Legislators, ranchers and area residents take time to appreciate the scenery below them just outside of Glenrock on May 20. This is where some of the Pronghorn H2 project was slated to be built on state and private lands.
Legislators, ranchers and area residents take time to appreciate the scenery below them just outside of Glenrock on May 20. This is where some of the Pronghorn H2 project was slated to be built on state and private lands.
DOUGLAS — The Pronghorn H2 Clean Energy Project – initially planned to be a $1.7 billion, 40,000-acre hydrogen extraction project in Converse County – has been cut to 30% of its original footprint.
It is now just 16,500 acres and no longer includes hydrogen extraction, company officials announced late last week. The Pronghorn Project, as it’s called now, has an undisclosed proposed cost.
Focus Clean Energy LLC founder Paul Martin said without the hydrogen extraction plant, the wind farm and a solar farm will remain in place but be smaller and cost considerably less. This abrupt change comes just weeks after Eighth Judicial District Court Judge Scott Peasley on Dec. 5 struck down the Wyoming State Board of Land Commissioners’ approval of leases on state land.
The state and Martin’s company have independently appealed Peasley’s decision to the Wyoming Supreme Court.
The legal battle began in April when Glenrock area rancher Mike Stephens and others fought the lease approval.
The SBLC voted 4-1 (with Secretary of State Chuck Gray casting the dissenting vote), but some of the other commissioners have now signaled they may be willing to reverse their vote after hearing from county residents.
In response to the latest reiteration, Stephens said taking the hydrogen extraction plant off and scaling back the project didn’t change a thing.
“The people of Glenrock do not want their state land shut down for hunting. They don’t want red blinky lights ruining their night sky. They do not want 700-foot-tall wind turbines blocking their view of the mountains. They do not want their property values to be affected; they do not want the wildlife winter habitat destroyed or damaged beyond repair; they do not want the wind turbines killing eagles, hawks, owls, or any other bird species. They don’t want to listen to the noise and the hideous vibrations (wind turbines) make. They do not want them harming the last of the sage chicken leks in this area.
“Here’s another thing – this area is full of teepee rings and Native American burial grounds,” Stephens continued. “The Oregon Trail, the Bozeman Trail, the California Trail, the Mormon Trail, the Pony Express all went through this area. Hundreds of thousands of travelers went through this area.
“This is not what people want to see when they come out. They want to see the wild. They want to see a cowboy. They want to see cows out in the pasture. They want to see animals. They don’t want to see wind turbines,” Stephens stated.
This is not the first iteration of the Pronghorn Project, according to Martin, who noted his company voluntarily pulled leases on the Duncan Ranch.
“Originally, we had proposed including the Duncan Ranch in our study area. We had voluntarily eliminated that before we signed the lease with the state. I think that some people don’t understand that,” Martin said on Jan. 30. “That was one point we wanted to make here. Then from our leased study area we did make a big change in the number of acres that are going to be included. That’s largely a result of all the work that we’ve been doing on the ground and in coordination with (Wyoming) Game and Fish and identifying sensitive environmental and cultural resources – ultimately, what we needed to stay away from.
“It’s a pretty dramatic change from what some people had in their minds about what we were talking about. Ultimately, it’s just part of the development processes,” he said.
Removing the hydrogen plant, Martin explained, allows the company to focus on wind and solar and the generation of electrons. Its goal is to create about 350-365 megawatts of power, which it ultimately plans to sell and tie into an electricity power grid.
“We had been trying to come up with our own use case of the electrons in lieu of other market opportunities. We’ve been working on this project for four or five years now, and things have evolved. Electrons now are much more valuable than they were before. There’s a lot more demand for them. By not having the hydrogen and synthetic fuels being a component makes the project a lot more flexible so that we can ultimately utilize the electricity in the best way possible,” he said.
The company will also reduce water demands dramatically, going from an industrial facility down to an office building with a bathroom, he pointed out.
“I think people always believed that we were going to use way more water than we really were proposing. That is one thing that we were looking at during the very earliest stages of development. We heard from the community that it was a big concern. That’s not our highest priority, certainly. Ours is the electrons.”
He emphasized that Pronghorn is “still in the development process and things can change” as it moves forward.
“Certainly the cost of the facility is one of those things … it’s hard to really put a number on that right now. (It’s) a lot less than it was,” Martin said.
Martin said Focus Clean Energy will begin the permitting process on the Pronghorn Project later this year. As it is part of the process, there will be at least one community open house in Glenrock at least 60 days prior to submitting its application.
This will allow people to really learn what’s going to be in that application.
Additionally, the company plans to meet further with Converse County commissioners.
One of the reasons its representatives have yet to actively show up every month and present project updates to the commissioners, Martin said, is that they would be wasting the (commissioners’) time as things in the project change.
“It’s important that at more critical moments we update everybody. We may be doing some near-term presentations to the county commissioners if they want us to. We’ve sent the (latest change in the project) to them (via the press release). If they have any questions they can reach out to us,” he said. “The feedback we’ve gotten thus far is that until we actually have an application to provide to them so that they have something certain to review, that they’ve got other things to work on.”
Martin acknowledged that he is aware of the “sensitivity in Glenrock” and is willing to answer questions.
