metal container, normally covered, vented to the outside with a fan to avoid hydrogen buildup. The system was installed by Kurt and his buddy who is a master electrician.

Doug’s system:

00:30 – 00:42 This is an off-grid 1 kW array with battery backup installed in the late 1990’s. The home is about 2000 sf. Doug purposefully made a small system and has adapted his lifestyle to the power available. He heats the house and makes hot water with wood, cooks with propane. Emphasis on getting good equipment, especially the panels. Lead acid batteries need to be replaced in 5 to 8 years. Both D and K stress the need to understand battery chemistry and take care with charging. Batteries are happiest at 60-70F but can withstand freezing temps if fully charged. Musk’s Li-ion batteries are way more expensive than lead acid.

Consie and Roger’s system:

00:42 – 01:06 C&R built in 2009 and designed the house for efficiency and a 4kW off-grid solar. There is enough power to use carpentry power tools when the sun is shining. They avoid loss by phantom power by installing switchable outlets or using power strips. The house has 4” of rigid foam around the outside walls, lots of windows for winter sunshine, a solar hot water system on the roof that feeds in floor heating, and a wood stove. Additional backup comes from a propane boiler. C&R run a generator for 2h or less on cloudy winter days to recharge the batteries. Comments on generators include the need to buy a good one for longevity and good waveform. The 3 level house has a deck high enough to be above the solar panels allowing for easy removal of snow. Advocate for use of “Kill A Watt” usage meter to learn appliance energy use. They can be borrowed from the library. Also (for those of us who use power from the grid) LCP’s “Smart Hub” which gives you access to energy use on an hourly basis. C&R also spoke well of Backwoods Solar who helped design their system.

Comments from the zoom audience:

01:06 – 01:14 Several people felt that LCP was not supportive of solar, especially for summer use cabins. (However see comments by J&M above). Doug pointed out, from his experience, that batteries can be left to freeze for up to 6 months over winter without damage if they are fully charged and stored in an insulated box. This is an issue that concerns summer residents. Colby Abazs from CERTs (Clean Energy Resource Team) was impressed at the level of knowledge in the community. He is available to advise interested parties on how to start and rebates available through the Inflation Reduction Act. You can reach him at colby@cleanenergyresourceteams.org

“Rotten carrots and not enough sticks: how industry-captured policy breeds climate setbacks”

Hudson Kingston of PEER, Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility presents “How industry-captured policy breeds climate setbacks.”

Mauna Loa & Kilauea Eruptions Dec 2022

ML pix and text

Iron & Steel Part 2, Energy, Pollution & People

Green Iron and Steel Jeff Hanson Oct 4th 2022

Green Iron & Steel Jeff Hanson Q&A

These notes come from the Q&A section that immediately followed Jeff Hanson’s talk. This section was not recorded as part of the zoom. The notes have been lightly edited.

Maggie S
This transition will be good for the climate and good for the Minnesota economy. It will require, a transition period of retiring blast furnaces and changing to the vertical shaft DRI furnace. Even though it’s good for the economy, do you see that as being a disruptive process at the company level and then at the workforce level? Or do you see that as being fairly smooth? If it is disruptive, what are your thoughts on that? What sort of incentives and supports would we need?

Jeff H
Thanks for the question. First off I’m not an economist but I think it’s going to be fairly disruptive. It’s a big change because we don’t traditionally do any of the next steps after pelletizing. That means a lot more being done here, needing a lot more people working. Those in the taconite mining and pellet making industry are basically going to be keeping the same jobs, but we do need new people for new jobs. But it’s good, in a lot of ways. One thing we know about the challenge of climate change, if we keep doing what we’re doing we are doomed. We’ve got to do some disruptive things to change this. I keep thinking of that 9% of greenhouse gas from the steel industry. The steel industry is ranked as number two contributor to greenhouse gases after transportation. And they said for a long time, oh, it’s a hard industry to green up, well there is a way to green it up.

