News
New platform will pitch Minnesota to the world
Nov 22 2021A collective of economic development partners and companies from across the state recently launched a new platform that will share with the world why Minnesota is a great place to build a business and for people to advance their careers.
The website, joinusmn.com, highlights what makes Minnesota unique based on it...
A $100,000 loan provided to Jasper Company by its local electric cooperative will go toward attracting more tourism for Ely and the surrounding areas.
Lake Country Power, one of Great River Energy’s 28 member-owner cooperatives, provided the loan through its Revolving Loan Fund, which uses previously received economic development grants fro...
A partnership between a national grocery wholesaler and a Minnesota-based supermarket company will rely on a large cold-storage warehouse served with electricity by one of Great River Energy’s member-owner cooperatives.
Associated Wholesale Grocers, Inc. (AWG) recently entered into an agreement to be the primary wholesale supplier to Coborns, Inc. — ...
TAMARACK — Just north of the tiny town of Tamarack in Aitkin County, Talon Metals Corp. is getting ready to pitch its underground nickel mine to state regulators.
Next year, the company expects to begin the scoping process with the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, the first step in the project'...
St. Paul – Today, the Department of Employment and Economic Development is announcing recipients of the Small Business Partnership Grant Program: non-profits and public entities who will provide and facilitate business development and technical assistance to entrepreneurs and small businesses. This program was increased by $7M to $9.8M by th...
REGIONAL— The power supplier for most rural electric cooperatives in Minnesota, including Lake Country Power, will be reducing the price of its wholesale power as it transitions rapidly away from coal as its primary source of energy.
Even at a time when prices are rising for many other products and source...
After a long battle of wills between moderates and progressives in Congress, one of Democrats’ priority bills passed the House late Friday night, paving the way for the president to sign the roughly $1 trillion infrastructure bill into law.
House lawmakers passed the bill, formally titled the Infrastructure Investment and Job...
Driving toward an electric future
Nov 8 2021Consumer interest in electric vehicles (EVs) is growing in the region as the auto industry nationally makes a giant pivot from producing internal combustion engines to EVs.
Some area new-car dealerships are plugging into the new technology by getting their employees certified to sell and service EVs, and collaborating with th...
Some students here will start riding an all-electric school bus this fall in a first-of-its-kind program in Minnesota.
The program is a collaboration between transportation provider Schmitty & Sons and electricity cooperatives Dakota Electric Association and Great River Energy. The goal is to demonstrate the technology of a battery-electric school bu...
Twin Metals Minnesota today announced it will build on its commitment to advancing the nation’s most sustainable and technologically advanced underground mining project by investing in the electrification of its mining and support vehicle fleets. Implementing battery electric vehicle technology is the latest effort by Twin Metals to reduce it...
The Next Generation of Cold Chain Logistics
Nov 1 2021Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, millennials purchased half their grocery products online, and e-commerce grocery shopping made up 4.5 percent of market share. As of January 2021, that same share is up to 12.5 percent and projected to rise another 9 percent by 2025 — creating a tipping point i...
Ready or not, the fourth industrial revolution is upon us.
Smart machines, smart factories, artificial intelligence and sensor technology are ushering in a new age of engineering technology that will impact every aspect of our daily lives, said Ron Ulseth, Bell Program director at Iron Range Engineering at Mesabi Range Colleg...
Robust e-commerce and retail sales combined with supply chain challenges continue to drive demand for space in the industrial sector, which hit a record 3.9 percent vacancy in the third quarter as rents rose 7.1 percent quarter-over-quarter, according to Prologis.
The supply chain bottlenecks are having an additional impact. The ongoin...
Transitioning to net-zero
Oct 29 2021As the urgency around the climate emergency increases, more and more organizations are setting net-zero emissions targets. But without a common science-based definition of what constitutes a net-zero target, companies and their stakeholders can’t be sure that their long-term climate targets are credible or ambitious enough.
The Science Based Targets initiativ...
JoinUsMN.com hosts new campaign to promote the state to businesses and talent
Today, the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development (DEED) launched a first of its kind coordinated campaign with businesses and economic development partners across the state. The goal is to share with the world why Minnesota is ...
The Twin Cities office market is showing signs of life and demand for industrial space continues to be strong, though supply chain issues and limited land supply are posing challenges for developers, according to a new report.
Cushman & Wakefield’s Q3 2021 market report shows new office leasing reached 90% o...
Itasca Economic Development Corporation (IEDC) has unveiled plans to create a space for entrepreneurial innovation.
The group has secured more than $1 million in grant funding and is renovating a 16,500 square foot facility at 1201 SE 7th Ave. in Grand Rapids. When complete, the space will be a place fo...
With record-low vacancy, rising rental rates, intense competition and continued supply-chain headaches, tenants in industrial real estate are having to rethink their strategies.
It takes 80 days for goods to cross the Pacific Ocean and be unloaded, which is nearly twice as long as it took before the pandemic, according t...
After a long and exhaustive review of Arrowhead Cooperative’s application, Arrowhead received confirmation from the Federal Communication Commission (FCC) that it would receive funding, as of October 7, 2021, reported Arrowhead Cooperative CEO John Twiest.
Arrowhead Cooperative was selected to receive $18.4 million in federal funds that will be used ove...
Nickel shortage spells trouble for EVs — report
Oct 13 2021The auto industry’s move to electric cars could encounter hiccups caused by a shortage of nickel — one of the most widely used minerals for EV batteries — as soon as 2026, according to research from consultancy Rystad Energy.
Discussions about electric vehicles’ appetite for raw materials have tended to overloo...
WASHINGTON, D.C., Oct. 4, 2021 – As part of the Administration’s efforts to address food systems challenges arising from the pandemic as well as those going back decades, United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Secretary Tom Vilsack today announced that USDA plans for another $100 million in funding from th...
Cryptocurrency miners using powerful computers are creating new challenges for electric cooperatives as they move into co-op territories and demand huge amounts of electricity.
Miners typically compete to quickly solve math problems using multiple high-speed computers and servers to earn Bitcoin or some of the other thousands of types of cryptocurrency...
Dislocation, Dislocation, Dislocation
Sep 28 2021Remote work is full of paradoxes and ironies.
Start with that word: “remote.” It sounds like you’re far, far away, speaking into a tin can. But a fair number of suddenly remote workers have never been more present and accounted for.
It also lends itself to the easy joke: “You’re working remotel...
Most businesses have not escaped supply chain challenges over the previous 12 months. When everyone expected COVID-19 to slow demand, it accelerated demand to a point where supply chains were stretched to their limits. But it not just COVID — the winter storm of 2021 reduced Texas’ capacity to refin...
Tom Lambrecht