News From The White House On Midwest Renewable Energy

According to Reuters, this is what somebody at the White House, maybe Ag Secretary Tom Vilsack, had to say about renewable energy in the Upper Midwest:  

 

Sept 5 (Reuters) — President Joe Biden's administration on Thursday said the U.S. will spend $7.3 billion from 2022's Inflation Reduction Act to fund clean energy projects helmed by rural electric cooperatives.

The 16 funded projects will reduce energy costs and increase reliability for rural Americans, who tend to pay more for energy, the White House said.

The first project will allocate nearly $573 million to Dairyland Power Cooperative in La Crosse, Wisconsin, for four solar installations and four wind power installations in Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota, and Illinois.

"One in five rural Americans will benefit from these clean energy investments, thanks to partnerships with rural electric cooperatives like Dairyland. Put simply, this is rural power, for rural America," said agriculture secretary Tom Vilsack in a statement.

 

Other first-round selected projects in the upper Midwest to receive funds include:

• Basin Electric Power Cooperative, Montana, North Dakota, and South Dakota. With this funding, Basin Electric Power Cooperative will procure both additional renewable energy generation and enhance existing cooperative-owned renewable assets, which are expected to total over 1,400 megawatts across Montana, North Dakota, and South Dakota.
• Great River Energy, Minnesota, North Dakota, and Wisconsin. This New ERA investment will be used by Great River Energy and its member-owners to procure 1,275 megawatts of renewable energy across rural portions of Minnesota and North Dakota. These projects include large-scale wind energy projects, distributed renewable energy projects, and innovative demand side management investments that complement their existing portfolio.
• Minnkota Power Cooperative, North Dakota and Minnesota. This New ERA investment will support Minnkota Power Cooperative’s pursuit of a carbon capture and storage project (Project Tundra) as well as the procurement of 370 megawatts of wind energy in North Dakota.
• The projects, funded by the IRA's Empowering Rural America (New ERA) program, will prevent more than 43 million tons of greenhouse gas pollution annually and support more than 4,500 permanent jobs and 16,000 construction jobs, the White House said.
  
  

  Rural electric cooperatives serve 42 million people, according to the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association.

  The administration in August said it was investing $2.2 billion in overhauling the nation's power grid, which has been pressured by extreme weather events even as data centers demand more power.

  Biden was set to announce the funding in Westby, Wisconsin, on Thursday alongside Vilsack.

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  Project Tundra is the addition of a carbon capture facility to the Milton R. Young Power Station near Center, N.D. Those involved say that the it will capture up to 4 million tons of despicable CO2 annually or 11,000 tons daily or 458 tons per hour. 

  It seems that the possible problems with the project have been solved.

  Corporate heavy-weights like Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Peter Kiewit and the Energy and Environmental Research Center are doing their thing.