Michael O
Green Iron & Steel Conference is the link for the summary of the conference “MN Iron Ore and the Green Economy” held March 16, 2022. Can you comment on why electric arc furnaces did not get started in Minnesota? Why did we miss that opportunity? Also how much infrastructure needs to be developed to incorporate hydrogen into the process?

Jeff H
On the first question “Why did electric arc furnaces not get started here?” Electric arc furnaces need conductive feedstock. They were started and developed as a way to recycle steel. But we don’t produce steel here nor do we have as many scrap cars as Detroit. What we produce here mostly, up to now, are taconite pellets. They don’t conduct electricity and cannot be fed into an electric arc furnace. So why would anybody put an electric arc furnace in Minnesota when we don’t have the feedstock? The president of Cleveland Cliffs delayed the opening of the Northshore Mine in Babbitt and kept Silver Bay idled because they are getting more and more recycled steel to put into their furnaces and they have enough DRI grade pellets from the Minorca Mine in Virginia. They don’t need the pellets from Babbitt and Silver Bay. We don’t have the scrap steel here or the DRI grade pellets so we don’t have the electric arc furnaces.

On the second question “How much Infrastructure needs to be developed to use hydrogen?” The Midrex system dominates 70% of DRI furnaces right now. They have an older system that uses coal which we won’t discuss. Their natural gas system is designed to fairly easily incorporate hydrogen. They can incorporate a small percentage of hydrogen in the existing plants like the one that they have in Cleveland Cliffs in Toledo where our pellets go to. With small modifications in that plant they can do 100% hydrogen. Those plants are not cheap and they’re rather sophisticated. It would require having plants of that nature here. That’s pretty big infrastructure building. That’s a bigger step than doing electric arc furnaces which have a much smaller footprint. A DRI vertical shaft furnace is a big investment and we don’t have any around here at this time. But if we are going to produce DR grade pellets I would expect that is under consideration at a couple of different mining and steel companies. US Steel and Cleveland Cliffs definitely, and there will be others.

Bill N
One comment on the transition from blast furnaces. Many of the blast furnaces are quite old. At some point they are going to need major renovations and new refractory linings etc that cost billions of dollars. They are already expensive and inefficient and if we ever have a carbon tax they are dead. If you are a steel company, do you want to invest in old technology that may go away? If blast furnaces go away then taconite is dead.

Jeff H
For full disclosure, that was Bill Newman my partner at Clearwater Biologic. Our advisors come from the taconite industry. Jim Swearingen is an ex general manager at Minntac, he knows this business. He has said for years that when you need to replace the thick expensive refractory lining of a blast furnace they will just shut it down instead. It’s more efficient and less expensive to use an electric arc furnace. Our industry was built on blast furnaces originally, but that technology is now old. So, Bill’s point is that when it comes to that time to refurbish and reline a blast furnace generally it has been shut down. Last year there were two blast furnaces that were shut down. If you read the strategy of Cleveland Cliffs you can see that they bought a whole bunch of different steel making facilities and they are now bigger in steel making than US Steel. They have a mix of blast furnaces and electric arc furnaces, but their investment is now all going to electric arc furnaces. The transition is happening.

Hudson K
I like your presentation. I agree with you strongly about everything you said. But Mr. Lourenco Goncalves, the president of Cleveland Cliffs, he’s a bit of a piece of work right? He’s not an environmentalist and he doesn’t care about that at all. He admits he just wants to make money. US Steel’s Keetac burns coal now. And you know there are dirty versions of every technology including making hydrogen. Neither grey hydrogen nor blue hydrogen are environmentally clean. It would be much cheaper to get that dirty hydrogen from Alberta than it would be to make green hydrogen here. I read about Keetac upgrading to make a particular type of iron. But I didn’t see any details that gave me optimism that they were actually going to do green hydrogen which would be the right thing. So I invite you to tell me where your optimism comes from.

