Community FAQ

Financial benefits

• Wind power plants like ours indeed will be paying their way, providing a very positive financial impact. The project will pay property taxes, sales/use taxes and wind electricity taxes that will benefit the State of Wyoming, Carbon County, entities like schools and the hospital in the county, and incorporated municipalities within the county. Over an estimated 20-year economic life, these taxes combined will equate to well over half a billion dollars: an estimated $674 million to $820 million. However, note that a wind power site is designed to last for decades and will be upgraded and repowered as technology evolves, meaning that the total taxes paid over the entire project lifetime will be even greater.
• Property taxes: Using 2009-2010 data*, we estimate our 1,000-turbine wind energy project will pay $28 million to $42 million in Carbon County property taxes in its first full year of existence. (About $291 million to $436 million over 20 years.) That money will provide a major funding boost to local schools, vocational education, the library system, recreation services, the museum, the hospital, the conservation district, and county services for health and safety and road maintenance and repair. The State of Wyoming also receives a share of property tax dollars. The project construction is planned over a three-year period, and here are estimates of how the $28 million to $42 million would be distributed in the project’s first full year.
  

  Entity	Estimated tax receipts
  Carbon County School District #1 Ops	$11.5 million - $17.3 million
  Carbon County General Fund	$4.9 million - $7.3 million
  State Foundation	$5.5 million - $8.3 million
  Vocational BOCES	$690,000 - $1.0 million
  District #1 BOCES	$460,000 - $690,000
  District #1 Recreation	$460,000 - $690,000
  SER Conservation District	$460,000 - $690,000
  Carbon County Library	$344,540 - $516,810
  Weed and Pest Control District	$340,860 - $511,290
  Memorial Hospital of Carbon County	$150,420 - $225,630
  Carbon County Museum	$74,520 - $111,780
  Jeffrey Center	$53,360 - $80,040
  Carbon County Fair	$46,000 - $69,000

  *Estimates based on the 2010 mill levy breakdown for Tax District 0100, where the majority of the project is anticipated to be located.
  

• Sales/use taxes: Because the state’s sales/use tax exemption for renewable energy projects expired in 2011, under current statutes, an additional estimated $234 million in sales/use taxes will be paid over three years. About $124 million – or 53% – of the $234 million will be distributed within Carbon County. By state statute much of that money is divided among incorporated communities by population. The remaining money flows to the state.
• Wind electricity taxes: The 2010 Wyoming Legislature passed a new bill requiring $1 in taxes to be paid for every megawatt-hour of electricity generated by wind, after a turbine has been in operation for three years. The bill was signed into law by the Governor in March 2010. When fully operational, we estimate our wind power project will pay another $8.76 million in electricity taxes every year, or about $149 million over 20 years. By statute, 40% of the revenue will be deposited in the State General Fund, and 60% of the revenue will be divided among all counties with wind generation facilities.
• These millions of dollars do not include the millions of dollars in sales/use tax payments that likely will be spurred by other Wyoming businesses investing in new equipment to support the construction of this wind project and others in Wyoming.

Jobs

• Our wind energy project will create at least 114 permanent, full-time operations and maintenance jobs that will attract skilled workers, such as windsmiths trained in Wyoming, and their families to Carbon County. The wind energy project will also provide opportunities for existing businesses to benefit and to support the development of new businesses. This is exactly the type of economic development activity and opportunity that will help keep and bring families to Carbon County. Furthermore, since the state shares its sales tax funds with counties based on population, this wind project could help Carbon County gain a bigger piece of the pie by helping increase the population of Carbon County. Census data indicates that Wyoming’s overall population grew 14.1% from the 2000 to 2010 census, but Carbon County’s population grew only 1.6%.
• The number of construction jobs is estimated to be more than 1,000 in the first construction season, with around 800+ jobs in subsequent construction seasons, bringing increased business opportunities for local hotels, restaurants and other local service providers.
• NREL’s Job and Economic Development Impact (JEDI) Wind Energy Model, originally developed for the U.S. Department of Energy, indicates that in total, more than 12,500 direct and indirect jobs will be created by the wind plant’s construction, and more than 500 direct and indirect jobs will be created during the plant’s operating years throughout the value chain. Indirect/induced jobs are those triggered by the need for manufacturing parts and supplies, the need for transportation and shipping, the need for hotel and restaurant services, etc.

Regulatory

• Many regulations and permitting processes do exist for wind projects at a federal, state and county level. We are working with several government entities, all with various laws, regulations, guidelines and conditions that we will have to follow while developing this smart energy project. Our project, for example, is located on a checkerboard of federal and private land, so the BLM is preparing an Environmental Impact Statement regarding potential impacts on all environmental, cultural, biological and visual resources. Our detailed Plan of Development covers everything from how the access roads will be constructed to where we'll store gear oil when it needs to be changed to how the site could be dismantled and reclaimed in the future. We also will follow the Carbon County permitting process, and we will apply for a permit under the Wyoming Industrial Siting Authority.
• If the wind turbines need to be taken down, our decommissioning plan will cover everything from how the steel turbine towers will be recycled to how the dirt access roads will be restored. Such a plan and such a commitment is required under the regulations that apply to our project. While we understand that fiberglass blades are not fully recyclable today, there is sure to be continued innovation in blade design and reuse strategies in the next 20-30 years, just like there's been innovation in how other manmade materials have been recycled over the past 20-30 years. In the meantime, our plan will provide for how materials that cannot be recycled will be handled. For context: This scenario is extremely unlikely to ever occur, but even if we had to crush all of the composite material in all 3,000 wind turbine blades (3 blades per tower) at one time, the resulting waste would equate to, for example, just 1% of Casper’s more than 8 million cubic yards of landfill capacity – which is a capacity of 100 years or more, according to the Casper Area Economic Development Alliance in 2009.
  
