Idaho's Growth versus Wyoming Decline

[Jaga]

Here is an interesting story about growth in Idaho versus decline in Wyoming. There is some truth to it, but Idaho still does not spend enough money for education, which is a real problem. There are also too many people without health insurance here and not too many good jobs:

www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/12/26/2017s-fastest-and-slowest-growing-states-are-neighbors-heres-why-their-paths-diverged/?tid=hybrid_experimentrandom_with_top_mostshared_2_na&utm_term=.dbc8aab30ff6
Why people really want to move to Idaho but are fleeing its neighbor, Wyoming

Idaho is the fastest-growing state in the union.
Half of its neighbors are in the top five. All but one are in the top 13.
The “but one” is Wyoming. It’s dead last. 51st out of a possible 51 (our ranking is adjusted for population and includes Washington, D.C.). Wyoming lost 1.0 percent of its population in 2017 even as Idaho was gaining 2.2 percent.
On the surface, the two states appear to have much in common. They share a border, a birth month (July 1890) and even — for a few brief heady months in 1863 — membership in the “Idaho Territory.”
So why are so many people leaving Wyoming while Idaho booms?

...

Wyoming and West Virginia are stuck to the bottom. Those two, and others in the lower echelon, have something in common: resource dependence. In their case, it’s primarily coal mining. Coal is dirty - so why are we still using it for energy?
Wyoming has long been the nation’s coal king. The vast operations of the Powder River Basin produce more coal than all but a handful of states put together. But cheap natural gas has reduced power plants’ dependence on the mineral and, with it, its price and production. Wyoming’s mines are shipping out fewer tons of coal and getting paid less for each of them.
...
Across the border in Idaho, the somewhat ironically nicknamed “Gem State” moved on from mines long ago, stepping first into agriculture and forestry, and later into manufacturing, technology and services.
As its economy developed, Idaho’s cities far outgrew their Wyoming counterparts. In 1890, Idaho’s population was 1.3 times larger than Wyoming’s. In 2017, it was three times larger. The Boise metro area alone is home to more people than in all of Wyoming.
And Boise is booming. Most newcomers have settled in the capital and the cities and suburbs surrounding it, compounding the state’s urbanization advantage. They appear to be drawn by the city’s combination of size and low cost of living.
Idaho has the fourth-cheapest cost of living in the country, according to a 2017 index from the Council for Community and Economic Research. Only Arkansas, Kentucky and Mississippi are cheaper. Wyoming is 29th.

[karl]

Jaga

I do find your presentation very interesting for the fact I have never been in these areas of Idaho, Wyoming and Montana and only know what I have read and heard of, for as here as an example. It is always best to know better an area and place from some one such as your self who lives there.

With the population transfer from Wyoming and Montana, it most likely as you have brought forward, to be seeking better opportunities then what they have in their homes states.

With the coal question, this is a valuable resource not to be dismissed so easily. For coal is extremely valuable {all grades} for not just heat, for it is very excellent fuel, but as a resource for manufacture of products from medicines to coking for manufacture of steel. With the proper use of technology, coal residue such as carbon dioxide and scrubbing technology to remove such residues such as fly ash, it can be made harmless once emitted in to the open air.

www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/energy-and-the-environment/clean-coal-technologies.aspx

The following is not meant to down grade other states in their efforts in cleaning up coal as a fuel, but only as an example of what technology when properly applied will accomplish.

www.fastcompany.com/3055915/new-german-power-plant-takes-coal-burning-efficiency-to-a-new-level

Karl

[Jaga]

Karl,

you were living in the West from us for some time, I remember.
Referring to coal, I hope it would come back. It is important and I also put some sentimental value to coal mining since my two granfathers were directly or indirectly involved in it.

[karl]

Jan 2, 2018 22:24:20 GMT -7 Jaga said:

Karl,

you were living in the West from us for some time, I remember.
Referring to coal, I hope it would come back. It is important and I also put some sentimental value to coal mining since my two granfathers were directly or indirectly involved in it.

yes, you have an excellent memory, for this was after reassignment from Canada to the USA, region Pacific NorthWest. We were able to talk a short bit by telephone from the Hotel upon my arrival. With the change of regulations unfortionantly I do not have this same liberty of choice.

The Seattle region is very suitable for high technology with for the most part, a very well educated available work force. The Redmond city area of course is the Bill gates territory with Microsoft, then the various divisions of Boeing Aircraft scattered in different locations between cities Renton/Bellevue/Seattle and Everett. My self was fortunate to have become good friends with some of the engineering staff and was able to tour through various manufacturing and engineering departments. This was during some tough negotiations between Boeing and the French for the lucrative US Airforce Tanker contract, Boeing received the contract although the French offer of higher payload capability was better, it amounted to a local American firm to build in the stead of EADS/Northtrop.

I was turned down for an application as a visitor for touring the OakRidge National Laboratory historic Nuclear Reactor facility located in State Tennessee. It was a great disappointment but my application request was approved for a visitor guided toure at Handford Columbia Nuclear Works in Washington State. It was very interesting in the history and their various technical designs in past and present enviremental cleanup processes. Some of the engineers I was fortunant to meet were very courtious and informative. The two days I was to spend in the area was interesting for the oportunity two of them after the tour, for they gave my self a nice tour of the area of the three cities {Pasco/Richland and Kenniwik}. At my request, in the stead of eating in a nice restaurant, we stopped by some of the fast food restaurants {Wendies/McDonnals} to be around regular working families, this to have a taste of life in the area.
www.nps.gov/mapr/hanford.htm

blog.al.com/live/2011/02/air_force_tanker_eads_boeing.html

Karl

[Jaga]

Karl,

I remember that we talked and that you liked going for a walk with your neighbor. I am not sure I knew that you were involved in Boeing talks. You lived in so many places, I still remember your posts from Germany. I did not realize that you saw so many different DOE places. I never saw Hanford inside, although we were nearby on the trip to Seattle and Mt. Helena from Idaho.

