For The Archives: Random Update On President Obama's Clean Power Program -- August 28, 2015

For the archives, the StarTribune is reporting that Minnesota and North Dakota must work together to meet President Obama's Clean Power Program.

If one get past the emotion and politics, this is an incredible opportunity for North Dakota.

Some data points:

• states required to start cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 2022
• states must comply by 2030
• compliance standards vary from state to state
• North Dakota: cut CO2 emissions by 40% from coal-fired generators (from projected 2020 levels)
• Minnesota: a 27% drop (but Minnesota has a "cleaner energy mix" already)
• details still being worked out
• states have until 2018 to submit plans; otherwise EPA will step in and "help them"
• North Dakota will get an opportunity to see how things might go in a case currently being appealed by Minnesota with regard to a Minnesota law that bans imports of "new" coal-based electricity (North Dakota won the first round in a lower federal court, but it is now before the Eighth US Circuit Court of Appeals)

As this plays out, there will be winners and losers, as there always are, but the Federal government is giving  us three years to sort out who the winners / losers might be.

It's buried in the article, but it appears that investment in wind farms in the short term is most problematic due to uncertainty in the new regulations. 

But this is where it gets very exciting. Look at the shift in the source of electricity production between 2004 and 2015. I think the oil and gas industry in North Dakota is likely to come out a winner when it's all said and done.