Incredible photos have revealed the final resting place of massive wind turbine blades that cannot be recycled, and are instead heaped up in piles in landfills. The municipal landfill in Casper, Wyoming, is the repository of at least 870 discarded blades, and one of the few locations in the country that accepts the massive fiberglass objects.

General Iowa South Dakota Wyoming

This viable opportunity is being threatened. Albany County regulations currently allow for the ability to sell all these opportunities and decimate the attractive landscape surrounding Laramie, Vedauwoo, and our national forests and monuments (in reality most of Albany county), with massive wind turbines, interconnection switchyards, substations, maintenance buildings, and miles of access roads and transmission lines for a monetary reward. Short sighted thinking is not the avenue we as a community should accept when our future is at stake.

Impact on Landscape Impact on People Wyoming

Current Albany County regulations are outdated and not stringent enough to accommodate the increase in height and volume of projected turbines, and obviously will not protect our residents, historic landmarks, or state parks. Other Wyoming counties have adjusted their regulations to evolve with the changes in the industry in order to protect their residents and natural resources. Citizens of Albany County deserve that same protection.

Impact on People Zoning/Planning Wyoming

A planned wind development project around Tie Siding will have to wait for the Laramie City Council’s blessing, if that blessing ever comes.

Zoning/Planning Wyoming

RAWLINS — As scores of contract workers flock to Carbon County to help build several major energy projects, questions have emerged over whether the influx is a good idea amid the spread of COVID-19.

Zoning/Planning Wyoming

I read Lynn Woodard’s guest op-ed in last week’s Boomerang, in which he argues against scrutiny of the proposed wind project near Tie Siding. In fact his piece shows why a moratorium is essential.

Impact on Landscape Impact on People Wyoming

The moratorium was proposed in order to allow the commission time to examine the county’s wind energy development regulations and make changes to modernize them. The existing regulations were adopted in March 2009. The demand to look at the county regulations stems from a new potential wind energy development project called Rail Tie Wind Project.

Zoning/Planning Wyoming

House Bill 217 is looking at wind preventing wind turbine blades from being deposited in landfills. An amendment passed on second reading in the House on February 25, 2020. The amendment changed the year that the bill will take effect from 2020 to 2024. "I didn't oppose it. I call it a friendly amendment,” Rep. Bunky Loucks (R - HD 59) said. “I surely would like to have it not out until 2024. I can just imagine the amount of blades that the landfill is going to take in but I just want to see the bill go through."

General Wyoming

The purpose of the moratorium, as expressed by the residents during the Feb. 12 meeting, is to give the county a chance to evaluate and revise its wind energy regulations. The matter of wind regulations arose as residents found out about the Rail Tie Wind Project. Powered by a Houston-based renewable energy company named ConnectGen, the project will be located on private and state lands near U.S. Highway 287 outside of Tie Siding — if the project passes federal, state and county permitting processes.

Zoning/Planning Wyoming

Sponsored by the Senate Appropriations Committee, Senate File 125 would have required energy utilities to provide 95 percent of their electricity from a restricted list of energy sources by 2021 and 100 percent by 2022. The list included coal, oil and natural gas — the state’s primary economic engines — but notably omitted utility-scale wind and solar power. Under the bill, if a utility had chosen to invest in renewable energy sources, the state could have penalized the company with a fine for each megawatt of energy not produced from the sources deemed acceptable.

Energy Policy Wyoming

“The FAA applications were filed on October 17, 2019, a full three months prior to the January Public Scoping meetings. Yet, ConnectGen representative, Amanda McDonald, insisted at the meetings that the turbine locations were not determined. It’s disingenuous for ConnectGen to pretend there isn’t a known project layout.” When plotted using Google Earth, the group found turbines were situated as close as 1,689 feet to area houses, well under Albany County’s setback distance of 5.5 times turbine height. 

Impact on People Wyoming

Tens of thousands of aging blades are coming down from steel towers around the world and most have nowhere to go but landfills. In the U.S. alone, about 8,000 will be removed in each of the next four years. Europe, which has been dealing with the problem longer, has about 3,800 coming down annually through at least 2022, according to BloombergNEF. It’s going to get worse: Most were built more than a decade ago, when installations were less than a fifth of what they are now.

General USA Wyoming

Locals questioned the reliability of renewable power, arguing it is propped up by subsidies and too untested to shoulder the demands of the electrical grid. Repeatedly, speakers portrayed a dark vision of a future where solar panels and wind turbines crowd Wyoming’s vistas and degrade its wildlife and where electricity prices rise even as rolling blackouts disrupt western cities. 

Energy Policy Wyoming

Wind Wyoming’s Way announced Wednesday it would spend the next year-and-a-half gathering signatures and trying to build support to increase taxes on wind energy production. The group proposes raising the current tax from $1 per megawatt hour to $5 per megawatt hour. It also would eliminate the three-year tax exemption currently in place for new wind projects.

General Wyoming

Gov. Mark Gordon released a draft executive order to bolster migration corridor protections. The draft, published on Dec. 23, attempted to thread the needle between the need to preserve precious wildlife and the need to support Wyoming’s lucrative energy sector. Of the eight ungulate species, or hoofed mammals, making up the one million or so migrating mammals across Wyoming, the executive order places special emphasis on two: mule deer and pronghorn. Since its release, the draft has been lauded by several groups as a winning example of science-based wildlife management policy. Still, others fear it could add one more set of hurdles for energy developers to leap through.

Impact on Wildlife Wyoming

South of Laramie, there's a road that goes straight into the plains. Over the hill, it's just open country, boulders and eventually, a tan house with a large porch facing the Rockies.

General Wyoming

ConnectGen, a renewable energy development company based out of Houston, Texas, has started the permitting stages of constructing a 504-megawatt wind farm stretching across public and private land on both sides of the highway. The project would encompass 26,000-acres close to Tie Siding.

General Wyoming

The saga of the two planned wind farm projects will continue into the spring, according to Carbon County Planning and Zoning Director Sid Fox. He said as much on Tuesday morning at the first Carbon County Commissioners’ meeting of 2020, when the board rejected the conditional use permit applications for the Lucky Star and Two Rivers wind farms.

Zoning/Planning Wyoming

RAWLINS — The saga of the two planned wind farm projects will continue into the spring, according to Carbon County Planning and Zoning Director Sid Fox.

Zoning/Planning Wyoming

According to a letter submitted to the Sweetwater County Land Use Office regarding the solar project’s proposal April 27, 2018, the Wyoming Game and Fish Department was concerned with how the facility’s perimeter fence would cause antelope and big game to funnel onto Wyo. Highway 372. The WGFD feared this would cause increased collisions between vehicles and wildlife.

Impact on Wildlife Wyoming