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CASPER — An up-and-coming renewable energy venture on Tuesday filed an application for the construction of a large-scale solar generation and storage project that could add an additional 500 megawatts to the state’s energy portfolio. The Dutchman Renewable Power Project would see the construction of utility-scale photovoltaic solar panels, battery banks, a new substation and three miles of overhead transmission lines to bring its electric generation near Glenrock to the wider Wyoming grid. The application comes at a gangbusters moment for sol...
CASPER — Weighing less than 1 pound, with short ears, little legs and an endearingly “scampering gait,” the pygmy rabbit is the smallest rabbit species in America. Worryingly, though, its population is also small — and getting smaller — and is now in desperate need of protection, according to a chorus of conservation scientists. In the hope of protecting the species, a contingent of conservation groups issued a notice to sue the United States Fish and Wildlife Service for failure to respond t...
CASPER — A multi-billion dollar trona production project in Sweetwater County is nearing the finish line. Pacific Soda LLC’s Dry Creek Trona Mine Project would produce approximately 440 metric tons of sodium bicarbonate (baking soda) and 6 million metric tons of soda ash annually. Soda ash is a highly marketable commodity with applications ranging from glass manufacturing to metallurgy and cosmetics. The project, first proposed in 2020, is in a race against the clock to win approval before the Bureau of Land Management updates its Rock Springs...
CASPER - Ski weekends in the Snowy Range. Deer hunts in the Red Desert. Road trips through America's first national park. Travel and tourism is growing across Wyoming, and it's bringing a pretty penny to the state. Travelers spent $4.5 billion in Wyoming in 2023, according to a University of Wyoming report, vaulting the travel industry to the number two sector in the Cowboy State. But there's a problem: The industry's demand for skilled workers may not be met. "This sector is really forecasted to grow substantially. And the concern that this...
CASPER — After years of analysis, political wrangling and a contentious public comment period, the federal Bureau of Land Management officialized a sweeping overhaul of its oil and gas leasing program on Friday. The changes, which will affect how extractive industries operate on federal land, mark the first major update to the federal onshore oil and gas leasing rules since 1988, the first adjustment to bond rates since 1960 and the first increase in royalty rates in more than 100 years. The biggest — and most contested — change is the incre...
CASPER — The Joint Minerals, Business & Economic Development Committee on Monday advanced a stimulus bill that could boost Wyoming’s enhanced oil recovery (EOR), a production method in which carbon dioxide is injected underground to help pressure up latent oil reserves in older fields. The legislation would pay carbon dioxide suppliers an extra $10 per tonne for CO2 for use in EOR, building on a federal tax policy known as 45Q, which pays producers $65 per tonne of carbon that’s captured and supplied for enhanced oil projects. By sweet...
CASPER – Bureau of Land Management Director Tracy Stone-Manning last week met with Gov. Mark Gordon’s special task force on the Rock Springs Resource Management Plan in a closed door meeting that participants described as productive, releasing steam from the contentious issue and moving a multiyear-long effort closer to the finish line. At the meeting, the task force presented its final recommendations, detailed in a report published Wednesday, that include 24 “agreements in principle” highlighting a strong consensus on topics like big game co...
CASPER — Wyoming’s outdoor recreation is a sector to be reckoned with. New numbers from the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) show the outdoor recreation industry is comfortably outpacing the state’s overall economic growth. From 2021 to 2022 the outdoor recreation economy in Wyoming leaped by 26% to become a $2 billion industry. It’s boosted a diversity of businesses across the state — from local restaurants in Laramie, to R.V. dealers in Cheyenne, and gear shops in Cody — and it now accounts for more than 4% of the state’s GDP, the fourth hi...