blades draw in more air. Both improve-
ments mean you can generate energy
more efficiently in places where the wind
isn’t blustery. There are more advance-
ments coming. Companies are working on
even bigger offshore turbines and modu-
lar components for turbine blades, which
would make the parts easier to transport
on smaller roads and through denser cities.
Another reason renewables are becom-
ing more competitive is that states are
swearing off fossil fuels. In 2015, Hawaii
became the first state to make a 100 per-
cent renewables pledge. California was
second, announcing in 2018 that the
state would get all of its energy from
climate-friendly sources by 2045. Other
states—New Mexico, New York, Nevada,
Washington—have since committed to tran-
sitioning to renewables. Some public utili-
ties and large technology companies such
as Google and Microsoft are making sim-
ilar pledges.
In January, the US Energy Information
Administration, which crunches energy sta-
tistics, forecast that all renewable energy
would produce more of the country’s
electricity by 2050 than any other form of
energy, much more than nuclear and coal
and a bit more than natural gas.
That projected increase, from 19 per-
cent to 38 percent of electricity production,
assumes no new policies, regulations, or
breakthrough technologies. In other words,
wind and solar prices are now competitive
enough to thrive without subsidies. (And
just in time. After Congress passed a one-
year extension late last year, the tax credit
that the federal government has offered to
companies to build wind projects will expire
on January 1, 2021.)
All these changes in the engineering
and economics of renewable energy have,
taken together, begun to overcome the drag
imposed by Wyoming’s taxes. The incen-
tives are just that strong. PacifiCorp is mov-ing forward with plans to add nearly 2,000
megawatts of Wyoming wind as early as
2024 while also retiring a few of its coal-
fired power plants early. “We made a big
bet on Wyoming back in the ’60s and ’70s”
when coal was booming, says company
spokesperson Spencer Hall, referring to a
time when PacifiCorp invested heavily in
coal-fired power plants. “And now we’re
betting on Wyoming again.”
Another closely watched enterprise is
making an even bigger wager on the state.
Backed by Denver billionaire Phil Anschutz,
an entity known as Power Company of
Wyoming has set out to build one of the
largest wind farms in the country. Unlike
PacifiCorp, which is a utility with a built-in
customer base, the Chokecherry and Sierra
Madre Wind Energy Project, as the project
is known, will sell its power to utilities and
private customers.
It’s a massive undertaking: The farm’s
896 turbines will double the amount of