Wyoming proposal would require utilities to use fossil fuels
Until people truly value and see the consequences of climate change--we will continue to see fights and discord.
Wyoming proposal would require utilities to use fossil fuels
http://powersource.post-gazette.com/powersource/policy-powersource/2017/01/25/Wyoming-proposal-would-require-utilities-to-use-fossil-fuels-over-renewable-energy/stories/201701250195
January 25, 2017 3:36 PM
Fossil Fuels Requirement
Fossil Fuels Requirement This Aug. 27, 2015, file photo shows a solar power array that is part of sustainability improvements at the Lamar Buffalo Ranch in Yellowstone National Park, Wyo. In recent years, huge solar and wind farms have sprouted up on public desert land in the Western United States buoyed by generous federal tax credits. A group of lawmakers in the most Republican statehouse in the country is bucking the nationwide trend toward stricter renewable energy requirements with a plan to do the opposite: Require utilities to get their electricity from fossil fuels or face fines.
By Mead Gruver / Associated Press
CHEYENNE, Wyo. — A group of Wyoming lawmakers is bucking the U.S. trend of stricter renewable energy requirements with a plan to do the opposite: Fine utilities if they provide energy produced by wind or the sun.
Blustery Wyoming ranks among the top states for wind-energy potential, but the coal, oil and natural gas industries are the backbone of the state’s economy.
With a $360 million budget shortfall in public education caused by downturns in those industries and corresponding state revenue declines, legislators are hard-pressed for solutions.
Renewable energy, some say, has been overly promoted and subsidized by government at the expense of the fossil fuel industry.
“I want the electricity at my house generated by coal, because that’s the cheapest way to go,” said Rep. David Miller, a Republican, of the fossil-fuel requirement he’s co-sponsoring with eight others.
The measure makes for an increasingly complicated relationship between Wyoming and renewable energy, even as roads are built for the biggest land-based wind project in the U.S.
The Chokecherry and Sierra Madre project in south-central Wyoming will have 1,000 turbines and be able to generate electricity for close to 1 million homes in a state with just 584,000 people.
The project will sprawl across 340 square miles of barely inhabited sagebrush foothills where the wind speed averages more than 15 mph and frequently gusts above 50 mph.
Wyoming Senate President Eli Bebout said he does not like the idea of penalizing renewable energy producers....................
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