Bakken’s top producer wants to snuff out natural gas flaring

Posted on 03/04/2013 by EnergyWire

(Photo by Craig Hennecke via Creative Commons)

By Saqib Rahim

Continental Resources Inc., the top producer in the Bakken Shale, plans to reduce natural gas flaring from its well sites to “as close to zero percent flaring as possible,” the company said Thursday.

That announcement may have been lost behind the company’s towering profit numbers; Continental reported net income of $739 million for 2012, a 72 percent gain versus 2011.

But buried in its annual report, Continental said it has halved its 2011 rate of flaring, a common practice in the Bakken Shale that has lit up environmentalists’ radar.

Continental joins other Bakken operators that say they are getting a handle on flaring and can drive it toward the zero mark in the coming years. →

At North Dakota’s Minot Air Force Base, efficiency is part of the mission

Posted on 10/22/2012 by Dan Haugen

Despite a forbidding climate, Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota has some of the lowest energy costs in the military. (Photo via USAF)

Oil and gas aren’t the only strategic resources buried beneath North Dakota.

Part of the country’s intercontinental ballistic missile supply is stored under constant watch in 15 remote, underground facilities scattered across the state. Until recently, the Air Force had to truck diesel heating fuel to each one of them throughout winter.

Today, those missile facilities are warmed instead with a renewable heat source: the ground.

The missile sites are among a few dozen buildings in North Dakota where the Air Force has installed ground source heat pumps, equipment that takes the constant, relatively warm temperatures found underground and circulates it through buildings.

It’s part of a wide-ranging energy initiative led by Lawrence Johnson, who has become one of the Air Force’s efficiency gurus in the region. →

North Dakota summit aims to break pipeline bottleneck

Posted on 06/15/2012 by Dan Haugen

With limited pipeline capacity, much of North Dakota's oil is shipped to market by truck. (Photo by Daniel Liu via Creative Commons)

In North Dakota, getting oil and gas out of the ground is the easy part.

Getting it out of the state is where things get tricky.

North Dakota Gov. Jack Dalrymple hosted a summit Thursday morning to discuss one of the state’s most pressing questions: how to move hundreds of thousand of barrels of crude from its oil fields every single day?

The state’s pipeline network, like so much of its infrastructure, has been overwhelmed by the recent oil and gas boom. That’s pushed oil onto trucks, which has led to a big increase in traffic and wear and tear on roadways. Natural gas, meanwhile, is commonly being burned off due to lack of pipeline access.

(Popular Mechanics had a good visual guide the other day on how oil gets out of North Dakota.)

Dalrymple said he supports plans to expand the state’s pipeline network, which will reduce truck traffic and gas flaring and better connect the state to markets in the south and east.

→

North Dakota to Minnesota: We’ll put our CO2 underground

Posted on 03/14/2012 by Ken Paulman

An empty coal train in North Dakota. (Photo by Hobo Matt via Creative Commons)

North Dakota officials say the state’s coal plants will be able to pump their CO2 underground in the future, and, based on this and other reasons, should therefore be exempt from a Minnesota law that requires utilities to plan ahead for the cost of potential climate regulations.

The planning requirement is part of Minnesota’s Next Generation Energy Act of 2007, which established the state’s renewable energy standard and requires emissions offsets for new coal power, even if purchased from out-of-state sources. The bipartisan legislation, signed by Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty, was implemented prior to climate change becoming a third-rail political issue.

Law is not a ‘new cost’

Last week, a widely published Associated Press story, “ND officials protest new Minn. cost on coal power,” implied Minnesota imposes “charges” and “extra costs” on utilities for using coal. But the law does no such thing.

The provision in question, 216H.06, only requires utilities to include an estimate of future federal and/or state CO2 regulations in their long-term resource plans (in fairness, the AP does accurately summarize the law elsewhere in the story).

