In remarks delivered last week to the ND EmPower Commission, McLean County State's Attorney Ladd Erickson said the ND Clean Sustainable Energy Authority (CSEA) should focus on reducing emissions from the state's existing energy sources, rather than straying off the path to support what he termed "disruptive technologies.

CSEA was created by the 2021 ND Legislature (HB 1452) and authorized to issue up to $25 million in grants and $250 million in loans to support the commercialization of projects "that reduce environmental impacts and increase sustainability of energy production and delivery. The eight-member board exhausted its grant and loan authority in three rounds of applications. 

Erickson, speaking on behalf of the Coal Conversion Counties, proposed language to amend the authority's purpose to focus on coal, oil and gas, and ethanol.

Click here to listen to Erickson's comments.

Erickson proposed language that narrows CSEA's focus to "energy derived from agricultural products, lignite coal, or oil and gas." He said the federal government has already devoted funding to hydrogen and other zero-emission technologies, so CSEA should gear its effort to reduce the environmental impact of fossil fuels.

Click here to listen to Erickson's comments.

Erickson said focusing CSEA on fossil fuels would send a message to financial markets about their importance to the economy, and that North Dakota and its industries are working to produce them more cleanly. 

Click here to listen to Erickson's comments.

Erickson said uncertainty about fossil fuels created by the ESG movement (Environmental, Social and Governance) has made it difficult for the oil, gas and coal industries to obtain financing at reasonable rates. He suggested the state consider creating bonding authority to enable the industry to obtain necessary capital at reasonable rates.

Click here to listen to Erickson's comments.

Erickson said the Coal Counties were not seeking an EmPower endorsement of the CSEA amendment he proposed, but said he thought some members of the commission would be interested in working on changes during the 2023 legislative session.

The Coal Conversion Counties Association will hold its annual meeting next week, November 30, at the Civic Center in Center, ND.

The meeting, scheduled to get underway at 6:30 p.m., had previously been set for November 9, but was postponed due to an approaching winter storm.

The event will include presentations from several companies including a Project Tundra update from Craig Bleth with Minnkota Power Cooperative, a Summit Carbon Solutions presentation from Dave Nehring, as well as status reports from Basin Electric Power Cooperative and North American Coal. Attendees will also hear comments about the Clean Sustainable Energy Authority from McLean County State's Attorney Ladd Erickson.

The meeting will also include an overview of expected issues in the upcoming legislative session from WDEA Executive Director Geoff Simon, as well as comments from local legislators Sen. Keith Boehm, outgoing Sen. Howard Anderson, and Reps. Anna Novak and Bill Tveit.

The meeting will conclude with the association's board meeting, election of the board of directors, and choice of a new secretary/treasurer.

Click here to see the agenda.

North Dakota investor-owned utilities and their customers have ways to reduce their use of electricity during periods of peak demand, but one Public Service Commissioner believes programs that curtail electric consumption can go too far. 

The PSC conducted a hearing on the subject November 17, and received comments from Montana-Dakota Utilities, Otter Tail Power Company, and Xcel Energy. The hearing was conducted in response to Congressional passage of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. The law directed that electric utilities "promote the use of demand-response and demand flexibility practices by commercial, residential, and industrial customers to reduce electricity consumption during periods of unusually high demand."

Utilities testified that demand response is employed to address capacity shortfall notifications from regional grid operators, to manage maintenance events on the utility's system, and for economic reasons to avoid the need to purchase power (or build additional capacity) in response to high spot market electricity prices.

PSC Chair Julie Fedorchak said with increasing demands on the grid and growing threats to reliability, utilities should use demand response as much as reasonably possible.

Click here to listen to Fedorchak's comments.

Commissioner Randy Christmann said while demand response is helpful, he cautioned that electricity curtailment policies can affect more than just the utility and its customer. Christmann used as an example the services provided by a welder. He said if power is cut off, welding repairs and other essential services may not be delivered to the welder's customers.

Click here to listen to Christmann's response.

A PSC order directed the three investor-owned utilities to report their existing demand response practices used by commercial, residential, and industrial customers; rates to recover costs for demand-response activities; and opportunities to further promote the use of demand-response. 

Click here to see Montana-Dakota Utilities' response, here to see Otter Tail Power's report; and here to see Xcel Energy's submission.

ND Senators Kevin Cramer and John Hoeven joined colleagues this week calling on the Surface Transportation Board (STB) to fill the three vacant seats on STB’s Rail Energy Transportation Advisory Committee (RETAC) with representatives from the coal industry.

Under its charter, the RETAC committee is to have balanced representation of the nation’s energy industries, with no fewer than three members from the coal industry to ensure the STB can properly address issues impacting the transportation of energy. However, three seats for coal producers have been vacant for more than two years.

