The Antelope Valley Station is a lignite-fired electric generating station located seven miles northwest of Beulah, ND.

It has two units, each rated at 450,000 KW. The first unit began commercial operation in July 1984, and the second unit began in July 1986. They were built at a cost of $1.9 billion.

Lignite, the fuel for AVS, is provided from the Freedom Mine, adjacent to the plant site. A major part of the fuel supply also comes from the neighboring Great Plains Synfuels Plant in the form of lignite fines, coal particles too small for use in the gasification process. The water source for AVS is Lake Sakakawea, a large reservoir on the Missouri River.

Since it began operation, the Antelope Valley Station has consistently ranked among the 10 lowest-cost producers of electricity when compared to more than 400 other coal-fired power plants in the United States.

AVS was designed as an environmentally sound, coal-fired generating station. As a "zero-discharge" facility, none of the water used in the plant is returned to its source. The only way water leaves the plant site is by evaporation.

In addition, about $270 million has been invested in environmental equipment and controls for protecting land, air and water. Removal efficiencies for sulfur dioxide and particulates from stack gases meet or surpass North Dakota and federal air quality standards.

In operation since 1949, the Idaho National Laboratory is a government reservation located in the southeastern Idaho desert. At 890 square miles (569,135 acres), the INL Site is roughly 85 percent the size of Rhode Island. It was established in 1949 as the National Reactor Testing Station, and for many years was the site of the largest concentration of nuclear reactors in the world. Fifty-two nuclear reactors were built, including the U.S. Navy's first prototype nuclear propulsion plant. During the 1970s, the laboratory's mission broadened into other areas, such as biotechnology, energy and materials research, and conservation and renewable energy.

INL consists of several primary facilities situated on an expanse of otherwise undeveloped terrain. Buildings and structures at INL are clustered within these facilities, which are typically less than a few square miles in size and separated from each other by miles of undeveloped land. In addition, DOE owns or leases laboratories and administrative offices in the city of Idaho Falls, some 25 miles east of the INL Site border. About 30 percent of INL's employees work in administrative, scientific support and non nuclear laboratory programs and have offices in Idaho Falls. These include engineers; scientists; and administrative, financial, technical and laboratory employees.

This is not your ordinary tour. Take a guided or self-guided tour of EBR1 (Experimental Breeder Reactor 1), the first nuclear reactor in the world to generate electricity, and now a registered National Historic Landmark. It is open Memorial Day through Labor Day from 9am to 5pm Tuesdays and Thursdays. The scheduling process is lengthy and clearance is required, so plan ahead. Group tours of operating research facilities are also available; (208) 526-0050.

The Laramie River Station (LRS) is a coal-fired electric generating station located six miles east of Wheatland, WY. It is recognized as one of the most highly efficient, cleanest-operating electric generating stations technically feasible. The plant's sophisticated environmental control equipment, which cost more than $300 million, protects the land, air and water.

Laramie River Station itself was constructed for a cost of $1.6 billion and has a total generating capacity of 1,650 megawatts (MW).

LRS is owned by the Missouri Basin Power Project (MBPP), a group of six consumer-owned electric utilities of which Basin Electric is project manager. Because of this unique cooperative arrangement, LRS represents one of the largest consumer-owned regional joint power supply programs in the United States.

The plant has three units, each rated at 550,000 KW. Units 1, 2 and 3 began operation in 1980, 1981 and 1982, respectively.

Water for steam generation and cooling at LRS comes from Grayrocks Reservoir, six miles east of the plant. Sub-bituminous coal is shipped by train to the plant from strip mines near Gillette, WY. The coal is supplied by Western Fuels Association, a cooperative fuel supplier for consumer-owned utilities.

The Leland Olds Station (LOS) is named for Leland Olds, a champion of public power who served on the Federal Power Commission for 10 years under President Franklin D. Roosevelt. In a speech in 1959, Olds called for the construction of consumer-owned power plants that would be integrated with the federal hydroelectric dams on the Missouri River. He described what was then a hope for him, but it eventually became a successful reality through the creation of Basin Electric in 1961.

LOS, located four miles southeast of Stanton, ND, was the first electric generating station built by Basin Electric.

The plant has two lignite-fired electric generating units. Unit 1 construction began in June 1963 and took three years and $36 million to build. When it began operating in January 1966, it was the largest lignite-burning power plant in the western hemisphere with a capacity of 216,000 kilowatts (KW). It was upgraded in 1995 at a cost of $12 million with new low-nitrogen oxide burners on the boiler and a computer-based control system.

Construction began in July 1971 on Unit 2, which cost $109 million to build and has a capacity of 440,000 KW. This second unit began commercial operation in December 1975.

LOS draws water for steam and cooling from the nearby Missouri River, while coal is shipped from the Freedom Mine near Beulah, ND. Both units are equipped with electrostatic precipitators which collect 99.5 percent of the fly ash created by burning lignite in the boilers. In addition, in-stack monitors measure oxides of nitrogen, sulfur dioxide, carbon dioxide, volumetric flow and opacity.

The Spirit Mound Station near Vermillion, SD, was built to help meet the peak electric requirements of Basin Electric's member systems. The oil-fired station is operated on an "as needed" basis during periods of extreme hot or cold temperatures (when the demand for electricity exceeds the capacity of base-load facilities), increased agricultural loads (including irrigation) and emergencies.

Construction on the $30 million peaking station began in December 1976, and commercial operation began in the spring of 1978. The 120,000-kilowatt plant consists of two 60,000- kilowatt combustion units that are operated from the plant or remotely from the Leland Olds Station near Stanton, ND.

Spirit Mound Station was built adjacent to a fuel pipeline, near existing transmission facilities and close to existing load centers to minimize plant costs and environmental impacts. The station meets or exceeds all state and Federal air and noise pollution control standards.

Even though the Spirit Mound Station does not operate often, it plays an important role in maintaining system reliability. Meeting the electricity needs for rural electric consumers in the region has many complex components -- equipment failure, uncertainty of predicting power needs, weather and fuel supply. The best insurance for dealing with all of these problems is reserves -- spare generating capacity that can be called on immediately when needed.