Working Towards Homegrown Prosperity
Westerners are all-too-familiar with boom and bust cycles in coal, mining, oil and gas, commodity agriculture and other natural resource sectors. Currently, coal production across the west faces steep declines as coal loses market share to cheap, fracked natural gas, and cost-competitive clean energy from wind and solar generation.
In addition, more efficiency in buildings, appliances, lighting and industries has decoupled economic growth from increasing electric demand, further depressing coal’s prospects.
Across the west, there is an exciting mobilization to direct and shape and lead the transition to a cleaner, more resilient, sustainable and just economy.
This year, we’re including those stories in our Homegrown Stories project. These transitions will undoubtedly shape the west and provide opportunity and change to economies across the west. The ag and food work we’ve featured on Homegrown Stories through 2018-2019 fits into this larger discussion of Homegrown Prosperity.
Thomas Abe: A Vision of Economic and Energy Sovereignty on the Fort Berthold Reservation
In 1984, a consortium of natural gas companies built Great Plains Synfuels, a $2 billion coal-to-gas conversion plant in Beulah, North Dakota. The operation uses hydrogenation to convert lignite coal into synthetic natural gas.
“I thought that working for the coal company here would have a lot of analytical work, and I could do that,” Fort Berthold Protectors of Water & Earth Rights (POWER) member Tom Abe said. Tom looked out of the large, south-facing windows of his house, watching the oil truck traffic on the highway going into and out of New Town, North Dakota. The edge of Lake Sakakawea glinted in the sun. Oilfield flares shuddered on the adjacent hillside. “I did for years, and so I had enough money to retire. Then I taught school for the last 10 years or so because it's something I wanted to do. But I like what I'm doing right now, talking to students, and I'm hoping that they can get something from it.”
In total, Tom worked over 20 years for the Dakota Gasification Company doing analytical work on their chemical labs. He taught at Nueta Hidatsa Sahnish College, teaching chemistry, environmental science, physiology and anatomy.
The big issue that worried Tom was climate change. He was frustrated that fossil fuel companies knew the impact of their industries for decades and kept the country in the dark. He sees an opportunity for companies today to take ownership of that and move in a direction of sustainability. But the current political atmosphere didn’t leave him optimistic.
“We're the only country today that hasn't agreed with the others to combat climate change, we stand alone. That's remarkable and it's so ignorant,” Tom said.
Tom saw the only feasible option for the US was to continue to grow and support the population through a sustainable economy.
“The solution is to cut back on carbon emissions into the atmosphere and decrease the addiction, decrease it fast if there's time enough, so that we can continue on without disrupting our economies, and possibly the terrible economic outcomes of climate change,” Tom said.
Tom’s granddaughter, a sociologist and PhD in Alaska, warned her grandfather the tundra is melting and melting fast.
“I've heard from others in Alaska, and they say that the hills are melting,” Tom said. “With the tundra melting, there could be more release of methane, which is way more potent greenhouse gas than CO2. To not take action on decreasing greenhouse gases would cause a multitude of problems.”
Energy independence
Tom was passionate about the idea of Just Transition, where economies can cushion the effects of contracting economic activity caused by declining coal production and use and to direct, shape, and lead a transition to a cleaner, more resilient, sustainable, and just economy.
“Just transition is the idea that any given developer, tribal nation, or anyone has the ability to take their fossil fuels and tax it or just shift the income into income-producing investments that can be very profitable as the renewables are, and therefore compensate the development and the workers that are currently in operation.”
Tom noted how, after years of being disenfranchised by the US, the community of Fort Berthold saw the profits from oil as a way out of economic suppression. “We were flooded out of our homelands by the Garrison Dam. The size of our reservation decreased to one 12th of its size. That's why they call them reservations. That's the reserves of what was left from treaty rights. We have a small piece of land, which was greatly in debt, compared to what our territories used to be. And now we finally experienced some economic relief, and we're able to exist, you know, and supply some of the basic housing and development projects on the reservation. So it's hard to think that at this time, we should be taking that major resource and doing something else instead. But that's something that globally, we all have to do,” Tom said.
Tom said there’s a painful irony to it. Fort Berthold is expected to move away from the industry that allowed it to be acknowledged by the US. There’s a dissonance between what the industry has provided for people on the reservation (better income, a more robust economy) while also harming the environment and the people’s health on the reservation.