Jeff H
I agree, Goncalves of Cleveland cliffs, is not a staunch environmentalist. He is worried about making money and he says that very clearly. They are not inherently going to be doing the right thing for the environment. Their priority is making money. So where’s my optimism coming from since the Keetak plant burns a lot of coal? They didn’t talk about changing that. They talked about making DR grade pellets to feed into a DRI system somewhere else. Where’s the optimism index? They didn’t talk about cleaning up that operation at all.

I have one very strong conviction, mining and steel companies are there for financial reward. If you think otherwise you are fooling yourself. That’s why I say environmentally there are two things going on. One, we have to hold their feet to the fire and see that they do the right thing. Historically, mining steel companies have not done exactly the best thing environmentally. And second, why am I more optimistic now? Because the economics are in favor of them doing it better. If they don’t make the transition to DRI, they will die. It’s not a good economic scenario for them to base their future on taconite pellets. The blast furnaces are going out, so the taconite pellets are going out too. They are going to have to make the change. And if you want to do it in the economic way, you work towards basing it on hydrogen. It is more energy efficient, it is more economical, and it’s in their best interest. The Inflation Reduction Act with the money that is going into green energy and infrastructure is a big deal. And it’s a real big deal to make hydrogen more economically feasible than fossil fuels. It has already started to happen. We are in that transition now. How fast are we going to go? We don’t know yet but it is a reason to be optimistic. And I think that understanding this whole myriad of factors coming together is significant here in northeastern Minnesota.

I think we need to understand and promote it as “Hey Mr. Mining Companies and Steel Companies, nice to see you going in the right direction. I applaud that, but let’s see you do it faster and cleaner than you might do if you drag your feet.” Lourenco Goncalves is bombastic, strong industry leader. But he’s turned Cleveland cliffs into a much bigger and better company. Before he came in, the only thing they produced were taconite pellets. Now they’re the largest steel producer in the US, and they’re getting larger. US Steel have been dragging their feet. But they’re also being forced into going forward. Now we understand what’s going on, we can hold their feet to the fire and say “Hey, this is what we need for climate, for climate change, for our country, for the world and for Minnesota.” We have got to move forward, it’s not an option to not change.

Barb J
How inevitable do you see this development for Minnesota? Is the financial setup and the existence of the iron here enough? Or do we have to have the politicians or the state put in extra incentives?

Jeff H
The simple honest answer is I don’t know, that’s a big question. I think we need the politicians, they set the rules on a lot of stuff. And if you go back and say, why weren’t we doing this in Minnesota before, why didn’t we do value added things on our iron that we mined in Minnesota before? Well, did we want blast furnaces in Minnesota? I didn’t, they are big polluters. How many cement kilns do we have in Minnesota? That’s really easy. The answer is zero. They are in Iowa, Wisconsin, and South Dakota, but not in Minnesota. Because cement kilns are the second most polluting greenhouse gas emitters right after blast furnaces, and we didn’t want them in Minnesota. So cement kilns have never been permitted in Minnesota. The taconite industry really got started up here because we changed our tax codes for it. Hematite had a different incentive – a requirement to produce on their leases. So yes, we do need politicians. And I think for me, the important point on this is that I care about the environment. I moved here because of the environment and mining. I know that to do the things we need to do for the environment and for climate change we need steel and iron. A lot of the people that live up here want to stay here and they need jobs.

Barb J
Before you close you should tell people about Almanac North on Duluth Public TV 8pm this Friday.

Jeff H
Yesterday, I got invited to participate in a special edition of almanac North on WDSE, to be aired at 8pm Friday. The topic will be “The Future of Iron and Steel and What it Means to Minnesota”. So it’s related to the topic presented here. It will be hosted by Aaron Brown. I was invited because of the other big issue on mining in Minnesota which is “What do you do about the sulfur and sulfate?” Can we have a more economical version than reverse osmosis so we can tell the mining companies “Yes you can do something about sulfate pollution”. Watch on Friday.

