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The documentary was shown on PBS June 29. It is available for live streaming at the PBS website here. Will be available free until July 15, 2015.
You can find the trailer for the PBS showing at the following link:
http://video.pbs.org/viralplayer/2365471685
This is the final post in a series discussing my reactions to the director’s cut of the documentary, The Overnighters.
I was privileged to be able to see a screening of the documentary when Jesse Moss, the director, was personally present for a question & answer session after the viewing.
Here is one the questions asked, which is as close to a quote as I can recall:
Why don’t the oil companies, who are making billions of dollars from all the oil, do something to take care of the homeless in Williston?
The questioner wanted to know essentially how there can be any homelessness in Williston with the huge amount of profits made by the big bad oil companies.
I chuckled.
Continue reading “Thoughts about the Director’s Cut from The Overnighters documentary – part 7”
Each month after the statistics are released for North Dakota oil production, I run a few graphs showing the story of what is going on there.
Here are a few more for May 2015.
Average number of producing wells by year. This is the number of producing wells in the statistics, here and here, with my calculation of the average of the monthly amounts. You can see a breakout in 2010 and 2011. The huge increases are in ’12, 13, and ’14. Even with the slump in prices, which led to a drastic drop in the number of drilling rigs, the average number rigs in ’15 has increased more than any year prior to ’12. Continue reading “A few more tidbits on rising oil production in North Dakota – 5/15”
Production state-wide rose 2.75% to average of 1,201,159 barrels per day. That is the second highest ever, only behind December 2014 which was 1,227,529 bopd. Keep in mind this is with a slump in drilling. I’m guessing that flat production is not what the OPEC ministers were expecting when opened the spigots of their production.
Here is what the average production looks like in Bakken field only and state-wide: Continue reading “North Dakota oil production hits second highest level ever in May 2015”
Per megawatt:
As I notice articles describing the construction cost to build wind and solar facilities, I’m accumulating the information. A while back there was a discussion on the resale price. Compared to slice-and-dicers, a brand new car holds its value incredibly well.
Depreciation from driving a car off the dealer’s lot is nothin’ compared to a wind turbine.
4/17 – Million Dollar Way- Let’s Do The Math — April 17, 2015; Original Price: $2.6 Million / MW — Sold For $500K / MW Continue reading “Resale price of a wind farm, almost new, barely any miles, just off the dealer’s lot”
This is the sixth and next to last post on my thoughts after viewing the director’s cut. Just a few more ideas before concluding with my reaction to a question asked by a person at the screening I attended.
Role of the newspaper
I think I’ll hold off for another day the role played by a reporter brought into town and the editor of the city paper.
One idea is the appropriate boundary between reporting a story of public interest on one hand and becoming part of the story or creating fear on the other hand.
Continue reading “Thoughts about the Director’s Cut from The Overnighters documentary – part 6”
One final lesson that those of us in leadership at local churches or parachurch ministries can learn from the documentary The Overnighters. Previous lessons learned are visible here and here.
Hurting people hurt people. Alan and Paul turned on the pastor. They were quite angry with him and their outbursts were caught on camera. Comments in the director’s cut help me understand that they struck out in anger because of the hurts in their lives. Continue reading “Thoughts about the Director’s Cut from The Overnighters documentary – part 5”
The California Public Utilities Commission approved a plan to dramatically change the pricing of electricity for residential users in the state.
Since we’re talking regulators who like regulation and complexity you have to be an accountant, engineer, or economist in order to understand this jumble. I think I get the basic picture.
Currently there are four different pricing ‘tiers’ based on how much electricity you use. The price for each level of usage is different. For example, our statements last summer gave an interpretive chart listing the various prices as motivator to conserve electricity: Continue reading “Under new pricing structure, electricity costs will increase for most Californians. Or stay the same. Or maybe increase for efficient homes.”
Two more lessons learned that leaders in churches and ministries can pick up from The Overnighters documentary. The first three lessons are here.
In this post:
Continue reading “Thoughts about the Director’s Cut from The Overnighters documentary – part 4”
I’m accumulating data points on the construction cost to build energy facilities. Two articles give info on three projects:
Continue reading “Two more data points on cost to build renewable energy sources”
The Wall Street Journal reports First Offshore Wind Farm in U.S. Powers Ahead – The first offshore wind turbines in the US will start construction soon and is expected to produce electricity late next year. Located a few miles off Block Island, Rhode Island, the turbines will replace diesel as source of electricity for the 1,000 residents.
The electricity has been purchased under a contract with National Grid with starting prices above market and rates to increase 3.5% each year for the 20 year life of the contract. Cost for the residents of the island will go down because this is replacing expensive diesel that is shipped to the island.
After some background, let’s look at the construction costs per megawatt of theoretical capacity.
This post continues my reflections on a documentary describing the overnighters program at a church in Williston, which provided housing to people looking for work when sufficient housing was not available in the area. First of three discussions on lessons learned from my perspective as one of the leaders in my congregation.
Lessons learned
From the perspective of leadership training in the local church, there are many lessons to be learned from the documentary. Here are six for your consideration:
The first three:
Beware the Lone Ranger mentality. While I loved that TV series as a kid, that show contains a poor model for adults. Ministry in both a local church and a parachurch organization requires teamwork. Continue reading “Thoughts about the Director’s Cut from The Overnighters documentary – part 3”
Update 7/17/17: Welcome to those checking out the page. I have some followup on The Overnighters documentary:
The PBS pages set up to talk about The Overnighters documentary have a lot of information. PBS aired the documentary on June 29.
There is a 19 minute interview with Jesse Moss. Most of the comments there will be familiar to anyone who’s read lots of posts on my blog or watched the documentary. If you weren’t aware of what is happening in the North Dakota oil fields before watching the documentary, that interview would be a great way to get up to speed.
Here is some update on the characters and then general goal of the documentary.
Background and follow-up of the main subjects of the documentary
The “About the Characters” page gives some background of many of the people the documentary focuses upon.
The “Film Update” page follows up on several of the people.
Continue reading “Where are they now? Followup on people you saw in The Overnighters documentary.”
The documentary was shown on PBS June 29. It is available for live streaming at the PBS website here. Will be available free until July 15, 2015.
You can find the trailer for the PBS showing at the following link:
http://video.pbs.org/viralplayer/2365471685
Keith Graves is awaiting trial in North Dakota on 10 federal counts which includes 7 allegations of human trafficking. He is a main player in The Overnighters documentary. I have discussed his situation on my blog several times.
His trial was scheduled to start July 13. Continue reading “Keith Graves’ trial postponed to October 19, 2015”