A Minnesota Utility Is Swapping Coal for Solar. It’s Like Taking 780,000 Cars Off the Road
Xcel Energy is replacing its massive coal plant in Becker, Minnesota, with a 710-megawatt solar farm. It's reigniting debate over what society owes rural coal towns struggling amid the energy transition
@Snoro before reading article thoughts: as someone who lived in Becker for 7 years, society doesn’t owe those people anything. They got lucky that the plant was built there and used the tax money mainly for their school (which is very sports-focused).That’s not a bad thing, but I don’t think that they are owed anything just because they had something before. They were protesting against the coal plant being shut down. “Save our Sherco!” Selfish and stupid, imo.
@Snoro after reading article:
I can see the argument, but I’m not sure I agree yet. Framed another way: Why should these communities be rewarded for supporting the insane pollution of these plants? Yes, ideally, nobody loses a job ever, but a job helping Xcel pollute is a stupid job in the first place. His “how do you revitalize these communities” question is rather funny, because even with the coal plant Becker is just a polluted dump that most people drive through from St. Cloud to the cities.
@Snoro I wouldn’t ever describe it as “vital” now, and I don’t think the removal of the coal plant is really going to change that in any way. I can imagine people will be trying to argue otherwise to try to get money out of someone, somewhere, for something, but I hope it doesn’t work.
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