Yesterday took us 84 miles from Glenfield to Hillsboro, our last stop in ND. Unfortunately, we followed a Map My Ride routing that put us on a gravel road for 11 of the last 15 miles, so that was not a fun way to end the day, but it made it doubly good to arrive at camp at the end. Today is a rest day, and tomorrow we move on to Minnesota, which seems like a major step.
We had strong south winds all day again, but we went mostly eastbound, so it could have been much worse. The winds, however, put me in mind of America's, and the world's, energy issues. We have a lot of wind in this country, and the technology now exists to convert wind power to electricity at a cost that is reasonably competitive with coal and natural gas -- and extremely competitive if the environmental costs of fossil fuels are factored in. It's somewhat ironic that parts of ND are now prosperous as a result of the oil boom, and there is also coal mining going on in the state, but no one seems to be exploiting the wind power on a major scale. As plans are developed to try to reduce dependence on fossil fuels, the northern Great Plains, e.g. North Dakota, are seen as a tremendous resource. However, some strong resistance here and in other states has arisen within the local population. A lot of people are saying that wind power may be OK for local use, but they don't want the major deployment of high voltage transmission lines that would be necessary to transmit the power to other parts of the country. That's kind of a head-scratcher for me. I wonder to what extent the coal industry is funding that resistance.
On the lighter side, I thought folks might enjoy the coffee prices at the Finley Cafe in Finley, ND (photo).
Happy Independence Day, everyone!
We had strong south winds all day again, but we went mostly eastbound, so it could have been much worse. The winds, however, put me in mind of America's, and the world's, energy issues. We have a lot of wind in this country, and the technology now exists to convert wind power to electricity at a cost that is reasonably competitive with coal and natural gas -- and extremely competitive if the environmental costs of fossil fuels are factored in. It's somewhat ironic that parts of ND are now prosperous as a result of the oil boom, and there is also coal mining going on in the state, but no one seems to be exploiting the wind power on a major scale. As plans are developed to try to reduce dependence on fossil fuels, the northern Great Plains, e.g. North Dakota, are seen as a tremendous resource. However, some strong resistance here and in other states has arisen within the local population. A lot of people are saying that wind power may be OK for local use, but they don't want the major deployment of high voltage transmission lines that would be necessary to transmit the power to other parts of the country. That's kind of a head-scratcher for me. I wonder to what extent the coal industry is funding that resistance.
On the lighter side, I thought folks might enjoy the coffee prices at the Finley Cafe in Finley, ND (photo).
Happy Independence Day, everyone!
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