“It's a terrible decision to make when you've been living in a displaced community and you've struggled for your livelihood, and been marginalized in society, like this tribe has been,” Tom said. “Finally, when we have some economic income, and can compensate for what happened in the past a little bit, we have this other problem, which is climate change.”
Tom said his reason and his community’s reason to worry about climate change is the future generations. That’s why Tom was dedicated to sustainability and microgrids.
Energy sovereignty through a network of microgrids
“I'm sure that anyone who has children and grandchildren will arrive at the same conclusion and want to protect their future. It is just natural for human beings to want to survive, not just for themselves. The first problem is immediate survival, comfort and so on, but really, there is a desire to see us as a species continue on,” Tom said. “I'm old now, so I'm beginning to see some of the problems.”
Transitioning to solar-powered microgrids could be a big solution to some of the problems Tom worried about.
“Development impacts the resources around us. So in that light, [POWER] did have plans to do just transition,” Tom explained. “We would try to facilitate the shift from fossil fuels to community solar, the tribe would make a profit off of that and compensate those that were marginalized by this decision, and then survive on the income because renewables are pretty profitable right now. And they are more economical than the regular coal fired plants and with all their environmental impacts.”
Tom said there are major opportunities with solar in and around the Fort Berthold area.
Tom’s focus was including his neighbors and community in these transitions. Whether it was community solar, or microgrids, Tom saw the solution being one where the ownership stayed within the community.
Tom hoped to see his neighborhood, and then the greater Fort Berthold reservation transition to a series of microgrid systems. He said that system was the best way to propel the reservation forward sustainably. A microgrid is a small, localized group of electricity production and storage units that are connected to one another and operate synchronously with the larger grid but can also be disconnected and operate independently. This model allows for an entire community to operate as its own energy grid.
“What is enticing right now is that the battery technology has allowed for renewables like geothermal, wind and solar, to be integrated into a system which can be economized by software to test sensors on certain outlets of these incoming sources, and maximized. That efficiency of energy is almost as a resource of energy itself, you're not wasting it, you can shut it off when it's not needed, and you can turn it on during periods when the cost is lower,” Tom said.
The big difference between a grid and an individual solar set up is the scale. A connecting households producing solar electricity provides opportunity and economic development for the entire community, rather than a single household.
“When you begin to have more renewables used for a greater number [of people], what you do is you scale up and make more use of the amount of energy available, and you can shift from unit to unit,” Tom said.
Tom said that the potential for battery and storage is increasing, making the microgrids on Fort Berthold more possible. With community support, microgrids could become common on the Reservation.
“It involves commitment from other parties. And the benefits are not fully understood. But yet, that's what has to be done in order to become more independent. And to begin this, one of the ways of doing this shift, you know, [microgrid is] just one of the solutions,” Tom said.
Done correctly, just transition work can also save money sustainably. Tom envisions microgrids popping up neighborhood by neighborhood utilizing renewables like solar and storage until finally the neighborhood microgrids stitch together to create an reservation-wide independent network. He also sees a place for base power from community solar, wind, and geothermal. Solar and storage installations could result in a burgeoning industry that may employ workers from the nearby mines, gas plant, or even oilfields.
Despite the hurdles with big projects like implementing community energy and microgrids on Fort Berthold, Tom never deterred from making and implementing his own sustainable designs. Tom said just by design and forward-thinking alone, saving costs and polluting less is very possible. Tom designed southern facing windows for his home. “This allows a lot of heat in the wintertime, and I could really cut down on my fuel bills, just by design alone,” Tom said. “Smart design can be done and you can create highly energy-efficient systems, reduce your costs, and shift the technology.”
Tom was inspired by sustainable projects happening across the country.
“What encouraged me the most was my last visit to Turtle Mountain [Reservation] where I saw a presentation by the person who runs the energy system there,” Tom said.
Tom said they use a software program which has efficiency sensors, and saves hundreds of thousands of dollars on their geothermal and wind combination systems. Tom said the same technology can be applied at Fort Berthold.
“We can do that here, we have that ability,” Tom said. “We can identify people like that, who can help build these local, small, integrated systems, three houses, maybe a community eventually. There's a lot of waste in the current development methods. It's just one of the projects.”
