Long before the Bakken made headlines, North Dakota was an energy state on the strength of its lignite — a soft, brown, low-rank coal that lies in vast seams beneath the Missouri Slope. Mined by great draglines near Beulah, Center and Underwood, the lignite is burned in mine-mouth power plants that stand almost atop the seam that feeds them.

The Brown Coal Beneath the Slope

The arrangement is efficient in its way: the coal travels only a conveyor's length from pit to boiler, and the electricity it makes runs east across the plains and beyond on the high-tension lines. One plant near Beulah even gasifies the lignite into synthetic natural gas, a chemistry born of the energy shocks of the last century.

From the almanac's reckoning:

• Lignite is mined by dragline near Beulah, Center and Underwood.
• Mine-mouth plants burn the coal within a conveyor's length of the pit.
• A plant near Beulah gasifies lignite into synthetic natural gas.

Lignite country faces the same hard questions as coal everywhere, and its future is bound up with the changing economics of power. But for now the draglines still swing, and the almanac notes that the brown coal of the Slope has quietly powered the plains for the better part of a century.