In a letter [PDF] from the North Dakota Industrial Commission to the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, Gov. Jack Dalrymple claims 216H.06 is “an improper, extraterritorial extension of state regulatory authority” in violation of the Commerce Clause. That’s also the primary argument in a pending lawsuit between the two states.

The letter also cites “great uncertainty” over what the future will hold for CO2 regulation: “…many economic, scientific, and legal uncertainties exist that make quantifying the future cost of carbon dioxide regulation impracticable at this time.”

But perhaps Dalrymple’s most novel argument is that North Dakota’s status as “a leader in the advancement of [CO2 sequestration] technology” means the regulatory burden will be different for coal plants in his state:

Since the Commission first established its cost estimate in 2007, carbon dioxide injection and storage technology has continued to develop and now provides an even stronger justification to confine the cost estimate to Minnesota facilities.

In other words, North Dakota generators needn’t worry so much about future CO2 regulations, because they can just pump their emissions underground.

Law’s impact overstated?

The Minnesota PUC’s current cost estimate range is $9 to $34 per ton. Dalrymple calls upon the MPCA to recommend the estimate for North Dakota facilities be changed to $0 per ton. But it’s unclear whether such a change would make new coal power any more desirable to Minnesota utilities.

The newly completed Spiritwood plant in North Dakota, which was specifically exempted from Minnesota requirements, remains idle in part due to lack of demand, and in part because the power the plant generates isn’t presently cost-effective.

Minnesota law doesn’t prohibit coal power from North Dakota or anywhere else, but it does require CO2 emissions from new power sources to be offset. Which means a power plant that did succeed in sequestering its CO2 emissions underground would be exempt from the law in the first place.

Also, the resource plans are a long-term outlook, and the regulatory cost projections are one of many factors utilities must consider. It’s an entirely separate process from establishing a need for new generation sources or updating retail utility rates.

The aforementioned AP article, citing a spokeswoman from Otter Tail Power, estimated the burden of CO2 regulations on new coal power would result in a rate increase of $8 to $24 per month for customers. But in an email to Midwest Energy News, the spokeswoman, Cris Kling, said her figures were based on a hypothetical scenario in which a fee was applied to Otter Tail’s existing generation fleet, and should not be interpreted more broadly than that.

However you calculate, the figures used by the PUC for planning purposes don’t actually have a direct impact on ratepayers. The intent of the letter seems to have less to do with what Minnesotans pay for electricity and more to do with whether North Dakota producers find a market for their coal.

“It has long-term implications about the growth of the industry from where it is today,” Dalrymple told the AP. “We feel that the time has come to clear up this issue once and for all.”

Editor’s note: An earlier version of this post incorrectly referred to Jack Dalrymple as the former governor of North Dakota. He is the current governor.

EPA backs off North Dakota haze reduction plan

Posted on 03/05/2012 by Drew Kerr

North Dakota officials are cheering a decision by the Environmental Protection Agency to bring their campaign for aggressive emission controls at a pair of coal-fired power plants to an end.

State officials announced on Friday that the EPA had agreed to approve the bulk of the state’s regional haze air quality plan, despite previously calling it inadequate and threatening to assume regulatory authority in the heavily coal-powered state.

It was immediately unclear what led the EPA to reverse its original position, but the decision followed a recent meeting between EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson and Gov. Jack Dalrymple.

The divide over what pollution controls should be used at coal-fired power plants in the state had led to serious tension between state and industry officials and the EPA. Local officials argued the EPA’s preferred technology was ill-suited for the lignite coal mined and burned in North Dakota and would cost at least $700 million.

The companies targeted for upgrades said the cost of meeting the EPA’s preferred technology could drive up energy rates for their customers as much as 25 percent.

State officials said on Friday that two companies targeted by the EPA – Minnkota Power Cooperative and Basin Electric Power Cooperative – will not have to use the technology originally recommended by the agency. But the companies will have to take some measures to meet the state’s plan to reduce the release of nitrogen oxides.

