This extended holiday weekend was especially exciting for me and I would like to share it with you.
July 2nd
Our crew was ready and our crane was set. After plenty of hard work, our turbine tower was erected. The many months of planning are coming to fruition and I am extremely proud to be a part of it.
I spent half the day watching the passing cars pull over to watch the erection of our Nordtank tower. It was good to see people interested and wanting to find out more. People are eager and interested. The community is excited. Overall, it is a very good time. I can’t wait for the rotor and blades to arrive.
July 3rd
With family from out of town, my wife and I traveled to Duluth for weekend festivities. We swam all day in Lake Superior and sat by the pier as we watched giant ship after giant ship pass through the harbor.
Our three little nieces (ages from 7 – 12) had so many questions. They were the expected, “Why is the sky blue,” “Do sharks live in the water?” and “When is dinner?” They couldn’t get information fast enough. Every answer I gave was greeted with another question. Like sponges, they took it all in and would later talk about the answers I gave them. Over the course of the weekend, they found out that there are five great lakes and that Lake Superior is the largest lake in the world. They discovered that lighthouses guide incoming and outgoing ships. They found out that over 300 shipwrecks have occurred in Lake Superior and that seagulls like bologna sandwiches!
Most interesting, they learned a lot of sad information on the cruise tour we took. The tour began by circling through the water and showing all the beautiful sandy beaches loaded with wildlife and swimming kids. Then as we moved into the harbor, known as the “Head of Lakes,” the tour got dark. Literally. The massive facilities and industries sitting on the water were dark and black. We passed by numerous dirty facilities and were told in great length about the work that each of them does. Every one of their histories began with a small business that grew larger and larger. The Head of Lakes now floats, stores and distributes nearly 10,000,000 tons of material every year.
The crux of the port, however, was the most interesting part of the tour. Many people do not know this, but the port has the largest single area concentration of coal docks in the world. It came as no shock to me that this port has the largest movable material handling bridge, largest and highest grain elevator and the largest coal briquetting plant in the world. This port is home to a massive facility, The Midwest Energy Resources Company's Superior terminal, where coal can be transferred into ships at a rate of 9,000 tons per hour. This resonated with me. We are burning coal too fast. Our lands are being hurt and our lungs are being blackened. As our nieces sat by my side, I couldn’t help but wonder what their energy future will look like. I was saddened.
Around the next bend of our tour came a large area where massive wind turbine blades were lined up looking like a cornfield. My heart was relieved and I told our nieces about how wonderful the future can be. The tour guide dedicated ten seconds of this tour to say that these were turbine blades. In the same breath, he quickly mentioned that the Duluth port receives turbines from Denmark and also ships turbines to Spain.
Where are we? Why has this country not moved forward? We are being left behind. As the rows of turbines grew smaller and smaller as we traveled away from them, I thought a lot about our turbine at home. It will power our entire building and even produce enough power to sell. I told our nieces about coal and wind. They listened and asked more questions.
July 4th
With our nieces, we headed to Cass Lake for the annual Leech Lake pow wow where they met Winona. We watched the dancers and ate fry bread before meeting with our 93-year old grandma who talked about the pow wow and the latest Twins game. Then we headed home to watch the fireworks show in town. While driving through Cass Lake, I thought of the Enbridge pipeline that is headed for Leech Lake just down the street from grandma’s house. The pipeline will carry 450,000 barrels of oil that is pumped all the way from Canada across the reservation every day.
July 5th
With our nieces leaving early in the morning and with the weather being perfect, my wife and I were ready to go water tubing. We jumped in our cars and headed for a river just outside of Perham, Otter Tail River. We spent nearly six hours floating down the water, just relaxing and admiring clams on the river floor.
Even with the sand between my toes and the sun on my face, I could not forget the disturbing reality of the power company just down the river from where I was floating. Otter Tail Power, named after the river, created their first energy source by constructing a dam on the river in 1907. Today, celebrating over 100 years of producing power, Otter Tail Power is proposing to construct yet another coal plant, Big Stone II. If built, the 500 MW coal plant will cost over $1 billion.
July 6th
With the weekend over, I got ready for work. Kissed my wife goodbye and told her, “Well Honey, I’m off to fight coal.”
…As I got out of my car at the office, I was greeted by our standing turbine tower.
