To the editor:

Having read the 4-24-2025 ‘Xcel meeting offers closer looks at planned Garvin power plant’, here are some questions I would have liked to ask Xcel:

1. What is the estimated cost of the 420 megawatt gas turbine fired power plant and its substation? And what percentage of it is funded by government (a.k.a. ‘taxpayers’) and ratepayers?

2. What is the estimated cost of the 345 kilovolt transmission line running from the coal fired plant at Becker to Lyon County? What percentage of it is taxpayer and ratepayer funded?

3. Would Xcel ever have invested in wind farms and solar panel fields if no government/taxpayer money was ever available for them?

4. What is the estimated cost to de-commission the coal fired plant at Becker? Will any part of that project be taxpayer or rate payer funded?

5. How much CO2 does Xcel expect to prevent from entering the atmosphere by shutting down the plant at Becker?

Going to Xcel’s website under ‘Sustainability Report 2023’, all I found was IPCC emission scenarios that align with Xcel’s in regard to IPCC climate models. Nothing explaining how man’s puny 0.0016% of atmospheric gases can jerk the global climate system around.

In 2010, Sierra Club, after receiving $50 million, put together a team of lawyers and activists who shut down 160 coal plants. The results? Atmospheric CO2 just kept on rising, and no change for better climate. Obviously, shutting down the Becker plant will also have zero effect.

The 4-24 article stated they will need the gas power plant to generate when the wind is not blowing and the sun is not shining. But they already have that capability in place at Becker; plus a massive reliable energy storage system–the big pile of coal next to the power plant— no need for battery backup.

The whole “net zero carbon” movement is just another scam for picking the pockets of taxpayers and ratepayers, (in addition to irritating land owners who do not want transmission lines.)

And how do you obtain ‘energy independence’ while being ‘dependent’ on Chinese components for wind and solar power?

Phil Drietz

Delhi MN