Tag: Bakken Shale

A reader adds to the natural gas thread:

The relative merits of methane, coal, and other energy sources should not be considered in a vacuum. As on practically any other issue, real-world practices and legal-institutional incentives have a great influence. The North Dakota energy boom is taking place in a location without the infrastructure (insufficient gas pipeline or local refining capacity) to make a lot of the natural gas yield usable – and without regulations requiring emissions capture. So a lot of the gas is being “flared” – burned off in the oilfields. This flaring adds CO2 to the atmosphere equivalent to that emitted from a million cars a year.

These pictures of the Bakken field from space are pretty dramatic.

Speaking of the Bakken region, Maya Rao took a job at a North Dakota truck stop this summer to get an inside look at booming regional economy and the motley cast of characters fueling it:

In the truckers’ lounge one day, two of the regulars, Blackneck and Fish, regaled the other men about how they had talked their way past a patrolman just over the border in Montana.

“I’m glad we didn’t get weighed. We’d be in jail!” said Blackneck, cursing. His nickname was short for black redneck, the phrase he used to described himself; he had traveled here after work prospects at his West Virginia coal mine withered. Blackneck had the height and build of a loan shark’s enforcer. Fish had screws in his ears and a topless image of his wife tattooed on his leg. He’d decided to become a truck driver here because he thought it had to pay better than his old job maneuvering bomb-sniffing dogs in the Middle East for only $50,000 a year.

They were paid by the quantity of water they delivered, rather than the hours they worked, and had every incentive to load up the truck heavier than a stampede of corn-fed hogs. That was the only way they could make money on a three-hour turnaround between the water depot and fracking site. The men also fudged the numbers of how long they had been driving in their trucker logs, surpassing the federal limits on driving shifts, and they bet on nobody stopping them.

Previous Dish on life amid the North Dakota oil boom here.

Forget the West Village. In Williston, North Dakota, a 700-square-foot one-bedroom will set you back $2,394, the highest rate in the US for such “entry level apartments”:

In Williston, a city on the edge of the Bakken Oil Fields, the population has doubled in the last five years, from 14,700 in the 2010 census to over 30,000 people today. The growth is akin to the way the Gold Rush quickly urbanized parts of California in mid-1800s. In fact, so many people are moving to the area to work for oil companies that so-called “man camps” made from temporary structures were built over the last few years to keep up with demand. … The housing shortage is so dire that people are living in their cars and the homeless population has swelled 200 percent over the last year. Since there are no official homeless shelters, churches apply for temporary permits to help house the thousands of workers who come seeking employment. A $35-million housing incentive fund was introduced in 2011 with the hope of subsidizing the cost of new, affordable housing. Unfortunately, the fund was depleted late last year.

Previous Dish on the Bakken boom here and here.

(Photo by Flickr user Karendesuyo)

Jonnie, a trucker, struggles with isolation and uncertainty in North Dakota as the economic prospects of the Bakken field fail to live up to the hype:

The NYT captions:

Jonnie’s story calls into question whether hard work and courage can eventually bring a decent living in contemporary America — a longstanding promise this nation makes to its citizens. As it happens, we can’t all be winners. Not even in a boomtown.

Michael Scott notes that the flood of job seekers into the oil-rich region has caused housing costs to skyrocket:

The Bakken Region has seen its working population swell by 70% since 2010. While the economic trend has been a boost to fortunes, a chronic shortage of living accommodations for transient workers has led to a serious imbalance in the housing supply/demand equilibrium. The result: home and rental housing costs that boggle the mind and terrify the wallet, sending many arriving workers into hysterics as they try to find a place to rest their heads at night. There is frequent talk of workers that are forced to live in their cars while earning $100,000 a year. Trailer parking spots can be found for rates that have escalated to $800 a month, and hotel prices are even higher; a one-night stay can be $300, or even more.