The Bakken Economy -- December 3, 2022

Native American casinos in North Dakota, link here:

• governor signs bill lowering the age from 21 to 19 for gambling in ND casinos
• Native Americans had asked for additional relief with state-wide electronic gambling
• state constitution does not allow that
• casinos significantly and negatively impacted by state-wide pull-tabs
• casinos have been hurt by the explosion of Las Vegas-style pull tab machines that were legalized in 2017 to benefit charities. North Dakotans poured almost $1.75 billion into the machines in fiscal 2022.  

Alexander, ND:

The Alexander Public School District plans to hold a special election January 17, 2023, asking voters to approve a $15.5 million bond issue to finance construction of additional classrooms, expand the cafeteria and front office space, add additional working space for staff, and a conference room.

Enrollment in the district has surged in recent years with 49 additional students this fall for a total of 306 in grades K-12, representing a 19 percent increase from the 2021-22 school year.

If approved, the project would be the third facility expansion for the district, which 10 years ago had just 122 students. A home economics area was added in 2016, and a vocational ag building was added to the campus in 2020.

Back-of-the-envelope:

• K - 12: thirteen classrooms
• 257 / 13 = 20 students / classroom
• 306 / 13 = 24 students / classroom
• $15.5 million / 49 students: $315,000 per additional student
• but, one assumes the expansion anticipates further enrollment growth

I guess we won't need that Montana coal-generated electricity (the North Plains Connector):

The North Dakota Public Service Commission voted 2-1 this week to approve a $390 million wind farm proposed near Wishek, a decision with which Commissioner Randy Christmann strongly disagreed. 

The project known as Badger Wind is to be built in Logan and McIntosh counties, consisting of 74 turbines with 250 megawatts of generating capacity.

Christmann objected to the project, pointing out that it would be located in one of the most congested areas of the electric grid, displacing power generated by baseload coal plants.

He said allowing more intermittent generation to displace 24/7 sources of electricity will ultimately make the grid less reliable.