America's biggest wind farm | Repowering the West, Ep. 1 — Transcript

Full transcript

1. 0:00I am here at a giant wind farm outside of Medicine Bow, Wyoming, and it is
2. 0:05very windy.
3. 0:08Over the last century, cities like Los Angeles, Phoenix and Las Vegas reshaped
4. 0:13the American West by building coal plants and hydropower dams to fuel their growth.
5. 0:18Now, these cities are doing it again, only this time with solar farms,
6. 0:22wind turbines and power lines.
7. 0:25I traveled to Wyoming to the construction site of America's largest wind farm.
8. 0:30Then, I road tripped along the route of the 732-mile power line
9. 0:34that's going to be built to carry that electricity to California.
10. 0:37California and the desert Southwest... They need a reliable source of power,
11. 0:42and they need it in large quantities.
12. 0:45When we pursue renewable energy development in a an environmentally
13. 0:49tone deaf way, we're going to have major impacts on elk, on sage
14. 0:54grouse, on pronghorn.
15. 0:55And we can't afford to squander our opportunity to save
16. 1:00the little fragments of wildness that we have left.
17. 1:03I'm Sammy Roth, and this is Repowering the West, a new
18. 1:07L.A. Times series on the shift to climate-friendly energy.
19. 1:15What makes this such a good place to build wind power?
20. 1:17It's the way the wind comes through the mountains here.
21. 1:22And that's why people like the state of Wyoming to build wind farms.
22. 1:26And it is windy in a lot of areas.
23. 1:29Standing beneath one of these wind turbines is terrifying and awe inspiring.
24. 1:34The blades are 219 feet long and you feel like you're going to get smacked in
25. 1:38the head every time one of them swoops down.
26. 1:41It doesn't help that I know the tip of each blade can move at nearly 200 miles per hour.
27. 1:46What was the impetus to start getting into the wind business?
28. 1:49You know, it was starting to be cost effective for our customers.
29. 1:53They were able to show that these new wind sites could compete with some
30. 1:57of the coal and other generations that we have.
31. 1:59The larger wind turbines have so much more advanced technology
32. 2:04than the older ones.
33. 2:06The towers he used to climb in, you had to hook everything up the ladder.
34. 2:12Warren Buffett owns this wind farm, but it's small compared to the one
35. 2:17being built on Overland Trail Ranch 50 miles away.
36. 2:22This will be the site of America's biggest wind farm.
37. 2:25It's 500 square miles, a little bigger than Los Angeles.
38. 2:30The wind farm is being built by Phil Anschutz, who owns the Coachella Music
39. 2:35Festival, the L.A. Kings hockey team and Crypto.com
40. 2:39Arena, formerly Staples Center.
41. 2:41Anschutz owes his $11 billion fortune in part
42. 2:45to oil and gas.
43. 2:47One of the craziest things about this wind farm that we're going to see is that they're
44. 2:50basically building it on spec.
45. 2:52The Anschutz Company has spent like hundreds of millions of dollars permitting
46. 2:57and beginning to construct this wind farm and the transmission line.
47. 3:01And they don't have a buyer for the energy yet.
48. 3:08Bill Miller is a longtime oil and gas landman who oversees
49. 3:13and shoots his energy and agriculture businesses.
50. 3:16He took us to the top of the Continental Divide, the dividing line between the watersheds
51. 3:21of the eestern and rastern United States.
52. 3:24Now the ranch is 320,000 acres, 500 square miles.
53. 3:29Permanent residents on the ranch, we have 3.
54. 3:31Yeah.
55. 3:32So looking at the Continental Divide here, Got Bridger's Pass over there.
56. 3:37Kind of the low point, which is where Jim Bridger passed through on the Overland Trail.
57. 3:43On this side of the mountains, everything drains to the Mississippi River to the Gulf of
58. 3:47Mexico, and on the other side, it all drains to the Gulf of California through the
59. 3:50Colorado.
60. 3:53How many wind turbines are you guys going to put out here?
61. 3:55600 plus.
62. 3:57That's huge.
63. 3:58There aren't many projects that can compete with this on scope or scale.
64. 4:01I mean, solar and batteries is a fabulous solution.
65. 4:04You know, what point does the cost become prohibitive to do that?
66. 4:07So we just look at it and say, okay, the market is going to be there.
67. 4:11Wind, I think, is going to be one of the key elements of the transition.
68. 4:15What we're all going for, I think, in the end, is going to be a cleaner energy
69. 4:19sector.
70. 4:20Did you think when you started in 2008 that here in 2022 you'd still be doing this?
71. 4:24No.
72. 4:26We had no idea it would take this long.
73. 4:29Miller has been trying to get this wind farm permitted and built for nearly 15
74. 4:34years, in part because not everyone is in love with the project.
75. 4:40So this new wind thing is really rocked a lot of boats because for a while there they
76. 4:44were looked at as the enemy.
77. 4:45Every watt of power the wind farm makes is a watt of power the fossil fuels
78. 4:50is not going to sell.
79. 4:51Some of that's changed because a lot of people are now working for
80. 4:56the wind farm.
81. 4:57The biggest part of having the wind farms take place in our vicinity is
82. 5:02taxes.
83. 5:026% of a few billion dollars is a lot of money.
84. 5:06So we educated ourselves and got comfortable with it.