“Coal remains the largest volume commodity on our nation’s railways,” the senators wrote in a letter to the STB. “The lack of rail service is keeping coal from being shipped to utilities under service contracts and is even reducing the amount of mined coal. Missed trains and large delays caused by a lack of crews and irregular schedules have forced some coal mines to limit the production of coal, which ultimately results in lost jobs, despite the high demand and abundantly available resources.”

North Dakota, Wyoming and West Virginia produce nearly 60% of coal in the United States. Coal production in the U.S. increased nearly 8% between 2020 and 2021, yet rail transportation options for the coal industry have decreased.

In addition to Cramer and Hoevern, others signing the letter were Cynthia Lummis (R-WY), John Barrasso (R-WY), Steve Daines (R-MT), and Joe Manchin (D-WV).

Click here to read the letter. 

Some North Dakota school districts saw modest enrollment increases this fall, but nothing like the surge in student numbers in the school districts in McKenzie County.

Alexander Public School saw its enrollment jump 19 percent this fall, from 257 students last fall to 306 in the 2022-23 school year. The McKenzie County district in Watford City also saw a big increase, from 1,778 last fall to 2,003 this year, a 12.6 percent increase. The smallest school district in the county - Yellowstone No. 14 (East Fairview) - also jumped from 68 students last year to 92 this fall. 

Overall, enrollment in the state's public school districts increased about 1.3 percent this year to 115,385, up roughly 1,500 students from one year ago. Enrollment figures in other western ND districts generally reflect the state's modest growth:

Beulah 753 (up 16)
Dickinson 3,875 (up 82)
Hazen 560 (down 7)
Killdeer 601 (up 31)
Minot 7,561 (down 44)
South Heart 388 (up 2)
Stanley 753 (up 10)
Tioga 516 (up 41)
Williston Basin No.7 5,292 (up 153)

A big surge in enrollment can put a lot of stress on school administrators to cope with the higher numbers.

"The impact of the student growth has been primarily in staffing as we have adequate facilities to accommodate the numbers," said McKenzie County Superintendent Steve Holen. "However, our elementary schools are both in the 80-to-90 percent capacity range at this point."

Holen said districts are still addressing learning loss issues related to the COVID-19 pandemic and use of distance learning, a task made more difficult by the district's struggle to fill teaching positions.

"We would take another four or five elementary teachers today as we had to reassign other staff to teaching positions (interventionists, coaches, etc.) due to the inability to hire additional classroom teachers," Holen said. "Class sizes are at higher than optimal levels at the elementary schools and they are also creating some challenges with the core subjects at the middle school and high school."

He said the situation puts a lot of stress on teachers, especially with students of varying academic levels, and also creates a challenge in the recruitment of new teaching staff for next year which has already begun. Despite the challenges, Holen said healthy enrollment numbers are "a very positive situation."

Click here to see a spreadsheet with North Dakota K-12 enrollment figures from the past 14 years.

ND Senator Kevin Cramer had nothing good to say this week about the Biden administration's acceptance of a new “loss and damage” fund  in which developed countries would pay for "climate damages" in developing countries.

Under the plan arising out of the latest international climate convention, the fund will help developing countries respond to “economic and non-economic loss and damage associated with the adverse effects of climate change, including extreme weather events.” The deal provides no money, and no organizational structure, saying such details will be worked out in the coming months.

Cramer, in a statement released to the media, said a climate reparations fund "wasn’t even on my list of the top 1 million things the United States should do with money we don’t have.”

Click here to listen to Cramer's comments.

Cramer, in an appearance on Fox Business News with Larry Kudlow, said Congress has not provided any authority or appropriations for a climate reparations fund. He noted that China, the world's largest emitter of carbon dioxide, would be considered eligible for reparations based on definitions of the United Nations.

Click here to listen to Cramer's comments.

Cramer said the Biden administration should be encouraging American energy production, rather than imposing regulations that force the US to rely on countries where the energy is produced less cleanly.

Click here to watch Kudlow's full interview with Cramer.

ND Senators John Hoeven and Kevin Cramer joined Iowa Senators Joni Ernst and Chuck Grassley this week in pressing the Environmental Protection Agency not to place overly burdensome emission regulations on the trucking industry.

The senators stressed the current constraints on the nation’s supply chain and outlined the costs of the agency’s proposed regulations on tailpipe nitrogen oxide emissions from commercial motor vehicles. The EPA proposed a rule that provides two options for reducing NOx emissions. Option 1 drastically aims to reduce 90 percent of NOx emissions by 2031, which will be costly to the trucking industry and risk thousands of good-paying jobs. 

“This is a burdensome proposal that would impose excessive costs on new commercial vehicles and lead to a decrease in truck sales, ultimately diminishing fleet turnover and increasing the age of the on-road fleet,” wrote the senators. 