“Our whole team has heard that feedback. As an example, there’s a narrative that we are not engaging and not available – not answering questions – but I don’t think that is true. We have pushed out contact information and we respond to everybody who reaches out to us,” he said. “(We) had a (phone) meeting in town, widely attended by a broad contingent of the community. We received an extensive list of questions from them. This was in an informal context. We responded to those questions quickly, within a week or so, and then we didn’t get any follow up from anybody. We’re doing our best to try and communicate at the right times without wasting anyone’s time.”
Kate Peters, president of RenUSA and Pronghorn’s public relations partner, said company officials really want Glenrock to understand that Pronghorn doesn’t want to have meetings too early in the process when they don’t yet have complete answers to the questions.
However, as the company is planning on submitting an application this year, Peters said officials plan on providing more concrete answers to the community’s questions.
Martin said the company is planning on tying into the grid – but just what is “the grid?” “Pacificorp has a different system than Tri-State does, and Black Hills has a different one from them, and then there’s all sorts of private entities that have their own grids. We are 100% connecting to somebody’s grid because they have to take our power, right?” he said. “There’s been a lot of confusion around that. Like for instance, all wind projects – and ours included – generally will connect their facility to the grid in a couple different ways. They might be selling power to the grid and they also might be drawing power from Rocky Mountain Power’s grid. We anticipate that we will have those same connections … Part of deciding which system we (work with), whether it’s public or it’s private, all depends on who’s going to buy the power. We’re not at a stage where we can really decide. The hydrogen was us trying to come up with our own demand so that we could process our own product and create another level of economic activity. But now we’re saying, ‘All right, who out there other than ourselves wants to buy this?’ We’ll connect with them, but it’s very difficult to say.”
Martin said the benefit of this project from the start is that it’s located across the river from the Dave Johnston Power Plant, a “massive node in the Pacificorp transmission system.”
Tri-State owns transmission lines that connect to that plant, as well, he said.
The wind turbines are planned south and east of Glenrock in a place Stephens says will obstruct the viewshed near his generational ranch and others’ homes.
Martin said the locations are the ones that stand out as the best spots to put the wind turbines that will also minimize impact to sensitive resources.
“It’s a hard one. View is not one of those standards that is as critical as some of the other ones, like environmental resources – that’s due to the law in Wyoming,” said Martin. “We recognize that people feel strongly. That’s why we don’t want folks to forget that we voluntarily eliminated the Duncan Ranch from all of this, because there are places where you don’t want to be looking at them. They’re big. You can see them from a long ways away. But all industry is big. You can see the coal plants from a long way away. But we are certainly not doing anything to spite anybody.”
This is about private landowners who want to take full advantage of the economic opportunities on their own property, he continued.
“Even the state of Wyoming … when they signed the lease, it was to maximize the revenues from the land that they own,” Martin said. “It’s the landowner saying, ‘This is the highest and best use of my ground.’ Nobody likes to make their neighbors unhappy. You’re talking about somebody who … they’re trying to control the viewshed of a private property owner that spent the money on the ground and should have the right to develop it as they see fit.”
And, there are already other wind farms located near that land.
“NextEra Energy has built a couple different projects, so we’re smaller than several projects that have already been built – like those 500 megawatt projects – that’s like a billion dollars to build those. We’re shooting for 350-365 megawatts right now. Nobody spends that kind of money unless everyone’s confident that it works. A lot of people talk about how it doesn’t work and that it’s all smoke and mirrors, things like that. If that were the case you wouldn’t have the largest investors in the world putting massive amounts of money into it – that’s at risk for 30 years. Those are incompatible thoughts,” he stated.
Martin argued he is working to contribute to Wyoming’s economy while providing jobs to keep young people in this state.
At the same time, he is trying to protect Wyoming’s resources.
“Nothing people do comes without impacts. We are parasites on this planet and everything we do has impacts,” Martin said. “I’m working on very large projects that move the needle for the economy. People can see there are impacts from it. I’m doing my best to minimize those impacts and to try and make it fit in the community the best that I can, and benefit as wide a range of people as I can.”
Stephens, of Stephens Land and Livestock and whose land borders part of the Pronghorn Project’s leased land, filed the lawsuit in state district court.
He alleged the WBLC was “not following their own laws” in approving the wind farms. Peasley agreed, nixing the state’s lease decision.
However, Martin said there is a lot of “political hay” that people create and confusion sometimes makes it easier “to rile things up.”
“The AG has appealed (the decision). The project and my partners have appealed this. We are going through that process. I couldn’t tell you exactly the next step. I’d have to go to my attorneys and, ultimately, we don’t want to go into too much detail (as) it is ongoing litigation,” said Martin. “I think it’s important to note that we signed contracts with the state, the OSLI. We acted in good faith on those contracts. We did everything by the book in close coordination with the OSLI staff and we then signed these contracts, relying upon them and acting on them. “What we’re announcing now is the result of all of this – millions of dollars that we’ve spent studying this site – and in reliance on these contracts,” he continued. “It’s important to us the state honor its commitments. We’re moving forward. We think that Judge Peasley’s ruling will be overturned at the Supreme Court.”
Ann Jantz – First Place for Column Writing, Second Place for In-depth Reporting, Second Place for Wildlife Photo
Trina Brittain – First Place for Arts/Entertainment/Culture Reporting, Honorable Mention for General News Story
Tyler Johnson – Honorable Mention for Sports News Story
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