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There's a few Sunday morning posts below.Dave Kranz is discussing George McGovern's fight against hunger in his Sunday column. Tim Johnson is seeking intern applicants if anybody is interested. My Broncos go into their game 5-1--five consecutive wins--against the Giants...

ssAnne Applebaum, author of Gulag, has a great piece in the Washington Post contrasting the trial of Saddam Hussein with the Nuremburg trials in Germany following World War II. Excerpt:Yet Nuremberg was, in retrospect, a huge success, and as the...

From Rush Limbaugh: Here is Justice Breyer once again talking about foreign law, and this goes right to the point that I was trying to make to Trudy and I have for several weeks, months, if you will, on this...

A friend sent me a story from the Chronicle for Higher Education (subscription required) which features a study indicating the overwhelming majority of all politically active professors at top law schools are Democrats. The survey is part of a paper...

I was a Cards fan as a boy, but I have to say that a Houston trip to the Fall Classic would be marvelous. Its official. Houston is in its first World Series. My opinions on baseball are my own...

I've been writing about free speech of late because some of SDP's critics are so obviously hostile to the idea. Fortunately these would-be bullies are about as threatening as the Smurfs discussed in my last post. NCATE is another matter....

Stephanie Herseth voted against House Resolution 3893, Gasoline for America's Security Act of 2005: To expedite the construction of new refining capacity in the United States, to provide reliable and affordable energy for the American people, and for other purposes....

Deal 'opens the door' to wind power

DEFINITELY A WIN-WIN-WIN for South Dakota's Economy!

One of the biggest hinderances to the development of more wind power in South Dakota has been a lack of enough transmission line capacity to get the electricity to where it's needed.

There is a positive logic to the addition of a new coal-burning plant also. The US has an abundance of coal, and large deposits of high quality low-sulfur coal are just to the west in Wyoming. There is a synergy that comes into play here with a three-way synergistic development of South Dakota's utility and transportation infrastructure which is catalyzed by the planned construction of a new coal-burning power plant at Big Stone.

The first element of this synergy is the expansion of the DM&E Railroad, which, in spite of the usual opposition from envirowacko activist groups and assorted other NIMBY (Non-In-My-Backyard types pushed through approval of extending it's lines into the Wyoming coal fields, and upgrade of its existing mainlines to handle the greatly increased traffic that results from this. (See note 1 in extended entry) This increases the availability of coal for new plants.

With the abundance of coal, and modern abatement technology, it is possible to burn low-sulfur coal with a minimum amount of air pollution, plus it helps to increase the electric power capacity, which is an essential positive factor for continued economic growth in the area. (See Note 2)

Finally, this proposed coal plant will bring in a significantly serious excess in electrical power transmission capacity, above and beyound the needs of the new plant. This excess capacity is available for the development of large(r) scale wind turbine developments, which (a) provides yet more electricity, (b) is a clean, renewable energy source, and (c) provides yet another boost to the local economic structure.

So, what's the "win-win-win"? More needed electrical power, use of domestic coal instead of imported oil, and the enabled development of even cleaner wind power capacity. Three birds with one "Big Stone". Not too bad.

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