Clean Coal Story -- North Dakota, USA

Summary:

The Bismarck Tribune is reporting today that Minnkota Power Cooperative is unveiling a state-of-the-art chimney at its Milton R. Young coal-fired power plant which will remove significant amounts of pollutants before reaching the atmosphere.

The story:

This is a huge story that the Tribune is reporting. It's too bad "they" don't have the space to really get into what this story means. There are three reasons for posting this story, even though it doesn't have anything to do with the Bakken.

First, it helps me better understand the "clean coal" initiatives in North Dakota.

I had never heard of "Coal Country" until today and I'm only beginning to piece it together. If I'm off-track, please let me know.  According to the 2005 "white paper":

The purpose of the Coal Country Development Initiative is to attract and develop new industry in North Dakota’s Coal Country, located northwest of Bismarck and south of Lake Sakakawea.

Broadening the industrial base of the area would create jobs and diversify the local economy. In support of the Initiative, this paper defines the potential of Coal Country’s material, energy, infrastructure and intellectual assets as levers for new business development. Marketing the region’s lignite energy resources as low cost industrial inputs, for example, may provide the necessary competitive advantage to attract new industrial development.

Trillium Planning & Development directed this project with the assistance of the Yale University Industrial Environmental Management Program. Mercer County Economic Development and the North Dakota Department of Commerce conceived of and funded the project. [For this report in its original PDF format, click here. This is a phenomenal report.]

Apparently there are three Coal Country power producers: Minnkota Power Cooperative, Great River Energy and Basin Electric Power Cooperative. According to the Bismarck Tribune, these three producers have together invested more than $1 billion to improve air quality in the past three years.

The Bismarck Tribune is reporting today that Minnkota is unveiling a state-of-the-art chimney at its Milton R. Young coal-fired power plant which will remove significant amounts of pollutants before reaching the atmosphere.

A new pollution control chimney at Minnkota Power Cooperative’s Milton R. Young coal-fired power plant near Center will finally be put into service next month.

Minnkota is one of three Coal Country power producers, along with Great River Energy and Basin Electric Power Cooperative, that have together invested more than $1 billion to improve air quality in the past three years.

The chimney shell was completed in 2009 and towers 550 feet high in Oliver County. It is the centerpiece of Minnkota’s pollution upgrade project that it says will remove nearly all the sulfur dioxide and more than half the nitrous oxide from plant emissions.

The power plant is located near Center, ND.

Great River Energy is based in Underwood, ND, and was the subject of an earlier posting regarding coal beneficiation / coal gasification. 

The second reason I have for posting this story: I am always impressed when the folks in North Dakota partner with academia in the energy arena. I have always maintained that one can argue about our public education, kindergarten through high school, but our nation's undergraduate and graduate programs across the nation are second to none.

The third reason has to do with my personal thoughts about renewable energy and fossil energy. Since most folks who read my blog on a regular basis can just about guess what I would write here, I will say no more.

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A geography lesson (for me, not my readers who probably know the map of North Dakota much better than I do):

The southern east-west route across North Dakota is I-94, stretching from Fargo on the east to Dickinson/Belfield/Beach/Montana border on the west. Midway along this highway is the capital of North Dakota, Bismarck.

About forty miles northwest of Bismarck, as the crow flies, is Center, North Dakota. Center is about 20 miles due north of the interstate. Driving 80 miles west on the interstate, one reaches Dickinson, one of the centers of the North Dakota oil industry.

And then ... drum roll, please ... you are in Bakken Country. South Heart is located about thirteen miles west of Dickinson. South Heart is in Stark County, and if you've been following the news, you know that Whiting is making a huge investment in Stark County, extending their Lewis and Clark prospect to the southeast from the Bicentennial Field.

Belfield, another twelve miles to the west of South Heart, is where Whiting is apparently putting in a new industrial park.

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This is really, really, very exciting. I keep thinking of what I'm not going to write in this blog regarding the third reason I posted this story.