Sixty Years of Boom and Bust: The Impact of Oil in North Dakota, 1958-2018

In the 1950s, North Dakota experienced its first oil boom in the Williston Basin, on the western side of the state. The region experienced unprecedented social and economic changes, which were carefully documented in a 1958 report by four researchers at the University of North Dakota. Since then, western North Dakota has undergone two more booms, the most recent from 2008 to 2014. Sixty Years of Boom and Bust republishes the 1958 report and updates its analysis by describing the impact of the latest boom on the region’s physical geography, politics, economics, and social structure. Sixty Years of Boom and Bust addresses topics as relevant today as they were in 1958: the natural and built environment, politics and policy, crime, intergroup relations, and access to housing and medical services. In addition to making hard-to-find material readily available, it examines an area shaped by resource booms and busts over the course of six decades. As a result, it provides unprecedented insight into the patterns of develop- ment and the roots of the challenges the region has faced. Kyle Conway is an associate professor of communication at the University of Ottawa.

Alternative pavement heating technique using renewable energy in North Dakota

Hydronic heating pavement (HHP) is considered to be more sustainable and environmental-friendly for de-icing or pavement heating. The more efficient approach is to use deep direct-use geothermal energy due to the high temperature and clean. In western North Dakota, several aquifers have been identified to provide geothermal hot water ranging from 34°C to 140°C within 2300 m below the ground surface. The current technique has made it feasible to utilize the hot water for power generation. Besides drilling new wells, the higher temperature water exits from power plant still has up to 70ºC. This temperature enables the valuable applications to cascading use for other purposes such as space heating, snow-melting for transportation infrastructure etc. This paper mainly focuses on studying the challenges of an HHP using geothermal water. Parametric studies using finite element analysis were conducted. Considering the high heat demands in western North Dakota due to the extreme weather, the suitable water temperatures, pipes layouts, mechanical properties of piped pavement, volumetric flow rates and thermal conductivity of pavement were analysed. The optimization of the HHP subject to different weather conditions and new findings are summarized and discussed.

Mining for Christ

This article discusses the social and ecological impacts of fracking for oil on religious communities in Western North Dakota. Attention is furthermore given to racial tensions between the settler and indigenous communities that have become pronounced within churches in relation to the repudiation of the discovery doctrine and the protests at the Standing Rock Reservation against the North Dakota Access Pipeline in the fall of 2016.

Quantification and Characterization of Particulate Matter Generated from Unpaved Roads in the Oil Development Area of Western North Dakota

Heavy vehicle traffic on unpaved roads in western North Dakota, due to increasing oil extraction activities, is generating coarse particulate matter (PM10) and fine PM (PM2.5), and total suspended particles (TSP), potentially raising concerns for animal and human health and impacts on crop and plant growth. However, limited quantification and characterization are available for PM from unpaved roads next to oil activities. Therefore, a study was conducted to characterize and quantify the PM concentrations from heavy traffic on unpaved roads due to increasing oil activities in western North Dakota. Three unpaved road sites were selected and paired with application of two dust suppressants (brine and magnesium chloride). MiniVol air samplers were used to quantify PM, scanning electron microscopy (SEM) was used to characterize the minerals in PM samples, and inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) was used to analyze the chemical composition of soil samples. The average PM10 and PM2.5 concentrations were higher at site 2 (untreated loose gravel road) than at site 1 (periodically treated with dust suppressants) during the study period (2015-2016). In addition, the PM concentrations were lower in 2016 because of decreased oil activities at site 2. Statistical analyses revealed that the PM concentrations were mostly correlated with vehicle count in addition to temperature, wind direction, and rainfall. Magnesium chloride was the most effective treatment for reducing PM. The SEM analyses of PM samples revealed that most particulates were quartz, other silicates, or biogenic particles. Soil sample analyses revealed that the concentrations of most elements were lower than the threshold values set by the USGS National Geochemical Survey. Keywords: Air pollution, Air quality, Dust, North Dakota, Oil development, Particulate matter.