Officials are still working out the details of what technology should be used at two other coal plants, but an EPA official was quoted as saying the sides now agree on 90 percent of the state’s plan.

Environmental groups that had supported the EPA’s more aggressive pollution controls immediately expressed disappointment in the decision. Officials with the National Parks Conservation Association said they were evaluating their “full suite of options moving forward.”

The group previously sued the EPA after the agency proved slow to enforce the standards laid out in the Clean Air Act. The law required states to have plans to cut regional haze in place by 2008 in an effort to restore natural visibility at the country’s national parks and forest.

“NPCA is deeply disappointed that EPA has chosen to reverse course,” the NPCA said in a statement after the decision was announced. “This represents a missed opportunity to stem the damage that these facilities do to the health of local communities and the air quality at nationally-treasured places like Theodore Roosevelt National Park.”

But Sen. John Hoeven, who had fought the EPA’s plans, heralded the decision as a win for the state and local control.

“Our state has long demonstrated that we can promote strong economic growth and job creation, while doing a good job of protecting our air, land and water,” he said in a statement.

The EPA continues to work with several states to adopt regional haze plans. The agency announced in November that they would seek to finish approving plans by then end of this year and that they would give states five years to comply.

Drew Kerr is a Minneapolis-based freelance reporter. He can be reached at drewbkerr@gmail.com.

Photo by simplerich via Creative Commons

Dispatches from the oil boom

Posted on 01/27/2012 by Ken Paulman

Image via Andrew Shay

There’s been plenty of press about how North Dakota’s oil boom is affecting long-time residents of the area, but most of us know little about the day-to-day life of the thousands of workers who have flocked to the state to work in the oil fields.

This morning, Bob Collins of Minnesota Public Radio directs us to the blog of Andrew Shay, a 24-year-old Minneapolis man who has moved to a “man camp” in Williston, North Dakota to work for Halliburton.

Shay’s blog, titled “I Am Here,” reads a bit like a wartime memoir. As one would expect, the hours are long, the work arduous, but there’s also the challenge of filling downtime and dealing with more mundane tasks, like learning the math to convert cubic feet into barrels.

In a posting from earlier this week, Shay describes a trip into Williston to stock up on supplies:

Things are wild here. Everyone’s looking back, or forward; talking about the good days’ or talking about how they are gonna spend there cash when they get home. Every dude that we trained with has been out to the field so far; I think we are some of the last ones to get out. The guys who i trained with offered good advice, and wish me luck; but most of them just say; be safe. And I guess that’s the key; be safe.

Curious about what it’s like inside these massive dorms? EnergyNOW took a look inside back in November:

N.D. researchers brewing energy from coffee waste

Posted on 01/03/2012 by Dan Haugen

Photo by Rebecca Sudduth via Creative Commons

The holidays are over and many of us are undoubtedly counting on coffee to give us energy as we get back in the swing of things this week.

Meanwhile, North Dakota researchers are working with a Vermont coffee roaster to brew energy from its leftover materials.

The Energy & Environmental Research Center (EERC) at the University of North Dakota is leading a project to develop a waste-to-energy gasification system for Green Mountain Coffee Roasters.

The waste stream Green Mountain is hoping to utilize includes coffee residues, paper, cloth, burlap, and plastic cups and packaging.

Chris Zygarlicke, EERC’s deputy associate director for research, said in a press release Friday that the project is an extension of the center’s recent work for NASA, which looked at ways to convert space station and lunar or Martian base waste into heat and power.

“This project will similarly utilize a mostly renewable and bio-based waste and convert it into electricity for the coffee industry,” Zygarlicke said.

The coffee project is meant to demonstrate that EERC’s gasifier system can produce a clean, synthetic gas from a complex mix of waste. It will start with a small pilot project, which will allow researchers to test the quality of the syngas and evaluate the potential for full-scale commercial systems.

The syngas will either be used in an internal combustion engine or for heat or electricity production.

