Bakken update – 8/28

 

Image courtesy of DollarPhotoClub.com
Image courtesy of DollarPhotoClub.com

A few articles on what’s going on in Bakken: tougher trafficking laws in effect, Williston Walmart no longer open 24 hours a day, $18 billion in state reserves, and new Williston airport moving forward.

7/8 – Bismarck Tribune – County okays windfarm near Tioga on a split vote – Landowners organized an effort to develop a wind farm which was bought by a commercial company. That effort has now led to a 75 turbine project that has been approved by County commissioners.

The Lindahl Wind Project is now a subsidiary of Enel Green Power North America.

The 75 slice-and-dicer towers will be spread over 13,000 acres, or about 20 square miles. That gives an average of 3.7 turbines per square mile.

Project is designed to have a theoretical capacity of 150 MW.

Article says the expected cost is $150M. If accurate, that puts the construction cost at about $1M per megawatt of theoretical maximum production.

Project has a 20 year purchase contract for whatever amount of electricity is actually produced.

8/19 – Bakken.com – North Dakota’s $18.5 billion cash fortress – The state has $18.5B in the bank, an increase of $2.9B in the last 12 months. That is up over $10B from 2011.

Sarcasm alert: I sure am glad that California will never use fracking to extract oil from the as-yet-untapped shale oil in the state. We wouldn’t want to ever get in a situation where we are adding billions into our reserves every year. Right? We don’t need more tax revenue or thousands of new jobs.

7/31 – Dickinson Press – Tougher ND human trafficking laws  take effect today – New laws include providing a ‘safe harbor’ for minors tangled up in trafficking, treating them as victims instead of perpetrators. Penalties for trafficking increased.

I previously described a seven part series by Amy Dalrymple: Human trafficking – the dark side of life.

There are ugly parts of this wonderful world. Wonderful to see progress in the battle against one dark area.

8/7 – Williston Herald – Walmart no longer 24 hours as of Aug. 15 For several years the Walmart in Williston has been open 24 hours a day. Starting in the middle of August, they will actually close from 1 AM to 6 AM.

Stated reason is this will allow the store to restock the shelves. A frequent criticism of the store is they bring a pallet of stuff out onto the floor and leave it sitting on the floor. Reason? Stuff gets sold so fast it’s not worth the time to put it on the shelf.

It is possible the unstated but underlying reason may be the level of sales in the small hours of the morning has dropped to the point that is not worth keeping the store staffed.

When I’ve been in the store it wasn’t crazy busy, but that is was during the middle part of the day. Even at that low time, they were far busier than any of the big box stores here in California.

8/24 – Williston Wire – New Airport will strengthen Williston’s role in Bakken – Planning for new airport started in 2011. Construction may start this fall. Operations may start in mid-2018.

New airport will be on 1,800 acres five miles northwest of the current 900 acre airport.

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