You will probably never stay in one place for too long....

[pieter]

Jan 2, 2018 22:24:20 GMT -7 Jaga said:

Karl,

you were living in the West from us for some time, I remember.
Referring to coal, I hope it would come back. It is important and I also put some sentimental value to coal mining since my two grandfathers were directly or indirectly involved in it.

Dear Jaga,

Coal was an important source for energy in the past in Europe, but also extremely pollutive. I remember that Polish cities where grey during the peoples republic due to the heavy use of coal, brown coal and two stroke engines. In the Netherlands and Belgium you had a large mine industry in Limburg and the Walloon part of Belgium. I remember mountains or hills of coal in Liège (Luik in Dutch, Lüttich in German, Lidje in Walloon) and the fact that Liège had a lot of Polish and Italian mineworkers. The same was the case in Limburg, you had foreign migrant miners there too.

In the past peat and coal were mined in Limburg. In 1965–75 the coal mines were finally closed. As a result, 60,000 people lost their jobs in the two coal mining areas, Heerlen-Kerkrade-Brunssum and Sittard-Geleen. A difficult period of economic readjustment started. As a result the cities Heerlen, Kerkrade and Sittard suffered from border crime related to drugs. That has it's roots in the unemployment and the misery of the unemployed miner families. It is a depressing region of Limburg in my opinion. By the way Limburg as province is a beautiful, nearly Undutch province with some Belgian and German influences, like a hill landscape and a few small mountains. Dutch people from the West, North, North-East and South-West love to go to Limburg in the South-East corner of the Netherlands due to the nearly Belgian and German hill landscape, few mountains, woods and what we call 'a Burgundian life style'. (Burgundian is Bourgondisch in Dutch)

Burgundian is used as an adjective to indicate that people enjoy life. This term is derived from the Dukes of Burgundy, a branch of the French royal family of Valois, who built a powerful empire in the north-east of present-day France around 1400, which also included a large part of the Netherlands. Well-known dukes of Burgundy were Philip the Good and Charles the Bold. Their court was known for its great luxury and wealth.

The inhabitants of the Dutch provinces Noord-Brabant and Limburg and the Belgians are often called 'burgundians' by Dutch people of the West (Holland region), center and North, because they like to take the time to enjoy a snack and a drink. Belgian-Limburg on the other hand has never belonged to the Burgundian empire, nor to the Spanish or the Austrian Netherlands. You could also say that Burgundian stands for Southern-Dutch catholics from Limburg, Noord-Brabant in the Netherlands and the Flemish and Walloon people who enjoy the good life better than the more sober, strict and parsimonious Calvinist Northern-Dutch. Today in our secular Western-Europe ofcourse a large part of these stereotypes doesn't count anymore. But as a penny-pinching Northern-Dutch with my South-Western Calvinist Zeeland experience I have to admit that when I cross the North-South border of the Netherlands just beneath Nijmegen for instance to go to my Nortbertine abbey in Heeswijk-Dinther in Noord-Brabant I see, feel and nearly smell the Burgundian Southern-Dutch atmosphere, lifestyle and culture. It is really different. These people are less calculating, less strict, less rational and less calvinist than I am as Northern-Dutch Calvinist Catholic.

The state-owned corporation that once mined in Limburg, DSM, is now a major chemical company, still operating in Limburg. In 2002 DSM sold its petrochemical division (naphtha crackers and polyolefin plants) to SABIC of Saudi Arabia. In 2010 the Agro and Melamine business groups were sold to Orascom Construction Industries (OCI). Sabic and OCI are located on the Chemelot campus in Sittard-Geleen, which is bounded by the Chemelot Industrial Park, one of Western Europe's biggest industrial sites. At this moment 6500 people work at Chemelot (about 4500 employed by DSM and about 2000 by SABIC and other companies), of which 1000 are active at the Campus. The innovation and licensing division Stamicarbon of DSM was sold in 2009 to Maire Tecnimont, the parent company of an engineering, main contracting and licensing group that operates worldwide in the oil, gas & petrochemicals, power, infrastructure and civil engineering sectors. Stamicarbon is based in Sittard-Geleen.

DSM was formed by the Dutch State in 1902 to mine coal reserves in southern Limburg and although the company had diversified into commodity chemicals and petrochemicals by 1973 when the last mine closed, DSM retains a link to its origins by continuing to use the initials of the original ‘Nederlandse Staatsmijnen’ (Dutch State Mines) to this day.

During World War II researchers worked on penicillin. The code name Bacinol was used to keep the research secret from the Germans. The research was done at the company Nederlandsche Gist- en Spiritusfabriek, Dutch Yeast and Spirits Factory, later becoming DSM Sinochem Pharmaceuticals, in Delft.

In 1989 the government floated 70% of its shares in the company on the Amsterdam Stock Exchange (now Euronext Amsterdam) with the remaining 30% floated in 1996, thereby completing DSM’s privatization. The 21st Century has seen DSM follow successive five-year strategic periods of portfolio transformation and internationalization involving acquisitions, divestments and partnerships. In 2001 DSM reported 48% of its workforce was based in the Netherlands, in 2016 this was 19%.

Cheers,
Pieter

P.S.- Jaga, you would get nostalgic or melancholic feelings if you would see the old mining area's in the Netherlands and Belgium. They are probably similar to the Polish ones.