On the recordOctober 20, 2011
I rise to speak on the issue of job creation as well, specifically in regard to legislation I will be introducing that seeks to not only create jobs but also to truly reduce the cost of electricity to Americans throughout this country. In North Dakota, we have a powerplant north of our State capitol, the city of Bismarck. It is about 1,100 megawatts. It consists of two separate plants, each of them 550 megawatts, so the complex provides 1,100 megawatts of electricity, power that fuels our State, as well as sending power to Minnesota and other places as well. This plant uses the latest in emission control technology. It is state of the art. We also have an ethanol plant attached to the powerplant, so the waste steam that comes off the powerplant is used to power the ethanol plant to make low-cost transportation fuel as well. In addition to those things, another innovation at this plant is that after they produce the electricity, they take hundreds of thousands of tons of coal ash and, rather than landfilling it, they actually reuse it, and they use it to make concrete--they call it FlexCrete--for highways, they use it in building materials, and they even use it in products such as the shingles we use on our roofs. Formerly, this plant paid about $4 million a year to landfill that coal ash. Now they sell it for all these products and generate around $12 million a year in revenue.…
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