Fighting the Nemadji Trail Energy Center Gas Plant

Dairyland Power Cooperative, Minnesota Power and Basin Electric are proposing to build a 625-megawatt methane gas power plant in Superior, Wis., along the Nemadji River.

The $700 million Nemadji Trail Energy Center will come with an enormous environmental cost.

The plant would add 3-million tons of carbon pollution into the environment each year, pushing us even further from our climate goals and impacting the health of people who live nearby. Wisconsinites deserve real clean energy, not more massive fossil-fuel burning power plants.

The Nemadji Trail Energy Center is a bad deal for Wisconsin

The Public Service Commission approved the construction permit for the gas plant by a 2-1 vote in 2019. While the Chair of the Commission had reservations about the environmental impacts of the project, it was approved anyway.

On February 28th, 2020, Clean Wisconsin and Sierra Club first filed suit to stop construction, arguing the large gas plant would pose significant risks to the environment and that the PSC should not have issued a Certificate of Public Convenience and Necessity to greenlight the project. Energy needs addressed by the plant could readily be met by higher priority alternatives under Wisconsin’s Energy Prioritization Law, including large-scale renewables paired with battery resources.

You can find the petition for review here.

On May 17, 2022, the Court upheld the PSC’s approval of the project. Though the judge acknowledged the “massive impacts a major project of this nature holds for the state,” he ultimately dismissed concerns Clean Wisconsin and partners raised with the PSC’s analysis of impacts to environmental conditions at the site and the project’s contributions to climate change.

The Fight Isn’t Over

The utilities still need a number of environmental permits–such as to pump water and fill wetlands from the Department of Natural Resources to construct this plant. Without these permits, the project could become dead in the water.