Barb J
We should thank Jeff for talking and zooming with us. This talk has been hosted by Bill Tefft in the Ely Field Naturalists’ Resource Center. Thank you Jeff and Bill and thank you all for coming.

August 2nd 2022 Maggie Schuppert & Hudson Kingston

July 26^th 2022

Hi Folks,

Our next climate change meeting will be August 2^nd at 10am at the Ely Senior Center. We will be able to talk with two Ely residents who work on environmental and climate issues – Maggie Schuppert and Hudson Kingston, local Ely residents, will be coming. FYI the TG presentation that day will be given by John Shepard “Northern Nights, Starry Skies: Preview of a PBS Documentary”.

Maggie is CURE’s Campaigns Director. Clean Up the River Environment (CURE) is a rural, nonprofit organization made up of people who care about the well-being of their neighbors, the health of the land and water, and the legacy we leave for future generations. She is helping to build CURE’s capacity for strategic communications, campaigns, and advocacy. Maggie is a Minnesota transplant from the East Coast. Before moving here in 2015, she worked around the world with communities that have been adversely impacted by large-scale energy and development infrastructure projects, helping them fight for their rights. She has brought this commitment to environmental rights, justice, and accountability to her environmental organizing work in Minnesota. Two of CURE’s keystone campaigns include Rural Electric Co-op reform and carbon pipelines. You can find more info about CURE and Maggie here: CURE, Maggie Schuppert

Hudson Kingston (Sarah’s son) is an attorney who works for Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) an organization that works with current and former public employees to protect the environment. He has experience with public health, consumer protection, and environmental organizations in both Washington DC and the Midwest. Over the course of his career he has worked on litigation and policy related to climate change, addressing the water pollution impacts of mining, pesticide regulation, the environmental and health impacts of e-cigarettes, and environmental injustices perpetuated by the administrative state, partnering with tribes, local nonprofits, low-income advocates, coalitions of environmental and social justice groups, and local, state, territorial, and federal public employees. And he has won a marathon. You can find more about PEER and Hudson here: PEER, Hudson Kingston

Both Maggie and Hudson are quoted in this MPR story about CO2 pipelines: MPR on CO2 pipelines

In the course of a month there are many interesting new articles related to climate. If it is too hot or too wet to enjoy the outdoors try reading! I will share three thought provoking or just plain shocking articles today. Two come from the NY Times. I will share the NY Times text if you have paywall problems, let me know. The last is from the Guardian which is always accessible.

The first comes from the NY Times and was passed along by Frederica. This is quite a long read about the many efforts to plant trees to try to draw down CO2. Many of these are close to scams although the basic idea is attractive. This is a long and comprehensive article. NY Times – a trillion trees

The second is a shorter piece about the peatlands and rainforests in the Congo basin which are to be auctioned off for oil and gas drilling. This is also protected gorilla habitat. Congo is desperately poor and needs the income. NY Times Congo Basin

Finally, the oil sector has yielded profits of $3 trillion per day for the last 50 years. This article is short and to the point. Guardian: Staggering oil profits

Hope to see you August 2^nd

Thanks

Barb

Divestment Outline Valerie Myntti July 5, 2022

Discussion

A Brief History of Divestment Movements

Policy Objectives of FF Divestment

(Please Note: this is the longest section)

The Arguments against FF Divestment
The Nuts & Bolts of Personal Divesting

*We will break after each section for about 10 minutes to take comments/ questions.

What is Divestment?

Divestment is a socially responsible investing tactic to remove assets from an industry based on moral objections to its business practices.

What has the fossil fuel divestment movement achieved so far?

Divestment changed the conversation around fossil fuel and its financing.
Divestment has stigmatized fossil fuels as risky and toxic thereby reducing their financial desirability.
Investors and bankers are now questioning the long-term financial viability of the FF sector.

