Wind Factory Making Blades To Close Shop In Aberdeen, SD -- Can't Make It Without Tax Credits -- December 6, 2017

A reader sent me the link to the article. My reply:

Wow, I feel bad for the workers. That's really tough. That's a lot of folks employed making blades. But it's sad that the industry needs tax credits to make the numbers work.

Here's the story, data points:

• Aberdeen, SD
• Molded Fiber Glass, since 2008
• has been making 187 foot blades for General Electric
• General Electric was the company’s only client and [GE plans] to work with LM Wind Power, a company [GE} purchased in October 2016 for $1.65 billion, to make the blades
• also affecting the shutdown was the phasing out of the renewable electricity production tax credit given to companies that manufacture for the wind energy industry
• but there is hope: three other companies looking at the location (I assume for manufacturing)

Update On Honey Bee Colony Collapse -- A North Dakota Story -- May 3, 2015

Updates

July 27, 2015: From Carpe Diem: US honeybee-colony numbers are now at a 20-year high and US honey producton is at a 10-year high with a 19% increase in production last year. 

July 27, 2015: honey update from USDA, March 20, 2015, data points:

• 2014: US honey production up almost 20% over 2013
• 2014: total colonies up 4 percent over 2013
• 2014: honey prices set a record high in 2014, up 1% from 2013

North Dakota led the nation in number of producing colonies: 480

• California: 330
• South Dakota: 265
• Florida: 220 
• Montana: 159

North Dakota trounces all other states in honey production: 33 million lbs

• Montana: 15 million lbs
• Florida: 13 million lbs
• California: 11 million lbs
• Minnesota: 8 million lbs
• Texas: 6 million lbs

This explains the "Montana" phenomenon: Colonies which produced honey in more than one State were counted in each State where the honey was produced. Therefore, at the United States level yield per colony may be understated, but total production would not be impacted.

July 25, 2015: wind farms may be responsible for loss of bees. 

Since vast areas are within affective range of low frequency sound levels emitted by wind turbines, it becomes clear that there is a connection between low frequency sound produced by wind turbines and the disappearance of honeybees. The areas with the most disappearances of honeybees directly correspond with that of operating wind farms.

California is second, behind North Dakota for honeybee losses and first in wind farm operations, within range of areas where honeybee colonies are located. As of 2007, most North Dakota wind farms were concentrated within a small area in the southeastern portion of the state. Since then, wind farms have spread to many other sections of the state, and the resulting losses of honeybees will most likely increase as well.

Original Post

 

Unfortunately I have not been able to find the link on the internet of a great article in this month's (May's) issue of The National Geographic.

It's by Charles C. Mann, "The Quest for a Superbee."

On page 94 of that issue, there is a great graphic of "bees on the move." North Dakota leads the country -- by a wide margin -- in pollinated acres:

• North Dakota: 2.3 million acres
• California: 1.7 million acres
• Florida: 617,000 acres

Ranked by density, the distinction and the margin is even greater. North Dakota is "alone" in its own division, at the top of the list, at 33 acres of pollinated crops per square mile.

In the second division (6 to 11 acres per square mile) (note the drop from 33 acres / square mile in the top division):

• California (almonds)
• Florida (grapefruit)
• South Dakota (sunflowers)

In the third divisions, hardly worth mentioning, at 1 to 5 acres per square mile, include:

• Kansas (sunflowers)
• Oklahoma (canola)
• Michigan (apples)
• Washington state (apples)
• New York "ban fracking" State (apples)
• Maine (blueberries)
• Massachusetts (cranberries)
• Delaware (melons)
• New Jersey (melons)

Several states show a loss of bee colonies of more than 50%, including: Montana, Utah, New Mexico, Minnesota, Iowa, Illinois, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, and Vermont. 

The article starts with history of the current superstar, the Buckfast bee, a superbee. A monk, Brother Adam, was a 16-year-old novice at the Buckfast Abbey in southwest England, in 1915, just after perhaps the worst catastrophe of bee die-off in history. He devoted his life to developing the superbee, the Buckfast bee, which by the 1980s were sold across the world.

Brother Adam, between 1950 and 1980, had collected honey bee queens from around the world, to include: "the hardworking bees of Turkey, the hyper-diverse bees of Crete, the isolated bees of Sahara oases, the deep black bees of Morocco, the tiny orange bees of the Nile, the supposedly placed beeds of Mount Kilimanjaro. He took his exotic menagerie to a remote station in the moors, miles from other bees with their unwanted genes ... and created the Buckfast bee -- a superbee, as it was quickly dubbed. Tan-colored and robust, it was reluctant to sting, zealously productive, and resistant to what come to be called Isle of Wight disease (a virus)."

For his efforts, Brother Adam "was removed from his post. Buckfast's abbot, convinced that Brother Adam's growing fame conflicted with his vocation, removed him from his post. Brother Adam died, heartbroken, in 1996."

That Buckfast abbot sounds like he should join ISIS. He would fit right in.

