Today’s Brown County Democratic Forum featured speeches and lively Q&A with our District 3 House candidates Nikki Bootz and Brooks Briscoe.
At both today’s event and her remarks to the organizational meeting of the Aberdeen HS Democrats on Saturday, Bootz expressed her opposition to the Dakota Access Pipeline. In Q&A after her opening remarks, Bootz recognized that Donald Trump is a “dangerous” candidate, but as you can hear above, she notes that she can find Trump supporters agreeing with her on state issues like Amendment T, since everyone wants basic fairness in redistricting. Also in Q&A, Bootz said she finds issues like Referred Law 20 drawing independent voters toward the Democratic side.
Briscoe built nicely on Bootz’s opening remarks:
Sounding like Jay Williams, Paula Hawks, Henry Red Cloud, and everyone else who understands the meaning of sustainability, Briscoe said we need to wean ourselves from fossil fuels and invest in renewable energy instead of oil pipelines. Reaffirming his faith in ballot-measure synergy, Briscoe said the Republicans positions on some ballot measures (e.g., their support for the minimum wage for young workers, their opposition to payday lending rate caps, their resistance to independent redistricting) shows their ideals lie with their PACs rather than with the people. Briscoe said he is eager to challenge his District 3 House opponents to lay out their views on the ballot measures and see if they can pass muster with the voters.
I’m glad to see Bootz bringing the Dakota Access pipeline to the attention of District 3 voters. I hope we can tie her conversation and Briscoe’s drive for renewables into the problem of private companies like Dakota Access seizing South Dakotans’ land through eminent domain.
I’m also happy to see Briscoe and Bootz focusing on ballot questions, breaking us away from personalities and national-level distractions and inviting conversations about the real, unique, and pressing policy decisions facing South Dakotans in this election.
Also calling for us to get off fossil fuels: Winona LaDuke, who says real energy independence comes from powering our own communities with solar and wind, not surrendering our land rights and imperiling our water with foreign companies’ pipelines:
http://www.democracynow.org/2016/9/12/native_american_activist_winona_laduke_at
What about hydro?
In 2014, the EIA reports that South Dakota consumed the following amounts of energy (one BTU is a British Thermal Unit):
Coal: 33.1 Trillion BTU
Natural Gas: 83.5 Trillion BTU
Motor Gasoline (no Ethanol): 50.4 Trillion BTU
Distillate Fuel Oil: 45.6 Trillion BTU
Jet fuel: 5.7 Trillion BTU
LPG: 6.7 Trillion BTU
Other Petroleum: 5.5 Trillion BTU
Hydroelectric Power: 52.3 Trillion BTU
Biomass: 62.7 Trillion BTU
Other Renewables (includes Wind): 24.1 Trillion BTU
Net Interstate Flow of Electricity: 22.3 Trillion BTU
So by far we consume more natural gas than anything else for all of our uses of energy. That includes commercial, industrial, residential, etc.
Can we add more dams to the Missouri? Is it possible to build reliable power generation on any of our other waterways? (If I recall correctly, Spearfish does get some auxiliary power from Spearfish Creek.)
I don’t think there are any more big rivers left to discover and dam any more :^). The two real growth areas in hydro are going to be micro-hydro (streams instead of rivers) and pumped hydro energy storage.
Drought is always a big challenge to hydro.
https://www.eia.gov/dnav/ng/ng_cons_sum_dcu_SSD_a.htm
In 2015, our natural gas use (millions of cubic feet) broke down this way:
Residential: 11,638
Commercial: 10,497
Industrial: 44,683
Electric Power: 7,083
The industrial use has been increasing over the past 5 years from 40,755 in 2010, about 10%. The electric power use has been increasing much faster…it was only 1,600 in 2010, so it has increased by almost 450%!
Micro-hydro—time to rebuild the Queen Bee mill in Sioux Falls?
Mr. H, more dams goes against the libbie tree-hugger agendas, you know. There are people, like my friend Lar, who want to remove all dams and let the waters be free. Much like the wild horses now caged, we should let the waters range free, they would argue.
I agree with you. More dams. Instead of giant ponds of water behind a gargantuan dam, let us build a series of turbines down stream from said gargantuan dam and let the water do its thing over and over and over instead of just one time.
And if we can store some of this energy by just winding a big weight up The Borehole using some of that free flowing water power then so be it, even if it’s just as a demonstration for school kids from Iowa who visit and the guide says “now watch this light bulb when I release this rope and drop the weight down The Borehole just a bit.” It would be green AND educational.
Dr. McTaggart, does that 62 trillion BTUs of biomass mean fancy kelp beds that churn electricity or basically burning of wood? I would tell you that back in my day we heated and cooked most everything by burning good old renewable wood. Burning wood is just good sense when you live in a forest, unless that’s going to make the carbon monsters get us later.
I’m not exactly sure where that biomass total is coming from, but I think it includes ethanol and anything you may burn like wood or wood pellets.
I guess if every micro-brewery was powered by micro-hydro, everyone would feel a lot better….
I wonder what this means: http://www.keloland.com/news/article/news/pipeline-developer-buys-ranch-near-north-dakota-protest-camp
It means the Pinkertons are coming, and they are bearing picks and shovels.