Larry Waith has a small wind turbine, which he set up on his own land in Wishek. The unobtrusive 2600-watt unit sits atop an unremarkable 12 meter pole, whirring softly as it generates free electricity for Waith’s home.

The City of Wishek wants him to take it down.

Why have they done this? Because Brent Thielges, a city councilman who lives nearby, is annoyed by his neighbour’s personal initiative and environmental responsibility, and compares it to torture.

Yeah, I can totally see how saving money and not burning fossil fuels to power your television rates up there with brutalizing someone’s humanity.

Thielges complained to his fellow councilmen, who acquiesced to his campaign of red tape against Waith. Mr. Waith was willing to pay a small fine for forgetting to ask for a building permit, but will not stand for the council to impose more fines for the turbine to remain standing.

After a month of back-and forth, the matter is to go before a judge. Does the City of Wishek really believe they can subject landowners to bills of attainder based largely on the whims of just one of its members?

The proposed refinery near New Town will not be used to process local oil, but instead Tar Sands oil from Alberta. Meanwhile, groups on the reservation want the decision to build a refinery put up to the people.

The refining process for this oil leaves pools of toxic sludge in open-air “tailing ponds”.  With no real plan to clean them up, the Athabasca River and a number of aboriginal communities along it are now one levee break away from peril.  Aboriginal groups in Alberta are exhausting every legal means to exert their original land claims to slow down oil sands development.

Why should anyone in North Dakota support a plan that uses Alberta’s filthy oil, when there’s plenty pumped out around here to feed the modest capacity of this new plant?

T. Boone Pickens is throwing in the towel on his Texas wind farm, but up here things are looking brighter for adding new electrical capacity.  Montana-Dakota Utilities has joined a plan for major new transmission lines between the upper Midwest and big cities.

Earl Pomeroy has come out against the cap-and-trade program for carbon dioxide emissions, citing that North Dakota’s cooperatives burn coal for their power.

It’s plainly the wrong call to stand against key measures to reduce pollution. North Dakota’s Rural Electric Cooperatives, like everyone else, have to be responsible to the environment we all share. Given their close ties to our community, I think with prodding, they could appreciate that sentiment and accept the need for change.  They need to start putting more money into wind power, before the foreign companies that have been moving in so far buy out all of our skies.

Let’s not forget that there are hundreds of corporate coal plants beyond the borders of our state that have demonstrated no ethics but those which the law requires of them. We need new rules.

Senator Dorgan is getting the spotlight at the YouTube Senate hub, asking the public for ideas to solve the nation’s energy crisis. You can add your ideas and vote on the others!

The State of North Dakota is buying the services of a British business consulting firm, Deyton Bell, to help attract manufacturers of wind power equipment to North Dakota.  This is probably the closest we’re going to get to concrete action on wind development from a GOP administration.  Too bad it didn’t happen before the recession.

The Canadians are positively thrilled, even though Barack Obama and Stephen Harper aren’t exactly on the same side of the aisle on any number of issues.

Obama is quietly hoping for continued Canadian support in Afghanistan, but the war hasn’t exactly sat well with peace-loving Canadians.  Steven Harper nearly lost his government over the last mission extension, and probably can’t risk it again given his tenuous hold over Parliament.

The bigger news is the new environmental agreement the two governments are starting to implement, which will soon see better regulations across North America on carbon emissions.

The new refinery near New Town is about 3 months from its final report from the EPA.  If it goes forward, the new refinery will be small but cost $250 million to build — not exactly chump change, but it is a step toward better economic development in west central North Dakota, and it lets us refine more of our own gasoline.

It’s not a permanent energy solution by any means, but infrastructure is infrastructure, and as long as the new refinery doesn’t pollute the land and water, it’s a good deal for our state.

The paperwork is dropping on a new transmission line from here to Chicago.  Finally, it seems that we may be getting the transmission capacity we need to build out our wind resources.  Up to this point, it’s been difficult to coordinate interests between the many states along the way to key population centers. Then again, while the plan made the businesss pages in Milwaukee, there’s no word on how Wisconsin actually feels about it.

A proposed coal-to-gasoline plant in North Dakota is on hold until the Obama administration weighs in.

The answer should be no. Energy independence does not mean wasting the few resources we still have even faster. It means investing in the renewable, sustainable future of energy.

We need wind, solar, and progress on biofuels that doesn’t interfere with the food chain.