It's a great article. NoDaks might want to buy this month's NatGeo just for this article.

By the way, even better news. The current great bee die-off was not blamed on global warming. Although researchers try to pin the current colony collapse with much human activity (such as habitat loss and chemicals), the fact remains, it is likely mostly due to the "varroa mite," Varroa destructor.

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By the way, just the other day I posted a story on a new plant that farmers will begin planting in North Dakota, one that honeybees love. This story just keeps getting better and better.

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Another story related to the honeybee story, from The Dickinson Press:

Giants Snacks--a family-owned company born from the idea that, when it comes to sunflower seeds, bigger is better--is now two decades old and still growing.

Advertisement

That growth is fueled by the company's willingness to try new things, like when it rolled out its kettle-roasted line of roasted, in-the-shell sunflower seeds a few years back.

When it became clear no one was going to market the larger seeds, Schuler said they decided to put them in a bag and call them Giants.

It took time, but the brand gained a following. By 2004, Giants was the official sunflower seed supplier to the Minnesota Twins, a triumph credited to Jason Schuler, Jay Schuler's son and vice president of sales at Giants.

Today, Giants also has an official partnership with the Colorado Rockies, and Giants seeds are consumed in the dugouts of many major league ballparks.

Reader With Question About Four CLR Banks Permts Expiring This Month -- September 29, 2014

A reader asked about the status of permits, 23790 - 23793. They were originally permitted in September, 2012; and, permits renewed in September, 2013. No activity yet; curious if CLR will renew the permits?

• 23790, conf, CLR, Pasadena 2-2H, Banks, 
• 23791, conf, CLR, Pasadena 3-2H, Banks, 
• 23792, conf, CLR, Monroe Federal 2-2H, Banks, 
• 23793, conf, CLR, Monroe Federal 3-2H, Banks, 

I doubt CLR would lose these permits. Banks oil field is a great field.

Paperwork often lags events; posting data to the NDIC website takes a bit of time. The wells are still shown as confidential on the GIS map server and the scout tickets.

Sited in this same section, just a few feet to the north of the proposed four-well pad is this well:

• 22891, 947, CLR, Monroe 1-2H, t8/12; cum 209K 7/14;

And another well on 1280-acre spacing ends in this same section; the well is sited in the section to the south:

• 21148, 809, CLR, Pasadena 1-11H, t7/12; cum 138K 7/14;

From a mineral owners perspective, I would be happy if CLR waited until all their new completion data was analyzed, to get the best possible well. It's possible CLR simply has more work than it can handle and is prioritizing based on available resources. It's also possible that CLR is still analyzing the data. This is a great field; they might as well optimize it.

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Wind

If you enjoy spin, you might enjoy this Prairie Business article on wind farms in North Dakota. I'm not going to go through it again, but I link/post it to remind folks of the relative cost of wind/solar/coal:

“A 500 megawatt project will cost about $1 billion when it’s done and we just can’t raise that kind of capital in South Dakota,” Johnson says.

He anticipates the project could be complete by 2018. The company, which is based in Colorado with regional offices in Texas and Minneapolis, has been developing projects in North America since 1997 but didn’t log its first North Dakota project until earlier this year with the purchase of the Border Winds Project near the Canadian border in Rolette County.

Construction began in June and is expected to be complete in October next year, when ownership will transfer to Excel Energy. 

The wind farm will be spread across 23,000 acres and will be capable of producing 150 MW of power from 75 turbines. The cost of the project is not being disclosed, but Morgan says Xcel Energy expects the project could reduce customer costs by about $45 million over its lifetime. 

The cost of the project is not being disclosed; isn't that interesting? That speaks volumes and suggests the cost ....

For comparison in cost:

From an earlier post, March 20, 2014:

• Solar: $3 million / MW
• Wind: $2.5 million / MW
• Natural gas: $865,000 / MW

In this Prairies Business article, it sounds like the wind projects are over $2.0 million / MW, in line with other wind projects. New coal plants are in the $600K range. 

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For Newsaholics / Political Junkies

I am currently reading two books on the Kennedy assassination (Crossfire: The Plot That Killed Kennedy) and A Cruel and Shocking Act: The Secret History of the Kennedy Assassination.

I am not follow the conspiracy theory but the books are excellent resources to help understand the processes involved.

Meanwhile, I have just finished watching the first two full seasons of House of Cards on DVD.

The two books and the TV series really, really put The (London) Mail in perspective: Obama had accurate intelligence on ISIS before the 2012 election. It's pretty clear the president was disengaged from running the country these past two years, and things are now starting fit the timeline quite well. From The (London) Mail:

• a national security staffer in the Obama administration said the president has been seeing 'highly accurate predictions' about the rise of the ISIS terror army since 'before the 2012 election' 
• Obama insisted in his campaign speeches that year that America was safe and al-Qaeda was 'on the run' 
• the president said during Sunday's '60 Minutes' program that his Director of National Intelligence had conceded he underestimated ISIS 
• but the administration aide insisted that Obama's advisers gave him actionable information that sat and gathered dust for more than a year 
• 'He knew what was at stake,' the aide said of the president, and 'he knew where all the moving pieces were' 
• Obama takes daily intelligence briefings in writing, he explained, because no one will be able to testify about warning the president in person about threats that the White House doesn't act on 

Harvard trained him well. He can always say he never saw the briefings.

