Staff-Reported

CHEYENNE — The many companies intent on harvesting Wyoming wind to generate electricity will be expected to offer the state more than just wind turbines and their associated impacts, Gov. Dave Freudenthal said today in his keynote address to the Wyoming Wind Symposium.

“We’re glad to host the wind turbines, but we expect the people who come to Wyoming and put up wind turbines … to do a little more. We expect them to talk about manufacturing plants being in Wyoming, we expect construction facilities to be in Wyoming and we expect the jobs to be in Wyoming. It isn’t the case that we’re going to be some colony that’s going to be really happy to have a bunch of towers sticking up in the air and no jobs.”

The Governor’s keynote address kicked off the standing room only event that drew a diverse audience of more than 600 people to the University of Wyoming.  He emphasized the importance of the wind industry’s participation in efforts to conserve sage grouse, a species currently being considered for listing on the Endangered Species List.

“I expect that the wind industry will do what it can to accommodate (the sage grouse) not being listed [as an endangered species], the same as we have asked the oil and gas industry to do, the same as we have asked of the coal industry. It isn’t that we’re asking anything different of the wind industry, it’s that we’re asking them to play by the same rules,”  Freudenthal said.

Listing the bird could have a devastating impact on Wyoming’s economy, subjecting the majority of the state’s natural gas, oil and coal production to further review and imposing significant restrictions on the agricultural industry.

Transmission remains a key issue, since renewable energy projects require the infrastructure to move the power to load centers. The Governor said renewable energy development cannot occur without the construction of additional transmission lines.  

“You can’t come to me and say, ‘Governor, we want to support alternative energy, but, that power line - I just don’t want them.’  Now, that doesn’t mean that we should be insensitive about people’s private property rights or about how we site them, but as a matter of policy, the state has to be careful that it keeps a fair and open playing field so that people can build those power lines. Because without power lines, all of the things we’re talking about won’t happen.”