Deutsche Welle (English edition)
Wyoming could lead US green energy push with wind power
US President Joe Biden has pledged to promote renewable energy. Wyoming, where much of America's coal is sourced, could benefit with a new focus on wind energy. But not everyone is open to change.
When Jim Clayton* still worked in a coal mine, he would head to a nearby bar to settle his accounts. The pub effectively became his office. When after 22 years in the industry he quit his job and decided to run the pub instead, it was easy to choose a new name for the place.
These days, The Office has become a hangout for many of those earning a living in the coal, oil and gas industry in northeastern Wyoming.
The Office is situated along a thoroughfare just north of Gillette, the self-declared "energy capital of the nation." It used to supply some 40% of the country's coal — a source of pride for many locals. And Gillette's mayor has described the energy industry as the town's lifeline.
With coal's decline, Gillette's future looks grim
But times have changed. "It looks pretty gloomy," said Clayton, giving a thumbs-down. Many of the workers who flock to his bar are concerned about their future. If the price of coal doesn't rise, making a living in this industry will not be viable.
Extracting the fossil fuel from Gillette's surface mines is straightforward and cheap.
While this coal produces less energy than coal from mines in the eastern Appalachian Mountains, it emits less harmful CO2 and sulfur when burned. In the 1970s, coal mining sparked a veritable economic boom in Gillette, attracting countless workers from elsewhere.
Still today, some 12 tons of coal are extracted from Wyoming's soil every second. The coal industry, it seems, is thriving. Yet in actuality, it has been in decline.
Ten years ago, some 7,000 people were employed in the coal industry, Today, that figure has dropped to about 4,500. The US Energy Information Administration has reported that the share of coal used to generate electricity in the US dropped to a 42-year-low in 2019. With demand dropping, more and more coal mines are closing.
Biden pledges 'clean energy revolution'
The availability of cheap nat
ural gas has put further pressure on Wyoming's coal industry. This has been compounded by a series of mild winters, which reduced the demand for fossil fuels. The drop in economic productivity resulting from the coronavirus pandemic made matters worse still.
And now, new President Joe Biden has announced an ambitious a $1.7 trillion (€1.4 trillion) climate agenda to promote clean energy over the next decade. None of this bodes well for Wyoming's coal industry.
"We're under tremendous pressure from renewables, heavily subsidized renewables by the federal government," said Travis Deti, executive director of the Wyoming Mining Association. He isn't particularly optimistic about the industry's future.
On his website, Biden says "we have no time to lose" in combating climate change, citing the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) which has warned that only nine years remain to avoid a global catastrophe. The president pledged to launch a "clean energy revolution" on his first day in office, promising to achieve a "100% clean energy economy and netzero emissions no later than 2050."
Powerful winds may be lucrative
Wyoming, which for decades profited from the coal mining industry, could be one of the states leading the way to this clean energy future. The state is dominated by mountain ranges and plateaus that give rise to natural, funnel-like channels and result in constant streams of strong wind. In Wyoming, winds from the east are so strong and persistent that trees show a visible eastward lean. Few regions in the US are characterized by such powerful winds.
Rick Grant is a fourth-generation livestock farmer in Glenrock, Wyoming, who saw the potential of wind energy early on. "The wind is finally going to pay me back for what it has robbed from us for so many years," he told DW. During the winter, he said, cold Wyoming winds can chill his cattle to the bone, and even kill newborn calves. To help them survive, farmers must provide additional feed, which is costly. But since 2007, he has turned wind to his advantage.
On his property are three dilapidated wooden huts which belonged to his ancestors. The
smallest, a mere 4 square meters (43 square feet) in size, was his great-grandfather's home. The other two, slightly larger ones, belonged to his grandfather and father, respectively. Grant, meanwhile, is currently building a brand new, threestory house nearby — funded from income generated not from cattle farming, but wind energy.
Grant has installed 15 wind turbines on his property, and it's been a lucrative investment. "This change has benefited our family greatly," he said, adding that it will allow the next generation to keep the cattle farm operational. He admitted, however, that he did not opt for wind energy for environmental reasons.
Wyoming wind farms not living up to potential
A number of companies have set up large-scale wind farms in Wyoming in recent years. Warren Buffet's PacifiCorp, for instance, has installed 158 wind turbines on the site of the now defunct Glenrock coal mine. But while Wyoming offers plenty of potential when it comes to wind
energy, it ranks only 16th out of all US states in terms of installed capacity.
But Jim Clayton, who spent years working in the state's coal industry, has little appreciation for renewable energy. "Those windmills are not going to save anybody in this country," he said. "They don't produce enough and they'll never pay for themselves." Clayton said a wind turbine won't allow you to build roads, or power airplanes. He's convinced that "you'd be better off going back to nuclear than where we're going today."
Despite considerable potential for renewables in Wyoming, not everyone is open to change.
*Some names have been changed.
This article was translated from German by Benjamin Restle
that the security agents should treat the migrants as potential asylum-seekers and issue documents for accommodation in shelters.
Serbian security agents say they handed out the paperwork directly after leaving the court building and left.
Security agents ignored court order
Testimony from one eyewitness, however, convinced Serbia's constitutional court that what really happened was different. According to this, the Afghans were forced into a police van, taken to the forest along the Bulgarian border, and then illegally forced back into Bulgaria.
"They did not beat us but they did take away our papers for the Serbian asylum-seeker shelter," one of the Afghan migrants reported several days after the pushback using the Viber messaging service. The migrant utilized this channel to contact Belgrade lawyer Nikola Kovacevic.
Who committed the pushback?
It is not the job of Serbia's top court to identify which police officers or border guards deported the Afghans. As is common in such cases, the Serbian ministries in charge have not commented on the matter. But Kovacevic insists the identity of the officers who conducted the pushback must be revealed. "I see the court verdict as a warning to the Interior and Defense Ministries," says Kovacevic.
For the time being, however, Kovacevic has cause to be satisfied with the ruling by the constitutional court. Serbia's judiciary is infamous for being under the control of President Aleksandar Vucic and his Progressive Party. Critics suspect that the tough stance of Serbian security officers toward migrants at the Serbian borders has long been part of the government's state policy. This makes the ruling all the more important.
Pushbacks condoned by EU?
In autumn 2015, President Vucic praised German Chancellor Merkel for her open-door policy toward asylum-seekers. Just one year later, Hungary and Croatia shut their borders, effectively closing down the Balkan route. This led to fears in Serbia that hundreds of thousands of migrants could become stranded in the country. In May 2017, Serbian General Milan Gujanica boasted to Tanjug news agency that "we have erected an impregnable shield along the border."
The general proudly claimed that some 20,000 people, most of them Afghans, had been prevented from crossing the border in the first months of that year. During this same period, he said, 140 people traffickers had been arrested. The EU apparently condoned Serbia's hardline approach, as it had deployed 50 police officers from various member states to patrol the frontier alongside Serbian security personnel.
Court orders financial compensation
The Belgrade branch of the UN's refugee agency, UNHCR, has reported that about 1,000 people were illegally deported from Serbia in November 2016 alone. Human rights activists have documented illegal pushbacks by Croatian and Bulgarian authorities for years. But neither of their top courts have ruled on the matter in the way the Serbian one now has.
The Serbian government must now pay €1,000 ($1,200) in compensation to each of the 17 Afghans for their illegal deportation. Kovacevic is in touch with many of them. He says most now live in Germany.