EERC has previously developed and tested gasifier systems that run on forest residue, railroad tie chips, turkey litter and other biomass. The research center is working on the project with a South Burlington, Vermont, energy company called Wynntryst.

And now that we’re done with this blog post, time for another cup of coffee…

Cutting haze in North Dakota: Is it money well spent?

Posted on 12/13/2011 by Drew Kerr

There has been plenty of recent discussion in North Dakota about the investment coal plant operators may have to make if –- or more likely when –- new federal haze regulations are put in place next year.

But even among those who support the Environmental Protection Agency’s effort to further reduce pollution from coal plants, there is disagreement over whether that money is being spent in the best way possible.

Though cost estimates are in dispute, two energy companies in western North Dakota say they will have to spend more than $700 million on emissions controls the EPA says are needed to restore natural visibility at the state’s national forests and parks.

Some environmentalists would like to see that money spent to expand energy efficiency programs or broaden the companies’ renewable energy portfolios, instead of prolonging the life of coal plants.

‘Best wind, worst coal’

North Dakota, despite having one of the country’s largest wind potentials, continues to get nearly all of its energy from coal, most of which is a lower-grade form known as lignite. About 12 percent of the state’s electricity comes from wind resources, according to the American Wind Energy Association.

“We have the best wind in the world, and the worst coal, so I think it’s pretty obvious what we should be supporting,” said Mark Trechock, the executive director of the Dakota Resource Council, a statewide environmental group.

The non-profit organization has supported the EPA’s haze regulation efforts — which stem from the decades-old Clean Air Act — but has also said that more emphasis should be put on energy efficiency and the development of wind turbines.

“This is a pivotal point for our state’s energy planning,” Trechock said. “If our state is going to stay in the energy business in the future we need to be ramping down coal, ramping up renewables and finally doing something about energy efficiency.”

One reason Trechock and others believe North Dakota has been slow to move on energy efficiency and renewables is that the state has an abundant supply of fossil fuels, including oil, natural gas and coal, that all support the state economy.

North Dakota’s energy rates are among the lowest in the nation, and the state consumes more energy per capita than almost any other in the country, according to the U.S. Energy Information Association.

The state has also perennially ranked at the bottom of the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy’s state energy efficiency scorecard, and was ranked last again in 2011. The scorecard rates states based on building energy codes, utility incentives and efficiency standards.

‘It comes down to the ratepayers’

State and industry officials say progress is being made in both efficiency and renewable energy.

But coal, both cheap and abundant, is likely to remain the state’s cornerstone energy supply for some time, and is still the only reliable consistent supply of energy, they say. North Dakota officials often cite studies that project enough economically recoverable coal in the state to continue supplying the state’s coal plants for the next 800 years.

“We could not shut down our baseload coal facilities and continue to serve our membership,” said Daryl Hill, a spokesman for Basin Electric Power Cooperative, which says it will cost $200 million to meet regional haze rules expected to be finalized by the EPA early next year.

Hill said Basin has invested close to $1 billion in renewable energy development since 2001, and currently gets about 12 percent of its energy from renewable resources. Minnkota Power Cooperative, which estimates it will cost $500 million to meet the EPA’s proposed haze rules, gets 30 percent of its energy from wind turbines.

Both companies also say they work with their retail distributors to encourage energy efficiency.

State officials have also been openly skeptical of energy efficiency programs. The state’s Public Service Commissioner, Kevin Cramer, recently equated efficiency programs to socialism, suggesting they unfairly benefit those who participate at the expense of those who do not (paywall).

“It comes down to the ratepayers and it’s safe to say in this area people want to buy electricity as cheaply as possible,” said Mike Fladeland, the manager of energy development for the North Dakota Department of Commerce.

The long view

Still, Fladeland said companies are beginning to consider a post-coal world given the increasing regulations and potential costs involved.

“I’m sure investor-owned utilities are asking as part of their long-term planning, ‘If federal regulations become too cumbersome, where do we go with coal-fired generation?’” he said.

