At the likely named Coal Creek Station in North Dakota in August, Gov. John Hoeven announced that Utah-based Headwaters, Inc., had signed an MOU with Great River Energy, North American Coal Corp. and Falkirk Mining Co. to build a potential $750-million coal-to-liquid fuels project. It followed on the March announcement of a $65-million, 50-million-gallon ethanol plant by Headwaters and Great River, and was the latest plank in the development of an energy park.
   Hoeven did not fail to point out that the state is the sixth largest energy-producing and exporting state, thanks in large part to its lignite resources.
   But the wind is another, as illustrated days later when ground was broken on an 18-turbine wind farm in Velva, one of five under development in the state. Velva is the same town where ADM announced in October that it would construct a 50-million-gallon biodiesel plant next door to its canola crushing plant.
   Helping drive both wind and biofuel development is a family of incentives Hoeven helped become law over the past two legislative sessions, including streamlined siting rules, sales tax exemptions, property tax reductions and a 3-percent income tax credit. The state also participates in a regional program that allows the trading of renewable energy credits to plants in other states.
   Portland, Ore.-based PPM Energy wants to build North Dakota's largest wind farm, a 100-turbine complex that would generate up to 150 megawatts, with an investment of $170 million. The project will locate on a 72-square-mile (187-sq.-km.) parcel north of Rugby, in Pierce County.
   The next horizon for North Dakota may be hydrogen. The Energy & Environmental Re-search Center (EERC) at the University of North Dakota in Grand Forks recently received approval for $2.5 million from the state's new Centers of Excellence Commission to build a $3-million National Center for Hydrogen Technology. In 2004 it was designated as the National Center for Hydrogen Technology by the U.S. Dept. of Energy.