Minnkota Power Cooperative is a generation and transmission co-op that provides power to 11 electric cooperatives in eastern North Dakota and northwestern Minnesota. Together, they serve around 160,000 consumers. These communities depend on Minnkota to provide cost-effective electricity to rural homes, businesses, schools and farms. About 42% of Minnkota's power is generated through renewable resources.

Minnkota owns the Milton R. Young Station, a coal-fired power plant near Center, North Dakota. Lignite coal is mined from land adjacent to the plant and is the only fuel the plant is designed to burn.

In 2015, Minnkota took the role as lead sponsor of Project Tundra, a carbon capture and storage project, which aims to treat the flue gas from Young Station. If completed, it will be the world's largest CCS facility. But because of the Environmental Protection Agency's power plant rule, it might never get built. That's because this state-of-the-art project still isn't enough to bring Minnkota's Young Station into compliance, even after $90 million in investments and nearly a decade of planning.

Even if it were technologically possible to expand Project Tundra's scope—something no one knows, because no similar project has ever been attempted—the power plant rule doesn't provide enough time for that expansion. Designing Project Tundra took almost a decade. The EPA's power plant rule requires Minnkota to update that design with a new, expanded CCS system and bring it into operation in about half that time.

Carbon capture and storage technology itself uses a lot of energy. Nearly a third of the energy produced by Minnkota's Young Station power plant will be needed to run the Project Tundra CCS system and won't be available to power homes, businesses and communities.

If the power plant rule's requirements force Minnkota to abandon Project Tundra, then Young Station would be forced into an early retirement. Minnkota would be unlikely to have time to build replacement generation and instead would need to purchase power from the market. This would severely affect Minnkota's ability to provide its customers with the reliable, affordable electricity they need to heat their homes, keep hospitals and schools open and provide essential services to vulnerable people. It would also put more strain on the grid during a time when demand for power is increasing and always-available generation is decreasing.