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Tuesday, February 15, 2011

This Is Better Than Turning Corn Into Ethanol -- North Dakota, USA

Great River Energy is building a "biomass" facility, their Spiritwood Station, east of Jamestown, North Dakota, that will convert wheat and corn residue into steam and electricity. (I assume the link is temporary.)

Promoters say the conversion process is 40 to 66 percent efficient. In comparison, most coal-based plants are 30 to 35 percent efficient.

This company's link will be longer lasting:
The plant will have the capacity to generate up to 76 megawatts (MW) of baseload electricity and up to 23 MW of peaking electricity for the regional energy market. It also will supply up to 200,000 pounds of steam per hour to the Cargill Malt plant nearby. Local electric service provider Ottertail Power will supply electricity to the Cargill Malt plant.
For comparison, when the Langdon Wind Project was announced, it was said to be the biggest wind farm project in North Dakota:
On January 12, 2008, Otter Tail Power Company completed its 40.5-megawatt portion of the Langdon Wind Energy Center. Our company and Minnkota Power Cooperative, Inc.,  also purchase wind-generated electricity from NextEra Energy, who owns the remainder of the 159-megawatt site and is the project developer. The wind farm was built near Langdon, North Dakota, in Cavalier County.
Something tells me there's a few old colleagues that enjoy this as much as I do:

It Wasn't God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels, Kitty Wells

2 comments:

  1. embraceyourinnerhillbillyFebruary 16, 2011 at 12:51 AM

    Cool.
    This was one of the first 'answer' records...in response to Hank Thompson's Wild Side of Life.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-RwB7-y73FY&feature=related

    (couldn't find a link to the 1952 version)

    ReplyDelete
  2. I did not know that. I learn something new every day.

    That's pretty neat. Thank you.

    ReplyDelete

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