The opportunity in just transition and homegrown prosperity is great. It gives sustainable and economic freedoms back to communities without the devastating blows of a boom and bust cycles.
“We can't just sell our souls out for money. We've got to do this soon. We're not doing it soon enough,” Tom said.
Just Transition:
WORC and its member groups are working together to mobilize our grassroots energy and leadership to help cushion the effects of contracting economic activity caused by declining coal production and use, and to direct, shape and lead a transition to a cleaner, more resilient, sustainable and just economy in our seven-state region.
Over the past two years, a large and growing part of our work has been a campaign for a Just Transition for communities
dependent on coal. This work is compelled by a dramatic and quickening decline in coal electrical generation, both within
and outside the WORC region. Although the Powder River Basin in Wyoming and Montana supplies over 40% of the coal
used in the national electric sector, coal’s share of the national total has declined from approximately 50% of electric power
in 2008 to below 30% in 2018, and overall electricity demand has flattened out and decoupled from economic growth.
Despite the rhetoric of the industry and its supporters, coal’s decline is largely rooted in new dynamics in energy markets,
primarily the sudden availability of cheap fracked natural gas, and the fact that renewable energy and energy efficiency are
out-competing coal in the marketplace.
Remembering Tom
Thomas Anthony Abe (Leads the Way) "Iduga Niidish", 74, New Town, died Wednesday, November 27, 2019 at his home. Thomas Anthony Abe was born on November 2, 1945, four miles north of Elbowoods in Blue Water (Mini Tohe) to Tatsuji and Rita (Grinnell) Abe. He was close to his mother, “Ma,” and his grandmother, Maggie (Old Dog) Grinnell. Both women instilled in him the value of hard work and love for his Indian traditions. He had many fond memories of his childhood on the farm.
Tom attended various schools in his early education—Riverdale, Underwood, Chicago—and graduated from Parshall High School in 1963. After high school, he attended Minot State College earning his Bachelor of Arts in Chemistry. Tom was proud to serve his country in the United States Army, 101st Airborne “Screaming Eagles,” and served his Tour of Duty in Vietnam.
After completing his service, Tom returned home to continue his education at the University of North Dakota where he earned his Bachelor of Science in Medicine. Education was very important to Tom, and he encouraged his family to pursue their educational goals as well. In 1980, Tom began his teaching career at the Fort Berthold Community College as a science and math instructor. He assisted in planning and implementing a standard science laboratory for the college’s General Chemistry Courses. He also worked at Dakota Gasification Company as a Lab Technician for 22 years. Upon retirement from DGC, he worked at NHSC as a Science Instructor, where he helped establish the Sustainable Energy Technology Program. He was one of those ‘quiet heroes,’ always working hard, never seeking the limelight.
Throughout his life, Tom loved and valued his Indian ways; he was a Sundancer and had much respect for his Sundance family. With his grandchildren’s future in mind, he was an advocate for an environmentally conscious world.
Some of Tom’s interests included organic gardening, attending the Hiraacá Language meetings, cheering on the Chicago Bears, traveling, going to the movies, trying his luck at the casino, discussing world events, and enjoying meaningful conversations over a good cup of coffee at Barnes & Noble, JC Java, and Better B’s—a few of his favorite spots.
Tom will be remembered as an environmentalist, poet, artist, philosopher, and gardener, someone who believed in and inspired life-long learning. He was a loving husband, father, grandfather and friend.
Tom will be greatly missed. He leaves behind his wife, Jonelle, and his children: Terri Provancial (Michael), Maggie Abe, Damon Abe, Samuel Ledesma (Shawna), Marita Abe, Sierra Spotted Bear (Cory); and siblings: Kay Mason, George Abe (Karen), Fay Box (Jim), James Abe, and Gay Nordquist.
Welcoming Thomas into the Spirit World are his grandmother Maggie (Old Dog) Grinnell, grandfather George Grinnell, Sr., mother Rita Abe, father Tatsuji Abe, brother Eugene Abe, nephews John Paul Abe, Joshua Abe, aunts Cecilia Grinnell, Inez Bird Bear, Virginia Grinnell, Josephine “Joy” Paetz, Perpetua “Pat” Fox, uncles Richard Grinnell, Benjamin Grinnell, and George Grinnell, Jr.