Reid Rasner, also vying for Wyoming\u2019s U.S. House seat, has said<\/a>, \u201cI stand with President Trump, I oppose windmill expansion and I will fight to make America energy dominant again,\u201d while chiding Gray for past votes in favor of wind energy as State Board of Land commissioner.<\/p>\n To date, there are about 1,500 wind turbines spinning in the state with a generating capacity of approximately 3,700 megawatts \u2014 that\u2019s about 25% of Wyoming\u2019s total electrical generation capacity, according to multiple sources compiled by WyoFile.\u00a0<\/p>\n What\u2019s yet to come depends on multiple factors, and tracking which projects are moving forward and which have stalled is challenging because there\u2019s no single source or clearinghouse for up-to-date, Wyoming-specific information.<\/p>\n The Trump administration\u2019s order to halt wind project permitting on federal lands<\/a> has no bearing on development proposed for state and private lands. While there\u2019s much debate at the state and local level about where to locate and, sometimes, whether to permit wind and other utility-scale renewable energy projects at all, it\u2019s hard to size up exactly how much more wind development is on the horizon for Wyoming.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe need to improve the process and transparency,\u201d Cheyenne area resident Wendy Volk said.<\/p>\n Patchwork and moving targets<\/p>\n The Wyoming Industrial Siting Council<\/a> holds a wealth of information, but only regarding qualifying projects: those exceeding $240 million in construction costs and with significant socioeconomic impacts. Landowners and county officials hear from many other developers about potential projects that haven\u2019t yet entered the county, state or federal permitting process. Plus, many of the renewable energy and other industrial projects on the council\u2019s docket continually change in size, scope and timing.<\/p>\n \u201cYou have an applicant for a permit and he\u2019s telling the Industrial Siting Council, \u2018We\u2019re going to need to delay our project. We might resize our project.\u2019 Or, what they\u2019re not saying is they potentially may never build the project,\u201d Volk told WyoFile.<\/p>\n The council has sent out at least eight public notices so far this year regarding amendments to various projects. The Settler Wind Project<\/a> in Converse County, for example, was granted a request<\/a> to change its construction start date from August 2025 to November 2027. The Dinosolar Solar Energy Project <\/a>in Natrona County was granted a request<\/a> to reduce the size of the project from 440 megawatts to 240 megawatts and to delay construction from April 2024 to March 2029.<\/p>\n One megawatt is enough electricity to power about 750 homes.<\/p>\n It\u2019s not just the siting council that has incomplete and ever-changing information, Volk said. Residents are left to navigate fluctuating planning and permitting processes at the county, state and federal level. Some state-level officials have confided in her, Volk said, that the volume and ever-changing information is overwhelming and difficult to understand. Some have even suggested she generate a comprehensive map of existing and proposed renewable energy projects herself.<\/p>\n \u201cIs that my job?\u201d the real estate agent said.\u00a0<\/p>\n Volk recently helped launch a petition<\/a> that, in part, asks Wyoming officials to pause renewable energy permitting to conduct a \u201ccumulative, landscape-level impact analysis.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWyoming residents expect transparency, accountability and an honest conversation,\u201d Volk continued. \u201cWhen projects stack up across a region, impacts multiply \u2014 even when each project claims compliance in isolation. My biggest concern is transparency. But let\u2019s look at that cumulative impact. And how can you look at the cumulative impact of a 150-mile corridor if you don\u2019t even have a map?\u201d<\/p>\n Inherently arduous<\/p>\n The tangle of multiple authorities, moving targets and changing scope of projects \u2014 not to mention market realities like supply chain interruptions \u2014 is not a nefarious divide-and-conquer strategy, Power Company of Wyoming Communications Director Kara Choquette told WyoFile.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s just a lot of permitting processes that are difficult to match up with the reality of what it\u2019s like to develop a wind project,\u201d Choquette said. \u201cIt\u2019s really hard to predict. The timeframe on all of those permits have to be linked together.\u201d<\/p>\n She pointed to a Wyoming wind energy permitting flow chart on page 84 of this document<\/a>.<\/p>\n Choquette said she speaks from experience. The $3 billion, 732-mile-long TransWest Express transmission line to bring electricity from Power Company of Wyoming\u2019s Chokecherry and Sierra Madre Wind Energy Project<\/a> in Carbon County to the southwest took some 15 years to permit.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s difficult to permit and develop a big energy project,\u201d Choquette said.<\/p>\n Further muddying the picture of potential renewable energy development in Wyoming are legal entanglements.<\/p>\n Citing a court ruling, the Wyoming state lands board in February began the process of invalidating two wind leases it had approved last year \u2014 one related to the Pronghorn H2 Clean Energy Project in Converse County and one for the Sidewinder Clean Hydrogen Project in Niobrara County.<\/p>\n Before the vote, Wyoming State Auditor Kristi Racines said the board \u2014 made up of Wyoming\u2019s top five elected officials \u2014 had sometimes whiffed on public notices and failed to give the public a proper platform to engage, referring to a December meeting<\/a> that didn\u2019t allow for a full discussion between the board and concerned residents.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd so me, personally,\u201d Racines said, \u201cI am here today to tell you that I apologize. I apologize for the mess that this has become.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Entering election season, some Wyoming candidates are embracing President Donald Trump\u2019s hard-line opposition to wind energy, which he…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":571959,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[192,79],"class_list":["post-571958","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-environment","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/571958","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=571958"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/571958\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/571959"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=571958"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=571958"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=571958"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/wyofile.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/US_wind_resource_map-large-NREL.jpeg\")
This map depicts average annual wind speeds in the U.S. (National Renewable Energy Laboratory)<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/wyofile.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/Wind-n-Solar-gen-percent-2025-EIA-1024x522.jpg\")
This chart depicts the growth of wind and solar energy in the U.S. (U.S. Energy Information Administration)<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/wyofile.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/TWE-groundbreaking-scene-June-20-2023-DBleizeffer-1024x643.jpg\")
Federal and state officials gathered in Carbon County June 20, 2023, to celebrate the launch of the TransWest Express transmission project. (Dustin Bleizeffer\/WyoFile)<\/p>\n