Michael Sciortino, a policy analyst who worked on the state’s energy efficiency scorecard and is digging deeper into the policies of low-ranking states, said companies would be wise to consider future costs now.

“There is a real pride in the fact that they keep rates very low, but that’s a short-sighted view,” he said. “What this boils down to is understanding that energy efficiency is cost effective in the long run.”

Brad Crabtree, a policy director at the Great Plains Institute, would rather see utilities invest in creating systems that would capture carbon emissions at coal plants instead of on the kind of haze-reducing technology the EPA is pushing for.

The Great Plains Institute, Dakota Resource Council and ACEEE are all members of the RE-AMP network, which also publishes Midwest Energy News.

Crabtree, a one-time candidate for the state’s Public Service Commission, said investing in new kinds of carbon sequestration would go farther to achieve the larger goal of reducing greenhouse gases and combating climate change than the technology the EPA wants.

“I’m not sure money that is invested to control haze is necessarily the right prioritization of resources when it won’t do anything at all to address CO2 emissions,” Crabtree said. “If all that money is spent to address haze and nothing is done to address CO2 than what have we gained?”

“At the end of the day, what keeps me up at night is not haze, but climate change,” he said.

Editor’s note: An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated the Spiritwood power plant employs carbon capturing technology. It does not.

Drew Kerr is a Minneapolis-based freelance reporter. He can be reached at drewbkerr@gmail.com.

Photo by Rick Griffith via Creative Commons

This work by Midwest Energy News is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 United States License.

The Bakken boom towns

Posted on 11/21/2011 by Ken Paulman

While the game-changing oil boom in North Dakota is undoubtedly one of the biggest energy stories of the decade, it’s also fundamentally a story about change.

Part of the appeal of life in the rural Great Plains is solitude and constancy. Lack of economic opportunity and isolation are some of the downsides. North Dakota is rapidly gaining more of the latter and losing the former. When a rural area changes this quickly, tensions are bound to erupt.

This week’s episode of EnergyNOW includes a segment on Williston, North Dakota, the closest “big city” to the heart of the oil boom, where the population has already doubled, hotels are booked solid, and fast-food restaurants are having to bring in foreign students to man the counters.

The Minot Daily News also found similar growing pains in the small town of Alexander, with an official population of 200 people and a steady stream of as many as 8,000 trucks traveling through each day going to and from the oil fields.

The comment thread on last week’s “Bakken from space” post is starting to attract some North Dakota residents, and it’s clear that not everyone is happy with the pace of change. For instance:

“ND is going to burn through the oil fast, a few companies will make loads of money, and the folk who were there AND the folks who moved there will be left in the dust when the oil runs out.”

“They should take our way of life into account. All the state and local officials care about is how we are finally the shining star of the US.”

“Unfortuately, I’ll probably never see this town the way it was again, which is kind of a touchy subject that doesn’t get brought up very much.”

“Growing pains are always hard. Be involved in your communities to make possitive changes instead of whining about “the way things used to be” or maybe you want to return to horse and buggy days too?”

At a minimum, “progress” appears to be in the eye (or, more specifically, the bank account) of the beholder. What are your thoughts?

The post read ’round the world

Posted on 11/17/2011 by Ken Paulman

Monday’s post on the lights from the Bakken oil field being visible from space has taken on a life of its own.

Former colleague Bob Collins at Minnesota Public Radio was the first journalist to pick up the post. Then someone submitted it to Reddit, the popular link-sharing site, and the post subsequently showed up on news sites in the UK, China, and Romania.

And German TV news program, Focus, even put together this video segment:

At least, I think that’s what they’re talking about…

Tag Archives: North Dakota

Bakken’s top producer wants to snuff out natural gas flaring

At North Dakota’s Minot Air Force Base, efficiency is part of the mission

North Dakota summit aims to break pipeline bottleneck