  Moreover, the BLM will require a bond to ensure compliance with the terms and conditions of the right-of-way grant for wind development on federal lands. The required bond will be a minimum of $10,000 per wind turbine for projects on federal lands, with the amount of the required bond based on site-specific and project-specific factors. That said, we anticipate this wind-power generation plant will last for decades. Just like a coal plant or oil refinery, it will be subject to technology upgrades, major repairs and overhauls as technologies evolve and new equipment is delivered. These continuing investments also will boost property tax and sales/use tax collections again.

Resource use

• All investments into building tangible infrastructure that helps people in their daily lives — roads, bridges, coal plants, hospitals, schools, homes — currently require fossil fuel support. Building a wind energy project is no different. However, according to the American Wind Energy Association, a wind turbine typically takes only 3 to 8 months to "pay back" the energy needed for its fabrication, installation, operation and retirement. Also, unlike other energy sources, the energy generated by this wind project will create no ongoing emissions. Our wind project will help avoid, on average, about 3.6 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions every year. We also are aiming to minimize fossil fuel use by primarily delivering materials to the site via railroad instead of trucks via I-80 or county roads. For instance, according to Union Pacific:

  "Freight trains are almost four times more fuel-efficient than over-the-road trucks and have less impact on greenhouse gas emissions than trucks. Utilizing the efficiencies of rail transportation and backed by the greenest locomotive fleet in the industry, Union Pacific moves one ton 830 miles on one gallon of diesel fuel."

• Our project will not impact local water supplies. To create the concrete pads that support each wind turbine, we will rely on existing water rights already owned by the company operating the ranch. The wind project construction will use only about 200 acre-feet per year — just 5% of the amount already owned. In addition, wind generation itself requires no water use, unlike other energy sources.
• Resource-rich Wyoming produces more energy than its businesses and 563,626 citizens can use. Therefore, Wyoming has long been a leader as an energy export state. In 2009, for example, nearly two-thirds (27,181 GWh) of the electricity generated in Wyoming was exported and sold to other states for their consumption, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. About 90 percent (2,100,342 mcf) of the natural gas produced in Wyoming was exported and sold as well.
  
  Similarly, the 2,000-3,000 megawatts of PCW wind energy is anticipated to be exported to utility customers in California, Arizona and Nevada. These states – collectively home to more than 46 million people – have Renewable Portfolio Standards that require utilities to provide more electricity from renewable sources to their customers; for instance, California utilities must reach an RPS of 33% by 2020. As a result, these states have a very high demand for high-capacity, cost-effective renewable electricity such as that produced by Wyoming wind farms – a high demand that simply does not exist in Wyoming itself.
  
  Just like it is often most cost-effective to grow mass quantities of fruits and vegetables in California to ship to Wyoming for consumption, it is often most cost-effective to generate bulk energy supplies in Wyoming to ship to California for consumption. Further, everyone benefits from the economic efficiencies gained. Utilities in California, Arizona and Nevada will be able to provide more clean energy to their customers at the lowest price – a recent study by the Western Electricity Coordinating Council, for example, indicates California ratepayers can save about $600 million every year by using 3,000 MW of renewable wind electricity transported from Wyoming instead of using lower-quality local solar energy resources. Meanwhile, Wyoming gains construction jobs, long-term operations and maintenance jobs, and millions of dollars in tax revenue from wind power plants for decades to come – just as Wyoming benefits from its traditional energy export resources.
  
  Finally, California ratepayers have the highest average electricity retail prices in the West – more than double the electricity prices in Wyoming. According to the U.S. EIA, through May 2011, the average retail price of electricity across all residential, commercial, industrial and transportation sectors was almost 13 cents per kilowatt-hour in California, compared to Wyoming’s average of 6.45 cents. California consumers and businesses will benefit if their utilities can buy a balanced mix of energy that includes renewable resources from efficient, low-cost producers like Wyoming.

Community involvement

The wind farm is in the permitting/development phase and will not be generating any revenue until its operations phase can begin. However, PCW has and will continue to sponsor selected Carbon County events, seminars and causes – typically in alignment with interests in energy, education, economic development and agriculture. Here are some examples of the types of activities that PCW has supported to date.

• Rawlins DDA/Main Street Passion & Pride Ball
• Carbon County Economic Development Corporation’s “Moving Forward Together” campaign
• Provided a “scholarship” for CCEDC to attend a national wind supply chain seminar
• Carbon County Higher Education Center’s Celebration of Wind
• CCHEC’s “NEPA 101” free daylong workshop
• Carbon County Museum
• Rawlins Citizens for Visionary Community Education Committee
• Rawlins Industry Roundtable effort
• U.S. Capitol Christmas Tree Tour, which included a stop in Rawlins
• Rawlins’ The Depot community center
• Presenting sponsor of Saratoga Bullfest along with cooperating sponsors Carbon County Visitors Council and Saratoga Lions Club
• Saratoga’s “Voices of the Valley” speaker series
• Saratoga’s Platte Valley Community Center
• Wyoming County Commissioners Association Spring 2011 Meeting held in Saratoga
• Landowner workshops hosted by SER Conservation District
• Funding for statewide greater sage-grouse research
• Hosted two community open houses in Rawlins and Saratoga in 2010 (independent of the BLM’s EIS process) to provide further opportunities for citizens to talk with PCW and ask questions about the wind project