Building major energy infrastructure projects like pipelines or refineries is really, really hard. There are reams of federal, state, and local red tape which must be dealt with before ground can even be broken. And, in more recent years, there is also the (sometimes violent) political activism complete with seemingly endless legal challenges. The point…
Less Than 100 Sign Dakota Resource Council Petition To Audit Oil Regulators
It often seems as though the left-wing activists who are out to stop fossil fuel energy development get an inordinate amount of attention from the media, far in excess of their actual on-the-ground support in the state. A recent case-in-point is an online petition launched by the Dakota Resource Council calling for an audit of…
Fracking Moratorium Goes Down In Flames In…California?
This is a couple of weeks old, but I missed it. It seems that even in oh-so-green California, home to militant environmentalists and a liberal super-majority in state government, the economic benefits of fracking are clear to a majority: Democratic leaders brought their fracking moratorium bill to the Assembly floor last week, and their rank…
The Keystone Pipeline Would Save Lives In North Dakota
Traffic is up in North Dakota, and more people/vehicles on the roads means more fatalities. A big chunk of the traffic increase in the state stems from trucks transporting oil. There’s not enough pipeline or rail capacity to take all the oil produced out of the state. But if the Keystone XL pipeline were built,…
North Dakota's Oil, Coal Counties Get Top Ratings For Air Quality
North Dakota is a fossil fuel state, with strong oil and coal industries. And from the way environmentalists talk about the state’s energy industry, you’d also think that they were destroying our environment. Not so, it seems. Despite the oil activity and natural gas flaring in oil country, and despite the seven large electrical plants…
Tax Credits Will Do Little To Curb Flaring
There’s some common ground between folks who are friendly to oil development and environmental activists who want to shut it down over legislation handing out tax credits for reductions in natural gas flaring. As oil production in North Dakota’s oil patch has increased, so has natural gas flaring. So much so that, seen from space,…
Despite Flaring, Coal Mines Dakotas Have Some Of The Cleanest Air In The Nation
Some inconvenient truth for the environmentalists who would have us believe that North Dakota’s energy industry – including coal mines and thousands of oil wells flaring off natural gas daily – is having a negative impact on the state’s environment. Turns out it’s not, really, at least as measured by air quality anyway. The American…
Land Owners Win The Second Battle Of Killdeer Mountain
The Battle of Killdeer Mountain was a conflict between the US military and Sioux tribes in western North Dakota. It’s a fairly significant historical event, and there is a great deal of information and artifacts already collected from it. But here’s the thing: Today the Kildeer Mountain battlefield, much of which is privately owned, sits…
Bill To Restrict Natural Gas Flaring Voted Down In The North Dakota Senate
We’ve all seen the satellite pictures of the Bakken oil fields lit up nearly as bright as urban centers like Minneapolis and Chicago. Most of those lights are the result of natural gas flaring. All the oil drilling taps into natural gas deposits. The gas must be vented off to get at the oil, but…
Democrat Proposed Flaring Restriction Would Throw Monkey Wrench Into Oil Production
I don’t think anyone likes flaring, which is the burning off of natural gas from oil wells (right now 30% of the natural gas produced in the Bakken is flared). Environmentalists don’t like it because of the emissions. The oil companies and the capitalists don’t like it because natural gas is valuable, and if there’s…