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Burgum Hosted ‘VIP Dinner’ for Oil, Gas, and Coal Execs Last Year: Emails

"North Dakota’s Rainbow Energy – which plans to mix coal, crypto, and carbon capture – among those invited to the former governor’s table."

"Doug Burgum, one of President Donald Trump’s cabinet nominees, held a dinner for fossil fuel CEOs at a private event during the Williston Basin Petroleum Conference, held in Bismarck, ND, from May 14 to 16, 2024, emails obtained by the research group Fieldnotes and shared with DeSmog show.

During his Secretary of the Interior Senate confirmation hearing on January 16 before the Committee on Natural Resources, Burgum’s favorable stance towards fossil fuel energy and his skepticism about renewable energy was on display – with the former North Dakota governor suggesting that renewable energy storage wasn’t quite ready for game time, while also talking up the potential for “clean coal.”

That’s disconnected from the current state of the U.S. electrical grid, where over 13,700 megawatts of energy storage like batteries, often paired with wind or solar, were already deployed by the end of last year. Meanwhile, the only commercial coal power plant to use carbon capture, Petro Nova, can supply up to about 240 megawatts when it’s up and running, but the carbon capture project spent much of the past half-decade offline."

Sharon Kelly reports for DeSmog January 27, 2025.

SEE ALSO:

"North Dakota Sued the Interior Department at Least Five Times Under Gov. Doug Burgum. Now He’s Set to Run the Agency." (North Dakota Monitor/ProPublica)

Source: DeSmog, 01/28/2025