Wind

I will provide the links later. Regular readers already know.

A 400 MW wind farm for $1 billion = $2.5 million / MW of electricity
A 88-MW gas turbine for $77 million = $875,000 / MW of electricity

Those numbers are so far apart, one wonders if I am reading the sources correctly.

And remember, one cannot build a wind farm without an equal amount of coal- or natural gas-production backing it up. When the wind quits blowing (or if it blows too fast), the turbines are taken off-line. And, oh by the way, the the coal- or natural-gas utility needs to keep operating at a low level while the blades are turning. 24/7. Wind farms will end up saving the US coal industry. If for no other reason, Americans will demand something inexpensive (coal = 6 cents) to offset high cost of renewable energy (solar, wind = 20 cents). 

Oil Surges $1.50/Bbl Today; Wind Farms Not Getting Any Less Expensive -- And A Good News Story For The Coal Industry

Again, Yahoo!Finance has the wrong "oil price" at the top of the page. Quietly without much fanfare, and I completely missed it, oil surged almost a $1.50/barrel today, back to almost $100/bbl again. So much for price manipulation by President Obama's release of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. From Yahoo!In-Play, at close: Apr crude oil rose $1.64 to $99.69/barrel. This surge had nothing to do with the strength of the dollar; it remained stable today. MarketWatch is reporting:

Oil futures gained nearly 2% on Tuesday, with some analysts attributing the price strength to news on the expansion of a key U.S. pipeline, as traders looked to the week’s supply reports and the conclusion of the Federal Reserve’s policy meeting to help gauge oil’s next move. 

Some analysts attributed oil’s gains to a report that a pipeline expansion that would help draw down supplies at the Cushing, Okla. oil delivery hub would be completed sooner than previously expected.

“The oil trade is fixated on it,” said Phil Flynn, senior market analyst at Price Futures Group.

Enterprise Products Partners said it would more than double the capacity of the Seaway pipeline, with the expansion of the pipeline in service in late May or early June, Bloomberg News reported Tuesday, citing comments made by a senior vice president at an analyst day presentation in Houston.

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Free Electricity For Native Americans

 

It will only cost them a billion dollars.

The Rapid City Journal is reporting:

Tribal leaders hope that the wind farm will not only provide free electricity to the reservation's 2,000 residents but generate significant profits from the sale of electricity off the reservation.

They're talking about a federal grant that would bring a billion-dollar wind farm to the Crow Creek tribe, based in central South Dakota. But it's not a slam dunk:

While the federal grant money would pay for land, wind and ecological studies on the proposed site, he estimated the tribe would need about $800 million to a billion dollars to bring a 400,000 megawatt wind farm to fruition.

However, Nagourney said he was confident the tribe could attract investors, based on the proposed site's close proximity to transmission lines and early studies of its energy potential.

If the tribe is able to attract enough private investment, Nagourney estimated construction on the first phase of the project, a 100 megawatt wind farm, could begin in early 2016 and be completed by the end of the year.

I assume a $10,000 donation from The Rapid City Journal to jump start the one billion dollars that would be needed would be a good start. 

Somehow the numbers don't make sense. The article says the federal grant totals $3.2 million spread among 21 Native American tribes across the United States.  Even if all $3.2 million went to the Crow Creek tribe in South Dakota, that's hardly a drop in the bucket for a billion-dollar project. Either I'm missing something or the numbers reported are incorrect.

By the way, back on February 7, 2013, the blog noted:

As a rule of thumb, Don uses $2 million / megawatt as the cost to "build" a wind farm. That agrees with other sources. 

So, this newest story, the one about the Crow Creek tribe, does that rule of thumb still hold?

The proposed wind farm is on 7,000 acres of tribal-owned land about 12 miles north of Fort Thompson, the reservation's biggest town. The tribe estimates the site could produce 100 to 400 megawatts of power, which could power 100,000 to 400,000 homes.

What does that work out to?

• $1 billion / 400 MW = $2.5 million / megawatt

Wow, wind farms aren't getting any less expensive. This could cost taxpayers/investors as much as $2.5 million/MW based on figures from the story. Again, reporters are not asking the right questions.

By the way, this will end up being a good news story for the lignite miners in North Dakota. Wind is sporadically available; wind turbine farms need 100% back-up; coal-powered electric plants will provide the back-up; and because one cannot simply start and stop a coal-fired plant, the coal will have to burn at least at a low level 100% of the time. 

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With the first military deaths associated with events in the Crimean/Ukraine, there is a very good chance we could see civil war in the Ukraine. Just saying.