A group of University of Minnesota students traveled through Minnesota and the Dakotas, visiting energy infrastructure facilities, and talking with energy experts about the transition to cleaner energy.
They stopped at Bismarck’s Basin Electric Power Cooperative to talk about Basin’s transitions.
"We spend a lot of time in the classroom, looking at charts and figures, and reading white papers, and it's all in two dimensions," said Gabe Chan, an associate professor at the Humphrey School of Public Affairs. Chan is one of a handful of researchers looking at the cooperative sector, when it comes to the energy transition.
"Here we are in the field, seeing this infrastructure first hand, and being able to talk to the people who operate it, being able to walk all around and see how these giant machines work, and see power lines and wind farms that are dotting the landscape, and really appreciate the scope and scale of our energy system," Chan said.
Chan also said he and the students are not only looking at the physical infrastructure, they are also learning about the human dimension. Chan said for example, they had a chance to talk with people in the Bakken.
"They were talking about the challenges they face in bringing so many people into the community in a very short period of time to help develop the resource," Chan said. "They had to develop temporary housing, figure out how to get food to people, and they had to build a day care. These are the things that had to happen, to make this energy transition we're seeing happen. And that human dimension is a really critical piece as well."
The students said they found the experience interesting and helpful.
"You can spend as much time as you want looking at textbooks or reading things on line," said Jacob Roberts, one of the students. "But nothing is going to be as informative and educational as just going out into the field, meeting people involved with thins like this, especially when you're looking at models like cooperatives, where the principles behind it fundamentally get at what makes us human, what makes communities. You're not going to get that experience sitting in a classroom."
