Sorted by date Results 26 - 41 of 41
Union Pacific Railway, one of two railroad companies that haul coal out of the Powder River Basin, is under fire for curtailing shipments to customers, including power plants. The failure to meet customer coal demand has resulted in less coal-fired power generation and higher costs to ratepayers for natural gas purchases to replace coal power. Coal-fueled power plants nationwide have responded by "curtailing operations for parts of the year in order to conserve fuel for peak seasons," National...
FLAMING GORGE RESERVOIR-The shoreline of this large reservoir on the Wyoming-Utah border has steadily receded this summer as the Bureau of Reclamation pumped more water out to help maintain critical water levels 500 miles away at Lake Powell. The water shrunk from boat ramps and forced marinas to scoot docks ever inward. By September, 6 feet of vertical drop in the water level translated into vast areas of exposed lakebed, leaving many boat ramps on the northern reaches of the reservoir high... Full story
ExxonMobil has received a federal permit to inject CO2 for permanent underground storage below public Bureau of Land Management property in southwest Wyoming. The company will inject up to 60 million cubic feet of CO2 per day from its Shute Creek natural gas processing facility near La Barge, according to the BLM. The greenhouse gas will be stored in a briny portion of the Madison Aquifer some 18,000 feet below the surface in an area that straddles the border between Lincoln and Sweetwater counties. The permit is a first-of-its-kind for the...
The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation will release an extra 500,000 acre feet of water from Flaming Gorge Reservoir to help maintain hydroelectric generation at Lake Powell’s Glen Canyon Dam amid drought conditions that have parched the West for more than two decades. The action will draw down Flaming Gorge Reservoir’s surface about 10 feet by August and possibly a total of 15 feet later in the fall, according to the BOR. News of the Flaming Gorge release follows calls on two other river systems in Wyoming in April. Those actions were also pro...
A coal-burning unit at the Jim Bridger power plant will be allowed to remain in operation pending a second revision of the state’s regional haze compliance plan, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The federal agency confirmed Monday it has no plans to order PacifiCorp to shut down Unit 2 — among four coal-burning units — at the Jim Bridger power plant east of Rock Springs, despite blowing past a January 1 deadline to install regional haze pollution controls. It cited a sue-and-settle consent decree reached in February betwe...
Adding carbon-capture systems to existing coal-fired power plants in Wyoming could cost the average residential ratepayer an additional $100 per month, according to Black Hills Corp’s initial filings to the Wyoming Public Service Commission. The retrofit costs alone could range from $400 million to $1 billion for each coal unit, according to PacifiCorp, which operates as Rocky Mountain Power in Wyoming. Adding carbon capture utilization and storage technologies would also significantly reduce electrical generation efficiency at the coal p...
Blistering heat waves across the West helped spike wholesale electric power prices in 2021 as drought conditions sapped hydroelectric capacity. The extreme weather prompted utility giant PacifiCorp to file for rate increases this month across its six-state operating region. PacifiCorp, which operates as Rocky Mountain Power in Wyoming, has requested a 4% “energy cost adjustment” for its Wyoming customers, totalling $26.3 million. If approved, its average Wyoming residential customer would see his or her monthly bill increase by $1.97 beg...
ROCK SPRINGS - To Lenore Perry's eye, the Holiday Inn ballroom Saturday night was packed with red dresses, scarlet shirts and a lot of Harriet Hageman supporters. Perry, an attorney, has the same profession as Hageman, who also attended the adult-prom themed "Conservatives in Crimson" gala. Hageman's appeal as a candidate to replace sitting U.S. House Rep. Liz Cheney stems not from their dealings in the courtroom, she said, but rather from getting to know her as a fellow Republican in the... Full story
PacifiCorp continues to operate unit 2 at the Jim Bridger coal-fired power plant despite running afoul of a federal regional haze permit — an infraction some believed would force a Jan. 1 shutdown. Gov. Mark Gordon, who recently attempted to intervene in the regulatory noncompliance, warned in late December the Environmental Protection Agency might force the unit to shut down on Jan. 1. “In several short days, PacifiCorp will be forced to shut down Unit 2, lay off employees, and buy power to make up for the lost generation,” Gordon wrote in a...
Gov. Mark Gordon issued an emergency suspension order Monday seeking to temporarily block the Environmental Protection Agency from potentially shutting down one of four coal-burning units at the Jim Bridger power plant for falling out of compliance with regional haze parameters. Jim Bridger owner and operator PacifiCorp — which operates as Rocky Mountain Power in Wyoming — has until Jan. 1 to install “selective catalytic reduction” controls to reduce nitrogen oxide emissions at unit 2, and until the end of 2022 to install the controls at unit...
Wyoming will see a federal oil and gas lease sale in early 2022 due to a federal court ruling that ended the Biden administration's 2021 moratorium. But the size of the lease sale will be much smaller than industry, and state leaders, hoped for. The Bureau of Land Management will defer 264 lease parcels initially considered for the sale, it said, and will instead offer a total 195 parcels. The parcels struck from the sale represent about 382,882 acres of Priority Habitat Management Areas for...
Wyoming’s oil and gas industry continues to show signs of recovery from the 2020 pandemic shockwave that drove the price of oil below $0 per barrel, spurred layoffs and stalled production. At least 18 rotary rigs were active in the state during the second week of October compared to one rig during the same week in 2020, according to Enverus, which tracks rig data on a weekly basis. Wyoming saw a rig count of zero for the first time in its history in June 2020, then again in August 2020. Most of the drilling activity is targeting oil in the s...
Wyoming’s largest utility, Rocky Mountain Power, will decommission its entire coal-fired power fleet in the state by 2039 while continuing to add wind, solar and battery storage to its six-state operating system, according to preliminary details of its 2021 Integrated Resource Plan. RMP will retire 14 of its coal-fired power units across several states by 2030, and a total of 19 by 2040, RMP’s parent company PacifiCorp stated in a presentation to Wyoming utility officials late last week. PacifiCorp plans to add more than 3,700 megawatts of new...
For the first time in decades, Campbell County will not send excess revenue to the state’s School Foundation Program, the primary statewide school fund. The county’s shift from a “recapture” to an “entitlement” district reveals changing economic dynamics among state communities. It also underscores the risk inherent in Wyoming’s reliance on mineral extraction to provide equitable and adequate funding for each district, no matter its local economic health. “I think it says a lot about the state of Wyoming,” Wyoming Education Association’s Govern...
Some lawmakers are worried that school districts are using federal pandemic-relief and recovery funds to add new positions and purchase equipment that might add to ongoing costs for the state. The anxiety stems from the fact that school districts have discretion in how to spend the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief funds distributed to districts from the CARES and American Recovery and Reinvestment acts. Wyoming’s allotment of ESSER funds total $470 million so far, according to state and federal data. About 90% is directly a...
Wyoming’s largest electrical provider, PacifiCorp, wants to speed up its shift from coal-fired power to renewable energy. But its plan for achieving that vision lacks proper analysis, transparency and modeling, and doesn’t adequately consider other alternatives, such as nuclear power or adding carbon capture to coal plants. That’s the conclusion of the Wyoming Public Service Commission, which just released the results of its investigation into the utility’s 2019 Integrated Resource Plan. The PSC’s findings won’t result in any immediate a...
