Iron Range’s Taconite Ridge and Mesabi Nugget kick-off held Wednesday
June 12, 08 by TheFleetIf you're new here, you may want to subscribe to our RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
Janna Goerdt | Source: Duluth News Tribune
The Iron Range celebrated two large-scale, innovative projects on Wednesday, and officials touted the projects as symbols of a new economy emerging in northern Minnesota.
Gov. Tim Pawlenty spoke at the dedication of the Taconite Ridge wind farm on U.S. Steel property north of Virginia and at a celebration of progress at the Mesabi Nugget processing plant near Embarrass.
The first of 10 wind turbines at the Taconite Ridge site began producing electricity on Monday…. The remaining nine turbines should produce electricity by the end of June, Remus said, generating enough power to supply about 8,000 homes when all turbines are at peak production.
…The Mesabi Nugget plant, built as a partnership between Steel Dynamics of Indiana and Kobe Steel of Japan, should begin producing highly concentrated nuggets of iron ore in summer 2009, bringing more than 100 jobs back to the east Iron Range.
It will be the world’s first iron nugget plant, said Shohei Manabe, head of the iron unit division of Kobe Steel. The ground breaking process will convert relatively low-grade taconite ore into nuggets with an iron content of 96 percent.
Producing a value-added product such as iron nuggets rather than the more-traditional taconite pellet is a big switch for the area’s economy, Sen. Tom Bakk, DFL-Cook, said.
