By 2026, hundreds of wind turbines are expected to spring into action on around 1,400 acres of ranchland in what’s called the Chokecherry and Sierra Madre Wind Energy Project. When finished, it will be the largest onshore wind farm in the United States and is expected to generate more electricity than the Hoover Dam.
But its home won’t be in progressive California or liberal New York. It’s being built in conservative Wyoming, maybe the most beet-red state in the country. In the 2020 presidential election, Wyoming favoured Donald Trump by 43 percentage points – the largest margin for the former president in any state. The Cowboy State is known for its enormous wide-open spaces, national parks such as Yellowstone, ranchers and lots and lots of coal.
And yet, the energy transition is quietly happening here. According to S&P Global Market Intelligence, Wyoming had more wind-energy project capacity in advanced development or under construction than any other state in the second quarter of 2022, with 6.5 gigawatts (Chokecherry will contribute almost half of this). Wyoming isn’t alone in this regard among conservative states that have historically had fossil-fuel-focused economies. Oil-friendly Texas had the second-highest wind project capacity in advanced development or under construction, with around four gigawatts. Massachusetts – a blue state with a Republican governor since 2015 – came in third.
“It’s not really whether we’re going to transition or not. It’s what are we going to transition to,” says Jonathan Naughton, a co-director of the Wind Energy Research Center at the University of Wyoming.
When it comes to solar, Texas leads the nation in projects under advanced development or under construction, with 7.9 gigawatts of capacity in these late stages, according to S&P. California came in second, followed by Ohio and North Carolina.
Part of the reason that rural – and more conservative – parts of the country are attracting investments in renewables is geography. Rural states simply have the space to install new infrastructure. Texas has huge tracts of undeveloped land, an arid climate and plentiful sunshine for solar panels. In south-central Wyoming, where the Chokecherry project is being built, there is also a notch in the Continental Divide, which creates a funnel of constant high-speed wind. The Department of Energy built some of its first wind turbines here in the 1980s.
But while renewable energy projects are being built at record levels in Wyoming, the state’s government is having a hard time letting go of its dependency on fossil fuels.
A hard habit to break
The first coal deposits were found in Wyoming around 1840, before it was even a state. Union Pacific built its railroad through Wyoming in the 19th century and had major interests in the area, as it powered its locomotives with coal. Around the turn of the century, oil production started in the region. Ever since, fossil fuels have been a significant part of the state’s economy, though the numbers are sliding. In 2011, there were more than 25,000 workers in the state employed in mining (including oil and gas), which made up about 15% of Wyoming’s workforce at the time. Last year, mining accounted for 5.6% of jobs.
Today, Wyoming is still the country’s largest coal producer and is one of the 10 largest oil and gas producers. Since the state’s roughly 580,000 residents can burn only so much, most of its fossil fuels are shipped out of state. For decades, Wyoming has taxed that exported energy, riding the booms and busts of these commodities, using the revenue to pay its bills and keep taxes low for its residents. Over the years, revenue from coal has gone to building schools, recreation centres and other public infrastructure. The state is now collecting hundreds of millions of dollars less a year in taxes from coal than it was in 2011. Rebounding oil prices help – for now – but with coal prices facing long-term collapse, some economists in Wyoming say it’s time to diversify the state’s economy to avoid the worst of the potential economic hardship that could accompany the eventual sunsetting of fossil fuels.
Robert Godby, an energy economist and a professor at the University of Wyoming, estimates that a family of three in Casper, Wyoming (one of the state’s largest cities), pays an average of US$3,000 in taxes a year but receives about US$28,000 to $30,000 in state services. “In terms of the public services people get, they’re getting in the order of 10 times what they pay for. And that’s a circle that’s hard to square. When revenues are declining, you’ve got some tough choices,” he says, adding that replacing those revenues might eventually mean taxing residents, which is a political non-starter in Wyoming. “Politically, it’s a losing game.”
The Chokecherry wind project is expected to bring in US$850 million in taxes over a 20-year period, but Godby isn’t convinced that the revenues from coal can be replaced by wind alone. Unlike coal reserves, if the state raised taxes on wind electricity generation, economists say it could push energy companies simply to build wind farms elsewhere. They fear that there is less of a premium on Wyoming’s wind than there was in the past, since technological advances have enabled turbines to function in more places than they used to.
It’s not really whether we’re going to transition or not. It’s what are we going to transition to.
