State OK's wind lease for 675-foot turbines near Laramie

[TexasTowelie]

State land commissioners voted 4-1 Thursday to lease 4,804 acres south of Laramie for a wind farm, rebuffing neighbors’ protest that up to 151 windmills as high as 675 feet would mar a natural and heritage-rich landscape.

The 40-year deal with ConnectGen would be part of a larger 26,000-acre development, 80% of which would be on private land. ConnectGen estimates the entire project will generate $45 million for the state and $131 million for Albany County for a total of $176 million over the life of the project. The leases themselves would bring about $21 million over 40 years, hearing attendees said.

The sprawling proposal around Tie Siding — a tiny community 18 miles south of Laramie — proposes 60 miles of new roads plus 105 miles of electrical collection lines, some of them on 50-foot poles, and substations. The Tie Siding project would build 16 or so rows of turbines a half mile apart on large blocks of rolling sagebrush land stretching 10 miles north from the Colorado border and 10 miles east-west.

The Rail Tie Wind Project boundaries are within two miles of Interstate 80. Project critics say the area — a mix of private and state-owned land — is the city’s best option for the kind of high-end residential development needed to attract University of Wyoming faculty and upscale business employees.

Read more: https://www.wyofile.com/state-oks-wind-lease-for-675-foot-turbines-near-laramie/

[ZZenith]

1. Good! One thing Wyoming has in abundance is wind.

Precious little else going for it. Turn the state into one big wind farm and turn Nevada into one big solar farm. Yes, yes, I know, there are some big environmental issues but in the main it would alleviate a lot of stress on the planet.

[lapfog_1]

2. I grew up in Kansas

we had saying...

You know why it's always windy in Kansas?

It's because Nebraska blows and Oklahoma sucks.

[ZZenith]

3. Indeed. Somehow, though, Kansas doesn't feel anywhere near as bleak as Wyoming.

Grand Tetons and Yellowstone excepted, of course. Drive through southwestern Wyoming and you’ll swear you’re in Mordor.

[OAITW r.2.0]

4. I can see the future of energy here in Maine, at night.

How? Cuz they strobe off in synchronicity at night. Off in the distance, but 30 or 40 that I can see. On the ridges.

[2naSalit]

6. A couple weeks ago I was driving across...

North Dakota, twice in 36 hours. The first run across, I crossed the state at night and I kept seeing these large fields of red tower lights. It's out there in the Baakan oilfields so I was thinking of oil derricks but that didn't seem right. I haven't traveled through the state in at least 25 years.

The next day, on the way back, my driving partner noticed the wind turbines and we deduced that the lights were on them. The have a few in eastern Montana but the majority we saw were in ND.

The area in WY mentioned is up on the continental divide shelf and it's always windy up there. But the ecosystem is fragile, I know it doesn't look like much to most people, but it is crucial biospherically and needs to be seen as such. Large turbine farms are not going to be the best answer to our needs as they require damage to fragile environments that are subject to crashing as the climate changes, much more rapidly due to damage from construction of these concentrated power generation fields.

What would be much better is a well distributed point source generation system where power is generated locally. The technology exists and transformation of local systems isn't too difficult. It would eliminate large scale power outages and make the whole system less vulnerable to attack.

[tikka]

5. Having driven US 287 numerous times into Laramie

the land around Tiesidings is pretty desolate and the wind seems pretty constant. Considering the loss of income from coal fields and the state's profit from wind energy, it seems like a no-brainer. There is a billboard outside Laramie showing windmills obscuring the scenic vistas of some area of Wyoming. That is definitely not the case around Tiesidings.