In mid-winter, the arching quarter-mile-long sprinkler frames sit parked in Jim Anderson's fields in a thick crust of wind-carved snow and ice. Come summer, though, they'll begin their slow, circular rotation, watering row after row of corn, sugar beets and kidney beans.
Anderson, the great-great-grandson of Swedish immigrants who started farming this land in the 1880s, relies on more than 50 of these center pivot irrigators -- each one pumping up to 800 gallons of groundwater per minute -- to produce the kind of harvests his ancestors could have only dreamed of.
Modern irrigation technology has transformed this region in Stearns, Pope, Douglas and Kandiyohi counties in west central Minnesota, known as the Bonanza Valley. A former glacial river bed north of Willmar, it's largely covered with thin, sandy soils that don't retain moisture as well as more fertile farmland elsewhere in the state.
"Without the water, none of this would be possible," said Anderson, 61, paging through a book of yield maps in a newly built conference room in one of the farm's red outbuildings. Where his parents struggled in some years to raise a single cob of corn, 200 bushels per acre is now common.
But as groundwater use in the area surges to record levels, questions are resurfacing about whether there will be enough water for future generations of farmers without having an adverse effect on the area's lakes, streams, wetlands and drinking water supplies.
What if instead of offering electricity by the kilowatt-hour, utilities sold light, cooling, and screen time? That’s the idea behind a new utility business model being discussed by a civic leadership group in Minnesota that’s looking for ways to better promote energy efficiency in the state.
HIBBING, Minn. — When a former high school hockey star proposed to develop a $2 billion “clean coal” power plant outside this northeastern Minnesota city, the news couldn’t have come at a better time.
The region had just lost 1,400 jobs from a major taconite plant shutdown, the worst economic news to hit the Iron Range in two decades. The prospect of replacing those jobs was celebrated by citizens, politicians and newspaper editorials with the enthusiasm of a March tournament bid.
Nearly a decade later, after having spent nearly $41 million in taxpayer money, the Mesaba Energy Project still has yet to secure key environmental permits; it hasn’t found a buyer for the electricity it wants to produce, and without a power-purchase agreement, it can’t find investors to fund construction.
The project’s backers are now changing their approach, seeking approval from the state’s legislature to shelve the “clean coal” component — temporarily, they say — and move forward instead with a conventional natural gas power plant.
That has opponents changing their cries from “boondoggle” to “bait-and-switch” and some speculating whether the apparent change in strategy might be a Hail Mary attempt to salvage something from the long controversial energy project.
Or, in keeping with hockey analogies:
“They are pulling their goalie, because they need to score a goal now,” said Aaron Brown, an author and newspaper columnist who has followed the project since 2001, first as a reporter and then as editor of the Hibbing Daily Tribune (he’s also chronicled the project on his blog, Minnesota Brown).
One moment, the Florida native was driving down a leafy suburban avenue. The next, his white Ford Explorer was violently rolling side-over-side around him. The crunch of metal and rattle of broken glass sounded to Tharin like someone shaking a child's piggy bank. By the time it stopped, his side was on the concrete and his legs were pinned under the steering column.
Minnesota utility regulators on Thursday answered most but not all questions about the shape of a new community solar gardens program. The Minnesota Public Utilities Commission indicated that it would reject a proposal by the state’s largest electric utility to limit the number of community solar gardens that can be installed per quarter.
A debate in Minnesota about the social and environmental costs of power plant pollution has caught the attention of the world’s largest private-sector coal company. Peabody Energy wants a seat at the table as Minnesota prepares to update a two-decade-old figure that’s meant to help inform planning decisions about electricity generation in the state.
The sandy, heavily irrigated soils of the west central Minnesota area known as the Bonanza Valley lie in one of three places where the state is trying a new approach to managing groundwater. As part of Ground Level’s look at the state’s groundwater challenge, freelance reporter Dan Haugen explores in a story today the area’s increasing demand for water and what the potential is for demanding too much.
After a three-year pilot program that won praise from state officials and environmental groups, Minnesota’s largest natural gas utility is proposing to walk away from a concept known as revenue decoupling. CenterPoint Energy, which is in the midst of a contested rate case, said in a Jan. 31 regulatory filing that it will no longer seek approval for a permanent decoupling mechanism it proposed last summer.
BELGRADE — Central Minnesota farmers and well owners listened with skepticism and a dash of distrust at a public meeting Wednesday evening as officials from the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources laid out plans to reshape the way it manages groundwater in the region.
Minnesota’s largest electric utility is asking state regulators to change the way it sets electricity rates so that it isn’t penalized when customers conserve energy. As part of a rate increase request filed Monday , Xcel Energy is proposing to partially separate its revenue from electricity sales starting in 2015, a policy known as “decoupling.”.
This December photo by Mary Hartman shows an eagle nest she says is one of several in the Goodhue Wind project area. Mary Hartman almost daily makes the 45-minute drive from her home east of Rochester, Minnesota, to a horse farm north of town, where she takes out a 15-year-old mare named Paloma for rides around the countryside.
The view from Andersen Corporation finally includes some optimism. The Bayport window and door maker was seeing signs of recovery this summer, with new home construction and remodeling up a combined 10 percent nationally in the first half of 2012. Andersen is privately held and doesn’t share financials, but it said it grew or maintained its market share during that period.
When Target started rolling out expanded grocery sections two years ago in its general merchandise stores, the promotions featured the kind of eye-catching design people have come to expect from the retailer. Three-dimensional fruit bulged from billboards over First Avenue. Produce-filled shopping baskets jutted off bus shelters.
Muve was Minnesota’s “breakthrough business idea” of 2007. The obesity-fighting fitness device concept was the unanimous winner of that year’s Minnesota Cup contest, earning it prize money and piles of positive press. Not only that, the startup had a big-name partner behind it in the Mayo Clinic.
The small, wearable clip tracks how many calories users burn and vibrates when they’ve been inactive for too long. The concept was inspired by co-founder Dr. James Levine’s research at Mayo, which suggested people could lose or maintain weight by breaking up their day with periodic, light activity.
“We had a lot of momentum,” founding CEO John Montague recalled this week, three months after debtors shut down the company and claimed its assets. “I get asked every day: what happened? Why did it fail? How could that have possibly failed, when it had the Mayo Clinic involved and it was focused on obesity and it had every possible macro-economic trend working in its favor?
“The answer to that question is probably a little bit complicated.”
That’s an understatement, and the story took its latest twist this winter when seven Muve investors used the assets they repossessed from Muve to launch a new, strikingly similar company called Gruve. The move gives the Minnesota technology a second chance to make a splash in the market, but it’s also left vendors and other investors feeling burned and believing they’re still owed a piece.
It was a warm Saturday in late May, and instead of rolling out the dock up at the cabin or going for a jog around the chain of lakes, more than 600 people chose to spend their day inside Best Buy’s Richfield headquarters, attending an all-day series of workshops and discussions. Welcome to Minnebar, a geeky gathering that’s become a twice-a-year tradition for many in the Twin Cities tech and design communities.