-Jonathan Naughton, co-director of the Wind Energy Research Center at the University of Wyoming
Coal mines have also been big employers for small towns in Wyoming for decades. They still employ around 4,300 people in the state. And as of June, oil and gas jobs totalled 8,600. It wouldn’t be possible to replace all those jobs with wind ones, says Naughton, as most of the labour needed for a wind project comes upfront with its development and construction. After construction, Chokecherry is expected to provide only 114 jobs in operations and maintenance once up and running. However, Naughton sees the wind industry as one part of Wyoming’s future economy.
Because of its cheap electricity, Wyoming is a good place for energy-intensive industries, such as data centres, which also require colder temperatures. Naughton also sees potential in smaller industrial operations, such as aluminum smelting facilities that would employ a few hundred.
Economists are hopeful that some coal plants could be converted into demonstration plants for carbon capture or green hydrogen production facilities. There are signs that new industries are already moving into the state. Bill Gates’s TerraPower is set to build a demonstration sodium-cooled nuclear reactor in Kemmerer – a small community where a coal-fired power plant is set to close. TerraPower says it plans to employ former coal workers from the area.
In September, cleantech company CarbonCapture announced a partnership with Frontier Carbon Solutions that will build the world’s largest direct air capture (DAC) carbon removal and storage facility in Wyoming, promising “well-paying energy transition-related jobs.” Wyoming Governor Mark Gordon, who has been an avid supporter of both coal and carbon capture technology, sees carbon removal as a way of preserving the fossil fuel industry while achieving net-zero carbon emissions.
“We’re really trying to get ourselves positioned to be the place of first choice for industry as they emerge with new climate technologies,” Gordon told Reuters.
Blow the coals
Gordon is also the same governor who has championed legal attempts to keep coal-fired power plants from shutting down. Last year, state lawmakers passed legislation that would force utilities to take extra steps before retiring coal plants. The state legislature also passed a law that set up a US$1.2-million fund the governor can use to sue other states that want to use electricity powered by renewable energy instead of Wyoming’s coal.
Energy experts say this is largely just a way to delay what is bound to happen, as the energy transition picks up steam. “We cannot self-determine whether people continue to buy our coal or not. That’s up to others. But we have a hundred percent control over whether we install wind or not,” says Naughton, who adds that the transition from fossil fuels to clean energy is occurring whether the state likes it or not and that Wyoming needs to respond. “The fear is that if we don’t choose, it’s just going to happen to us.”
Godby says that he understands why politicians are trying to delay the closure of these plants, since “when you’re pushed up against a cliff, you don’t just allow yourself to be pushed off,” but that it’s “just a matter of gaining time. You’re delaying the inevitable and hoping that something changes.”
Moving past partisanship
While elected officials are doing all they can to breathe life into a dying industry, public opinion in Wyoming is not unfavourable toward renewables. According to a 2020 poll by the University of Wyoming, around 69% of respondents said they support solar, and 66% said they support wind. Natural gas received 83% support, oil received 71% and coal, 63%.
Michelle Moore, the CEO of non-profit Groundswell and the author of Rural Renaissance, says that the renewable energy projects happening in states like Wyoming, Texas and Tennessee show how “practicality can triumph over politics.” She adds that the benefits both red and blue states are seeing from the Inflation Reduction Act, which was passed by Congress this summer, demonstrate how out of sync some partisan politicians are with the experience of most Americans.
“Though not a single Republican in Congress voted for the Inflation Reduction Act, Republican-led states including Georgia, Tennessee and North Carolina are seeing the benefits of the bill’s Made in America electric vehicle provisions, which are driving billions in new manufacturing investments and thousands of good-paying jobs into the states,” says Moore, who was also a sustainability official in the Obama White House.
The bill included $369 billion for climate and clean energy policies, with $9.7 billion specifically for rural cooperative electricity utilities to expand local renewables. It also provides tax incentives for building new renewable-energy projects in communities whose economies have historically depended on fossil fuels. As well, the act has raised the federal tax credit for direct air capture projects like CarbonCapture’s venture in Wyoming from $50 per ton to $180 per ton, making it more financially palatable.
So, the clean energy transition is already well underway in red America. Energy experts agree that it’s time for states like Wyoming to get behind it and move forward toward a more sustainable future, instead of clinging to the past.
“After all, we’re all in this together,” says Moore.