Norms around the acceptability of fossil fuels have changed, and today FF are seen by many negatively.
Changing norms and stigmatization around FF coaxes governments to act by enacting legislation and to regulate FF companies.
Divestment forced pension fund managers, and other huge institutional investment managers, to confront climate change.
Banks– refusing to do business with FF companies—can now choke off that steady cash flow– reducing the supply of capital.

Today divestment can be seen as a savvy and responsible business decision.
Divestment challenges the political power of the fossil fuel industry.
Divestment moves money away from dirty energy towards climate solutions.

How to Personally DIVEST?

Talk to the institutions in your life to see if they invest in FF.

These institutions will include your banks, credit card companies, your brokerage companies and investment advisors, the companies with whom you invest, the charitable organizations you support with donations, your pension fund and IRA, your insurance companies, your union, your faith organization, your prep schools & universities, your city and state governments.

Tell them you want your investments and donations to reflect your values.

You want to divest from any stocks or other investments in FF or its infrastructure. You wish to re-invest in green climate solutions.

You will not give philanthropic gifts to any organization (university, church, or other non-profit organization) that invests in FF or its infrastructure. You will not give another donation until they divest.

You will not bank in, or use credit cards from banks, that are invested in or finance FF operations/ transport/ infrastructure.

You will put your money in banks that do not invest in FF.

You will find an insurance companies that invests in fossil fuel-free companies.

You will apply pressure on your pension fund manager, your union, and your city & state governments to divest from investing in FF.

There are many online resources to help you do this.

Banks & Credit Card Companies

* See how your bank scores at Banking on Climate Chaos at https://www.bankingonclimatechaos.org

* Find a better bank at https://greenamerica.org/get-a-better-bank

* Determine what your bank or credit union does with your money at www.mightydeposits.com

* Find socially responsible credit cards from community development banks at

https://www.greenamerica.org/take-charge-your-card

Divest From FF Companies

*Identifies the top 100 coal and the top 100 oil & gas publicly-traded producers & reserve holders globally, ranked by the potential carbon emissions content of their reported reserves. This list is used by FF campaigns and individual divestors to divest.

https://fossilfreefunds.org/carbon-underground-200

*List of 100 top Greenhouse Polluters by the Political Economy Research Institute at

https://peri.umass.edu/greenhouse-100-polluters-index-current

Reinvest in Climate Solutions and Socially Responsible Stocks & Mutual Funds

*Check out The S & P Fossil Free Index that measures the performance of companies in

the S & P that do not invest in FF at

https://www.spglobal.com/spdji/en/indices/esg/sp-global-1200-fossil-fuel-free-index

*To better understand green & socially responsible investing check out https://www.greenamerica.org/socially-responsible-investing

https://www.sofi.com/learn/content/green-investing/

https://www.greencentury.com

Sources

This talk is not based on original research, but is a synthesis of the many articles I have researched, read & used in preparation, including articles from:

Brookings Institution,

NPR,

Investopedia,

Yale Climate Connection,

Oxford Research Encyclopedia,

Science Policy Institute at the University of Sussex (UK),

Sustainable Development News,

London School of Economics,

University of California at Hastings Law Review,

Green America.org,

Global Citizen.org,

Pension Fund Divestment by Jeremy Brecker,

Climate Newsletter,

Mighty Deposits Guide,

NRDC,

Wall Street Journal,

350.org,

Forbes Magazine,

Inside Higher Ed,

The Guardian,

The New York Times,

Washington Post,

Harvard Crimson,

Vox,

Wired,

Scientific American,

Axios,

Schroders Executive Summary on Divestment,

Ethical Consumer.org,

What do We Owe the Future by William MacAskill,

Laudato Si Movement.org,

Operation Noah.org,

Ozy

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Rural Electric Co-ops, 4/11/23 Erik Hatlestad from CURE

Solar Installations in Ely 3/14/2023