{"id":7285,"date":"2024-05-12T09:07:16","date_gmt":"2024-05-12T16:07:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/?p=7285"},"modified":"2024-05-12T09:07:16","modified_gmt":"2024-05-12T16:07:16","slug":"massive-1-2-billion-panel-solar-farm-planned-for-south-cheyenne","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/2024\/05\/12\/massive-1-2-billion-panel-solar-farm-planned-for-south-cheyenne\/","title":{"rendered":"Massive $1.2 Billion Panel Solar Farm Planned For South Cheyenne"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

It’s interesting that this is really to serve data centers for Facebook and Microsoft so they can claim green energy. One of the great things about living here in Cheyenne, is when you get to the edges of our 60k resident small city you see prairie, and if I bicycle around the whole city it’s only 25 miles and I see prairie. It’s a striking contrast to most areas with urban sprawl and heavy traffic that goes on for what seems like forever. And it appears Cheyenne has registered as a great place to live for a lot of people escaping other dysfunctional areas, so things are changing. Our saving grace is a lot of people don’t care for our winds and winter weather and eventually relocate elsewhere. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

https:\/\/cowboystatedaily.com\/2024\/05\/11\/massive-1-2-billion-1-2-million-panel-solar-farm-planned-for-south-cheyenne\/<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n

<\/div><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n
The pastoral landscape south of Cheyenne is getting carved up to make way for a $1.2 billion Canadian company’s solar farm project that will supply electricity to data centers on the south edge of the city. Not everyone’s happy about it.<\/h5>\n\n\n\n

By Pat Maio<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"South
South Cheyenne rancher Ed Prosser looks north of his farmland off of Chalk Bluff Road where 1.2 million solar panels will be visible after Canadian energy giant Enbridge builds the $1.2 billion project starting next year. (Pat Maio, Cowboy State Daily)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

CHEYENNE \u2014 Cattle rancher Ed Prosser\u2019s family has been ranching since his great-grandfather moved to south Cheyenne from a northern Ohio farming community well over a century ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The land that the elder statesman of the Prosser family settled on in 1906 was originally picked up through the 162-year-old Homestead Act, a federal law that accelerated the settlement of Western territory by granting people ownership of land.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They got 320 acres to get things going in Wyoming, then added thousands more over the decades.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The short grasslands located off Chalk Bluff Road where Prosser lives today is located about 7 miles east of South Greeley Highway, just a few miles north of the Colorado state line.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is Prosser country. The name is widely recognized along the South Greeley Highway corridor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s a road \u2014 East Prosser Road \u2014 and patio home apartments that bear the Prosser name along East College Drive where the Laramie County Community College is located.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019ve lived in this community all of my life,\u201d Prosser said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The potholed road that runs out to his house from South Greeley empties onto an unpaved gravel stretch about a mile east of his homestead that eventually cuts over to a few oil and gas derricks, and fenced-in grazing land owned by other ranching families in southeastern Wyoming.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But things are about to change forever. No more rolling hills and bewilderment of what nature has created in this part of Wyoming.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Huge Solar Project<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

This pastoral landscape is about to be carved up with the construction of a massive $1.2 billion solar farm<\/a> with more than 1.2 million panels to collect power from the sun\u2019s brightness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Looking out the front window of Prosser\u2019s one-story ranch on Tuesday, 30 mph winds howled through the Ponderosa pines, cottonwood and aspen trees. Beyond the front and surrounding hills of grass lay more than 2,800 acres of whipped up grass bending to the east in the gale force winds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe grass is wonderful,\u201d said the 75-year-old Prosser, pointing to native prairie grasses like buffalo, bluestem and blue grama in the hundreds of acres in his hilly front yard. There\u2019s also larkspar, sagebrush and occasional tumbleweed that rolls across the land.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The shortgrass prairie around his ranch grows naturally in the southeast corner of the Cowboy State where Prosser has lived his entire life. The Pawnee National Grassland in northeastern Colorado, which has no boundaries, touches up against the Wyoming land where Prosser lives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Until the solar project came along a few years ago, the next biggest hardship for the Prosser family came in the late 1970s when they were caught paying double-digit interest rates on lots of farmland debt, forcing them to sell the original property they owned along Chalk Bluff Road and another cattle investment near Wheatland.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The family took the profit from the land sale of thousands of acres, paid off the debt, and built the one-story ranch that Prosser lives on today \u2014 with an occasional coyote running around or pronghorn laying down in the grass.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"South
South Cheyenne rancher Ed Prosser drives past Black Angus cattle feeding on prairie grass near his 2,800-acre ranch. Canada energy giant Enbridge Inc. plans to build a $1.2 billion solar farm to the north and east of his land. (Pat Maio, Cowboy State Daily)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Knocking On Heaven\u2019s Doors<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The Prossers lived a straightforward ranching life until four years ago, when a representative for Canadian energy giant Enbridge Inc. started making phone calls and visiting ranchers neighboring Prosser.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At that time, an offer was made to pay $500 per acre for \u201cany land developed for the use of solar operations\u201d over a potential 45-year contract, with payments increasing 2% annually, according to a copy of the letter given to Cowboy State Daily.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Prosser, who has about 600 head of Black Angus cattle, turned down the offer at the urging of his wife. No regrets, other than he\u2019ll lose some grazing land that he leases from one of his neighbors who is kicking Prosser\u2019s cattle off of, and instead renting the land now to Enbridge for their solar project.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since April 2020, Alberta-based Enbridge has worked to get its solar farm project off the ground, taking up leases with most of Prosser\u2019s ranching neighbors to the east and north. If everything goes according to plan, Enbridge will begin building more than 1 million solar panels around Prosser\u2019s land starting next spring \u2014 4 miles along the northern fence of his spread and 2 miles along the eastern edge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Instead of rolling hills, the land will be dug up to make way for steel posts to hold the solar panels up to the sunlight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wyoming\u2019s Industrial Siting Council, the governmental body within the Department of Environmental Quality that considers such solar farm project proposals, approved the construction project in March, a 90-day fast track for the concept, which still needs approval from Laramie County commissioners.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is likely, especially given that Enbridge, with an $80 billion market capitalization, must abide by a easy to-do list of 29 conditions before construction can begin. The list of conditions includes payment of a $3.2 million impact fee to local government, the purchase of a fire brush truck for Laramie County Fire District 1 (just in case the grasslands catch fire) plus the plowing up of a second access road into the leased solar farmland that is northwest of Prosser\u2019s property.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Enbridge wanted only one road to be built from the east of Prosser\u2019s property, but Prosser worried that firefighters could get trapped with only one way in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Great Balls Of Fire<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Pine Bluffs resident Marc Torriani, a Republican who is running for state Sen. Anthony Bouchard\u2019s Senate District 6 seat in the primary this August, lives about 20 miles to the east of the solar farm and is worried about a potential fire erupting from a very large battery storage system to be built and managed at the solar farm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The proposed site is on virgin dry prairie grasslands that receive little rainfall and is subject to frequent high winds and hailstorms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWater doesn\u2019t put out these fires,\u201d said Torriani of the lithium batteries that will store power for the solar farm. \u201cWith lithium-based fires, you got to let them burn out. Adding water is more dangerous.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A fast-spreading fire on the prairie that can send kicked-up embers by wind to places like the Nebraska border 40 miles to the east, which is high on the list of Prosser\u2019s list of concerns he wants Laramie County\u2019s board of commissioners to address before approving the Enbridge project.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Phone calls placed with Laramie County Fire District 1 in the area and to the county commission were not returned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hundreds Of Trucks<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