The senators’ letter urges the EPA to move forward with Option 2, which seeks a 75 percent reduction in NOx emissions by 2027.

“We urge you to finalize a rule that is technologically achievable, acceptable, and affordable to American customers who haul freight and work from these trucks. Estimates show that Option 1 would raise the price of heavy-duty diesel trucks by an average of $42,000, as well as increase operating costs and likely cause a ‘pre-buy, no-buy’ scenario that would harm the market,” wrote the senators.

Click here to read the letter. 

In a pre-Thanksgiving Day email to members, the president and CEO of the Lignite Energy Council notes that while inflation has driven up the price of items needed to prepare the holiday meal, the price of the coal-based electricity required to prepare it is about the same as it was several years ago.

Jason Bohrer points out that "inflation has hit families in the Upper Midwest like a ton of bricks." Bohrer writes that, according to the American Farm Bureau, the price increases from 2020 to 2021 are astonishing:

• 14 oz. bag of stuffing mix - Up 69%
• Two frozen pie crusts - Up 26%
• Dozen dinner rolls - Up 22%
• 30 oz. can of pumpkin pie mix - Up 18%

Bohrer writes that according to USA Today, the average cost for a Thanksgiving dinner in 2018 was $48.90, but this year estimates put it at $64.00. He said those same cost increases do not apply to lignite.

"A few years ago, I calculated the cost of electricity to power my home and family’s Thanksgiving dinner. We figured the cost to power Thanksgiving was $6.62," Bohrer wrote. "This year the cost is basically the same, it’s gone up just five cents to $6.67."

Bohrer said prices have remained stable because North Dakota’s lignite industry provides consistently affordable electricity year after year.

"The people who work in the industry take pride in being efficient and providing a product that can compete with any fuel source," he wrote. 

Bohrer concludes the email noting that North Dakotans have a lot to be thankful for this season.

"In a country reeling from inflation and economic hardship, energy policies matter," he wrote. "We have made it clear that energy can create wealth and prosperity sustainably, and live in harmony with our environment."

Power Kinetic Networks (PKN) and Enerplus Resources announced an agreement this week for the use of PKN's small scale portable Project Gemini low environmental impact carbon dioxide capture technologies to reduce emissions from Enerplus well pads in the Williston Basin.

Funding for the project was obtained in part from a $1 million grant awarded by the Clean Sustainable Energy Authority. PKN and Enerplus also received support for the project from the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara (MHA) Nation.

The Gemini project trials will assist Enerplus with its ESG initiatives to reduce emissions by capturing CO2 emitted at the source. PKN will provide two compact, modular, 20-ton-CO2 per day Gemini carbon capture facilities to recover the CO2 from mobile power generators located at well pads on the MHA Nation.

The first PKN Gemini facility is planned to start operation during the first half of 2023, with the pilot operations assisting with scaling up to commercial units for potential deployment throughout Enerplus' operations.

View more details in the companies' news release here. 

MDU Resources Group announced its plans this week to make capital investments totaling $3.5 billion over the five-year period beginning in 2023.

"Our capital investment plan includes a number of key projects that are expected to provide organic growth across our businesses, with particular emphasis on upgrades and expansions to our electric transmission and distribution infrastructure and our natural gas transportation and distribution systems," said CEO Dave Goodin. "These capital investments encompass all our businesses while we continue to make progress toward our strategic initiatives of creating two pure-play public companies."

Plans include a 27% increase in utility operation investments compared to the previous five years. The company expects its electric and natural gas utilities to grow 6-to-7% annually over the next five years. Customer growth is expected to continue rising 1-to-2% annually across the company's eight-state service territory. 

The capital investment plan includes meeting customer growth needs as well as replacing, expanding and modernizing infrastructure within the electric and natural gas distribution systems. The investments will provide enhanced reliability and safety across the company's systems.

In August the company announced its intent to separate Knife River Corporation, which is expected to be effected as a tax-free spinoff to MDU Resources shareholders. The corporation also announced a strategic review process for MDU Construction Services Group, Inc. for consideration as a possible spinoff. 

Read more at this link. 

The Medora-themed Christmas Show entitled "Christmas Memories" has scheduled performances in 20 communities in the Dakotas and Minnesota during the month of December.

Stops for the show in western North Dakota include Williston December 9, Tioga on December 10 and Minot on December 17. 

It's the sixth year for the show, which features past and present performers from the Medora musical, including Queen of the West, Emily Walter, Travis Smith, Amberly Rosen, Misti Koop, and show host, Bill Sorensen. Magician Colin Zasadny and The Waddington Brothers acoustic quartet will also join the show this year.

Sorensen started the Medora Christmas show. In previous years, the Theodore Roosevelt Medora Foundation produced it. This year, the foundation was busy with other shows, so Bill Sorensen Productions, is putting it on.

For a list of dates, go to medorachristmas.com.