Two Wind Farms Proposed For North Dakota -- Xcel -- March 17, 2017

Active rigs:

	3/17/2017	03/17/2016	03/17/2015	03/17/2014	03/17/2013
Active Rigs	47	31	110	191	185

RBN Energy: the series continues -- is more pipeline capacity needed to serve natural gas exports via south Texas?

Scott Adams: photos don't lie.

Home of alma mater, undergraduate: Sioux Falls -- in The Wall Street Journal.

Tesla: will burn through cash launching Model 3 -- in Business Insider.

Wind: Xcel plans seven new wind farms, two in North Dakota -- in The Dickinson Press. In South Dakota, from Penn Energy:

Xcel's planned Crowned Ridge Wind operation in eastern South Dakota would have a capacity of 600 megawatts. The company's president for Minnesota and the Dakotas, Chris Clark, tells the Star Tribune (http://strib.mn/2nwlOnZ ) it will be Xcel's largest-ever wind investment in the upper Midwest.

In the Star Tribune link:

Xcel, already the nation’s largest wind-producing utility, has been on a wind spree of late, taking full advantage of federal tax credits for wind power before they are phased out.

“This is some of the best priced wind power, and it’s a great value for our customers,” Clark said. Xcel’s new wind installations would produce energy at a cost of 1.5 to 2.5 cents per kilowatt hour, which compares favorably to the 2.3 to 2.4 cents per-kilowatt-hour costs of Xcel’s Sherco coal generators, Clark said.

Xcel’s announcement Thursday includes a 100 megawatt project in North Dakota’s Mercer and Morton counties and a new 100 megawatt wind farm near Lake Benton, MN, which will replace an aging facility there. That new wind plant will have bigger turbines, which can produce more power.

********************************

Notes To the Granddaughters

I would have to say that of all the "things" that impress Sophia the most, it is "the airplane." She has flown a number of times but never without her sisters. She is always looking for them when we go to the park, and being near DFW airport, she sees a lot of them. This is her first flight ever by herself and her dad. Details to follow.