Minnesota takes aim at North Dakota
Minnesota (my beloved home state) has just fired a shot across their western border towards North Dakota. From Scientific American:
To encourage the switch to clean renewable energy Minnesota plans to add a carbon fee of between $4 and $34 per ton of carbon dioxide emissions to the cost of coal-fired electricity, to begin in 2012, to discourage the use of coal power; the greatest source of greenhouse gas emissions.
To provide some context, North Dakota is a state with dwindling population and abundant cheap coal. There are a number of coal-fired power plants that export electricity across their borders to the more populated (and less coal-rich) Minnesota.
Continuing the article,
State officials in North Dakota are mounting a legal battle against Minnesota. State officials argue that this would unfairly discourage coal-powered electricity sales in favor of renewably powered electricity.
Really, North Dakota. No shit.
Fortunately for their state, North Dakota is also blessed with an abundance of wind resources. The same high voltage lines that carry dirty coal electricity could be used to export wind power instead.
There’s two ways they can play this:
1) Use the tariff as a direct financial incentive to agressively build wind farms and increase local employment
Or
2) Spend millions of tax dollars fighting the tariff in court and continue down the dead-end of coal power plants.
I wonder which path North Dakota will take?
Filed under climate change, economics, energy, environment, politics : Comments (1) : Jan 6th, 2010 by tadfad
January 6th, 2010 at 20:08
Windfarm in ND? Why not Minot?
http://www.windpoweringamerica.gov/images/windmaps/nd_50m_800.jpg