Green Options

It can be challenging going paperless at home or work, right?

One Jackson Hole, Wyoming business, WordenGroup Strategic Public Relations, has announced a “Go Paperless” initiative for Arbor Day, April 24, 2009.

The company wants to reduce office paper flow and save trees in honor of the national tree planting holiday.

In response to Interior Secretary Ken Salazar’s recent comments that the offshore wind energy resource in the U.S. could potentially provide 25% of our electricity and replace the need for coal-fired power plants, Wyoming Gov. Dave Freudenthal balked, telling reporters: “Ain’t going to happen.”

Duke Energy said today it will build a third wind farm in Wyoming and the Charlotte, N.C., based company plans to have the facility online by the end of this year.

The Silver Sage Windpower Project will generate 42 megawatts of electricity with 20 2.1 MW Suzlon wind turbines. It will join Duke’s 29-MW Happy Jack Windpower Project in Cheyenne and the 99-MW Campbell Hill Windpower Project near Casper which should also be online by year’s end.

Did you know that the Rocky Mountains contain more oil than Saudi Arabia? Most people don’t. The problem is that, unlike the easily accessed and processed oceans of liquid oil under Middle Eastern sands, the Rocky Mountains’ petroleum is found in rocks called oil shale. Oil shale, which must be mined, is a type of sedimentary rock that releases oil when heated in specific types of chemical processes. The problem, according to environmental groups, is that producing energy from oil [...]

While the federal government debates adding the black-tailed prairie dog to the endangered species list, ranchers in Wyoming are speaking out against the idea, claiming any protection for the animal would threaten their livelihood.

The US Fish and Wildlife Service has concluded that the prairie dog’s population is only 20 percent of its original size. The agency is expected to decide whether the species warrants protection in March, but ranchers are looking to have their voices heard.

Add the name of Denver billionaire Philip Anschutz to the growing list of investors throwing their hats into the ring of a booming wind energy and transmission industry in the American west.

The Anschutz Corp. said Tuesday it has acquired the rights to a proposed $3 billion, 3,000-megawatt transmission project that will bring electricity from Wyoming to Southern California, Las Vegas and Phoenix.

The 900-mile TransWest Express Project will carry power from a 2,000-megawatt wind farm Anschutz is developing in south-central Wyoming, a large portion of which will be built on a ranch he has owned for about 15 years.

A new study suggests that geysers, like Old Faithful, are affected by climate conditions, such as droughts. Shaul Hurwitz, a researcher with the U.S. Geological Survey, Ashish Kumar, a Stanford University statistician, and two National Park Service scientists have discovered that changes in the supply of underground water to a geyser can influence the amount of time between eruptions.  “Coupled with this decrease in precipitation, we see an increase in eruption [...]

Law Helps Smooth Way For “Clean Coal”

Last week, Wyoming Gov. Dave Freudenthal signed a bill that recognizes that surface owners control the underground pore spaces where carbon dioxide could be stored or sequestered. A companion bill, gives the Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality the authority to regulate the long-term storage of carbon dioxide.

“With the signing of these two bills today, Wyoming puts itself in the forefront of carbon sequestration legislation. This is a forward-thinking approach to protect both Wyoming’s economy and Wyoming’s environment.” Gov. Freudenthal called the legislation a “groundbreaking” framework for carbon capture and sequestration

Earlier this year, Freudenthal told the Joint Judiciary Interim Committee that the Wyoming Legislature had an opportunity to lead the nation in regulating long-term carbon capture and sequestration.

I may begin to sound like a broken record here, but yet another coal plant has been pulled because of global warming-related concerns.

Back in October, the Kansas Department of Health denied a coal plant permit solely because of its carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions (CO2 is a major contributor to global warming). Not long after, Washington state rejected a coal plant because of its climate change pollution.

The most recent example hails from Wyoming, where two coal plants planned for the southwestern area of the state have been pulled because of concerns about global warming regulation. Specifically, the uncertainty of what sort of CO2 regulation will ultimately be decided upon makes utilities and investors nervous about putting money into a technology that will likely be costlier in the near future.

It’s been going on since 1922, seven western states staking their claims on Colorado River Water. For years, a sometimes divisive battle has raged as Colorado, Utah, California, Arizona, Wyoming, Nevada and New Mexico all said they weren’t getting their share of the precious liquid.

It came to an end in Las Vegas, when representatives of the seven states inked their signatures to a 20 year water-use agreement that now supersedes the 1922 pact.

The plan resolves several legal issues among water agencies and formalized rules fostering cooperation during drought conditions now ongoing in the region. The states are promising consultation and negotiation before litigation on Colorado River water issues. What a concept.

Three lower-basin states, Arizona, California and Nevada will use the Lake Mead reservoir behind Hoover Dam to store water they won’t use or need right now. Thirty million people depend on water in that region, especially in Southern California, where 26 cities and water districts serve about 18 million customers.