For sure, the solar farm project is a big one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s the largest investment in the state for energy giant Enbridge since it built a pipeline to carry crude oil across Wyoming.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Enbridge\u2019s only other presence in Wyoming includes the Express-Platte pipeline that transports crude oil from western Canada to refineries in the U.S. Rockies region. The main delivery point of crude through the pipeline is in Casper.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Under the Cheyenne solar farm proposal, hundreds of temporary jobs will be created to build the massive solar farm project, the largest in the Cowboy State.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cInstead of seeing a truck drive by once every hour, there\u2019ll be hundreds,\u201d Prosser said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The next largest solar proposal in the Cowboy State is the Dinosolar project, located northwest of Casper, which has been reviewed by the Industrial Siting Council and would generate 440 megawatts of electricity, according to the council in a statement issued to Cowboy State Daily earlier this year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That project\u2019s status is unknown, as construction was halted by Utah-based Enyo Renewable Energy after PacifiCorp\u2019s Rocky Mountain Power pulled out of buying solar power in Wyoming a few years ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An Enyo spokesman could not be reached for comment about an update.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Canada
Canada energy giant Enbridge Inc. plans to build a 771-megawatt solar farm in southern Wyoming. It’s part of a growing portfolio of wind and solar the company is developing, like this solar farm in Wisconsin. (Enbridge Inc.)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The Largest In Wyoming<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Construction on the Enbridge project, technically called the Cowboy Solar Project, could begin on private land owned by three ranching families in early 2025 and take up to two years to complete the nearly 5,400-acre solar farm, according to a permit application filed with the state in January.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The proposed 771-megawatt solar facility would be built in two phases and generate enough electricity to light up more than 771,000 homes, more than in all of Wyoming.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The proposal offered by the energy firm, however, designates the power for large industrial corporate customers in Wyoming and not homeowners, according to the application.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ranchers like Prosser, Torriani and others were told that the power has been designated for the super-sized, energy-starved data centers that software giant Microsoft Corp. and social media giant Meta Platforms Inc.<\/u><\/a> \u2014 formerly Facebook \u2014 and other big data centers in the area are building in the Cheyenne area.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An Enbridge spokesman said that his company has identified an opportunity to develop a solar and battery energy storage project south of Cheyenne, where “preliminary details\u201d will be shared with the public in \u201ccoming months as we explore the opportunity further.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He said that the project is in an “early development phase,\u201d with final plans still to be “determined via engagement, permitting work and interconnection studies\u201d with the local electrical grid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, Prosser claims that Enbridge wants to sell the energy to the data centers, \u201cand they can\u2019t start the project until they have the energy contracted.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Prosser said that the project is part of a wider effort by Enbridge to target the data centers because corporations like Microsoft and Meta want to say they are using clean energy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The expansive development of solar power by Enbridge in Cheyenne saddens Prosser.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou\u2019ve got to grow, and I understand this, but I hate to see everything turned upside down with this project,\u201d he said. \u201cMy concern is that the grazing land will now be converted to industrial, and during construction, hundreds of cars will drive over these roads morning and night.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The grasslands may change forever, he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019ll be downwind from the solar farm, and all the weeds will blow this way when they tear up the grass,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s very fertile soil, so it\u2019s easy to get the weeds started. It\u2019s very fragile grass.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s interesting that this is really to serve data centers for Facebook and Microsoft so they can claim green energy. One of the great things about living here in Cheyenne, is when you get to the edges of our 60k resident small city you see prairie, and if I bicycle around the whole city it’s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7285","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tech","category-world"],"blocksy_meta":[],"featured_image_src":null,"author_info":{"display_name":"Jason","author_link":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/author\/jturning\/"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7285","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7285"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7285\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7286,"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7285\/revisions\/7286"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7285"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7285"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7285"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}