Former North American Coal employee Joe Friedlander, who now lives in Frisco, Texas, joined co-hosts Kate Muggerud and Geoff Simon to discuss the recent Texas blackouts that occurred in mid-February on the podcast titled “Mined: Lignite Energy in America.”

A photo of Joe from his years at the Freedom Mine.

Friedlander talks about how the Texas grid works and what went wrong during the cold spell that left people freezing in the dark. He also provides some perspective regarding how the market needs value reliable sources of electricity to ensure a resilient grid.

The Texas outages affected electric grids all the way north to the Dakotas as electric co-ops were also involved in the rolling blackouts. He notes that federal production tax credits for wind are making it increasingly difficult for baseload sources to compete and remain profitable. The result is that outages in Texas may be a harbinger of things to come if reliable sources are retired and intermittent sources replace them.

Kate and Geoff conduct the interviews with leaders in North Dakota’s energy industry on a variety of topics. The goal of these podcasts is to connect with others who have the same interest and wish to become more knowledgeable about energy and emerging technologies. 

Mined: Lignite Energy in America is sponsored and produced by the Lignite Energy Council, a trade association representing the power plants, mines and the Great Plains Synfuels Plant in North Dakota along with more than 250 companies that provide goods and services to the lignite industry.

Here is the link to the Podcast on the LEC Website – https://lignite.com/what-is-lignite/podcast/

This Podcast series is also available on Spotify and Apple Radio.