Straw-bale building construction on the Rosebud Reservation

“USDA Rural Development South Dakota is accepting applications for grants and loan guarantees from agricultural producers and rural small business to install renewable energy systems, make energy efficiency improvements or conduct feasibility studies for a renewable energy system.”

For more info., contact the USDA Rural Development office that serves your county. List is here.

Solar panel display at the Minnesota State Fair

While the school districts that are worried about their budgets certainly have my sympathy, local ownership of renewable energy in South Dakota will never fulfill its potential to create jobs and wealth if all the financial incentives the state offers go only to large-scale projects.

To get a sense of how far South Dakota needs to go to catch up with the incentives offered by neighboring states, check out this chart. (.Pdf file – chart begins on page 20.)

It’s nice to see nuns leading the way for South Dakota.

Thanks to Pete Carrels for letting me know about this.

He called on farmers to be more aggressive in opposing the climate bill and any other attacks on agriculture, including characterizations of “factory farmer, industrial food and big ag.”

The NYT notes that the level of rhetoric used by the Farm Bureau has racheted up. This is the part that amazes me. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce went down the same path recently, wound up losing some of its big business partners, and generally looked foolish.

There have already been two signs that the Farm Bureau may be overreaching.

1) The South Dakota Corn Growers Association, “considered a resolution opposing cap and trade but ultimately took no position.” They couldn’t get immediate passage of the resolution out of the SD Corn Growers?

2) According to the NYT article, the Farm Bureau has publicly dissed scientists who signed a letter asking the national Farm bureau to discuss climate change with them. Scientists don’t take kindly to that, and it will sway other scientists and academics.

This would just be the usual politicking, but the national Farm Bureau doesn’t seem to realize it has a big vulnerability — its Farm Bureau Financial Services arm. If national Farm Bureau wrecks public opinion of the Farm Bureau name, the financial services business could be hurt.

Curbside recycling worker in Vermillion, SD

Thank you for your dedicated service!

Air pollution kiosk in Badlands National Park

Air pollution is enough of a problem in Badlands National Park that there’s an information kiosk about it in the park (photo).

What’s North Dakota doing that creates air pollution in five states? Burning a lot of coal. The plan North Dakota wants to put in place would reduce some of the air pollution from its coal plants, but at its current rate of reducing pollution, would take far, far beyond 2064 to reach clean air.

2064 is a key year in the Clean Air Act rules that require the clean up plan. The plan is related to our nation’s laws that protect us from air pollution.

Nevertheless, North Dakota’s Director of the Division of Air Quality thinks the state’s plan would do enough. You can read his views in this article.

You can send comments on the plan today to
Terry O’Clair
Director, Division of Air Quality
North Dakota Department of Health
toclair@nd.gov

The North Dakota Department of Health requests that emailed comments also be sent to them in hardcopy: 918 East Divide Avenue, Bismarck, ND 58501.

As the kiosk in Badlands National Park says, “You can help to clear the air. Conserve electricity. Carpool. Recycle. And involve yourself in air quality issues.”

Kelly Fuller in Badlands National Park

Tomorrow’s the last day for the public to comment on a North Dakota Department of Health plan to clean up the air in national parks and wilderness area in five states.

Under regulations related to the Clean Air Act, states are required to create plans to clean up the air over certain national parks, national forests, and wilderness areas. North Dakota’s draft plan is weak, and the federal land managers responsible for these areas have raised concerns about it. (Yep, their letter starts off by applauding the plan, but that’s standard protocol before getting to their real concerns, which they describe as “serious.”)

Which national parks are affected? Wind Cave, Badlands, Theodore Roosevelt, Voyageurs, Isle Royale. Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness and a few other wilderness areas are as well.

I feel sheepish about linking to something I’m quoted in, but you can read more about the issue in this good article from the Argus Leader.

Written comments must be received by January 8, 2010 and should be sent to:
Terry O’Clair
Director, Division of Air Quality
North Dakota Department of Health
toclair@nd.gov

The North Dakota Department of Health requests that emailed comments also be sent to them in hardcopy: 918 East Divide Avenue, Bismarck, ND 58501.

It’s out in the middle of what most folks would consider nowhere — northwest Iowa. Although I’ve never been to Estherville, I travel through the surrounding area several times a year. There’s not much there besides farms and the occasional market town.

Yet Estherville somehow has a daily paper, and that daily paper is chockful of hope for the town becoming a center of the wind industry.

Today’s happy Estherville news: two students from the wind energy technology program at the local community college are featured in a national Duracell battery commercial. One’s a former coal miner.