85. 5:09Just like probably you were scared to death the first time he got on a bicycle because it
86. 5:13could hurt you.
87. 5:15But then you found out how to use it.
88. 5:16And now you have a wind farm.
89. 5:18Once local politicians got on board with the wind farm, there was another hurdle
90. 5:23getting permission to build the 732 miles of power line.
91. 5:29Here we are out in the middle of nowhere, very far from market, and we're generating
92. 5:33electricity that's going to Las Vegas or Portland.
93. 5:36And Los Angeles.
94. 5:38Right. And in Los Angeles.
95. 5:39And so, you know, when you're generating the electrons so far away from the markets
96. 5:44where they're actually going to be used,.
97. 5:46You have to have a transmission line that might cost billions of dollars to bring that to
98. 5:50market.
99. 5:51The big problem with the transmission line and the wind farm, says Molvar, is how they
100. 5:55affect the wildlife habitats where they're built.
101. 5:58This eastern end of the Red Desert... This is one of the last strongholds for sage grouse
102. 6:03in the world.
103. 6:06This is something that's precious, and we can't afford to squander our opportunity
104. 6:11to save the little fragments of wildness that we have left.
105. 6:15Well, the Anzchutz team is taking steps to limit harm to wildlife.
106. 6:20Molvar says it's not enough.
107. 6:22He says it would be better to build wind projects on farmlands that have
108. 6:26already lost much of their ecological value.
109. 6:29Quite frankly, we probably shouldn't be building utility scale
110. 6:34renewables projects on public lands at all.
111. 6:37And if we had sound environmental policy
112. 6:41coming out of Congress and coming out of the White House, they would be
113. 6:46saying,
114. 6:47Let's not build any of these utility scale projects until we have solar panels
115. 6:51on every single rooftop.
116. 6:53We're talking about the Biden administration pushing renewable energy on public lands,
117. 6:57but they've also endorsed that 30 by 30 target to protect 30% of America by 2030.
118. 7:01So it's it's interesting to see how those things maybe come into conflict with each
119. 7:05other, isn't it?
120. 7:06Well, it is. But also, there's an opportunity to solve both problems and achieve both
121. 7:10goals at the same time.
122. 7:11if we are smart about renewable energy development and where it's sited.
123. 7:15And we do have opportunities to find places to put these wind farms
124. 7:19and these solar farms and and these photovoltaic panels in places that don't have major
125. 7:24ecological costs.
126. 7:25It's pretty interesting. We need renewable energy, clearly.
127. 7:28I mean, there needs to be lots and lots of this stuff built to address climate change and
128. 7:32reduce emissions.
129. 7:33And at the same time, how do you do it in a way with the least environmental damage
130. 7:37possible?
131. 7:38And gosh, it's just difficult to pass through.
132. 7:44So I'm standing here along the North Platte River, which flows right through the Anschutz
133. 7:48Wind Farm site.
134. 7:49And right behind us, we've got a real big transmission line, just like the one that
135. 7:53Anschutz wants to build towards California.
136. 7:57I wanted to see all the land that would need to be crossed by this transmission line
137. 8:01to get wind energy to California.
138. 8:03So we hopped in the car and drove along the planned route.
139. 8:07So we're standing here right alongside Highway 40 in Moffat County, Colorado.
140. 8:11Took us about three hours to get here from Rawlins, Wyoming.
141. 8:14The Trans West Express power line is going across this highway right here and then join
142. 8:18up and run right alongside this existing power line.
143. 8:26You're starting to see that river corridor.
144. 8:29I can see the Yampa down there.
145. 8:31Yeah - where they're going to cross is one of the prettiest places.
146. 8:34The easement that we have on Cross Mountain Ranch says very explicitly
147. 8:39that commercial power lines are prohibited.
148. 8:42What they did the conservation easement for was to conserve this
149. 8:47legacy property that means a lot to them for future generations.
150. 8:51For better or for worse, that the Boeddeker ultimately reached a deal and agreed
151. 8:55to let the power lines through here after the river. Good thing or bad thing?
152. 8:58I don't know if it's a good or bad thing, Sammy.
153. 9:00It's just kind of a thing.
154. 9:01Trans West in particular, I think is one of the highest-priority
155. 9:06infrastructure projects in the entire nation.
156. 9:16Good to meet you. Thank you.
157. 9:18To your mind, I mean, this is part of the monument experience when people come off of
158. 9:21Highway 40 in this direction.
159. 9:23And that explains, as I understand it, why at the monument you're not so thrilled about
160. 9:27two power lines getting built across the road here, is that right?
161. 9:30I mean, I think it's overstating it to say I'm not thrilled about it.
162. 9:34I would say what it's going to do is that experience that people have
163. 9:38is going to be interrupted by these power lines.
164. 9:47So we're standing here outside of Roosevelt City, Utah, historically a big oil and gas
165. 9:51town.
166. 9:52And the Trans West Express power lines would run right across this sewer lagoon
167. 9:56facility here that the city owns.
168. 9:58You definitely got folks in town here who are not happy about seeing another power line
169. 10:01running across the farmland and so close to town.
170. 10:07After seven days on the road, I finally made it to Boulder City, Nevada, where
171. 10:12the Trans West Express power line would end and all that wind energy would be injected
172. 10:17into California.
173. 10:20Taking this trip made me realize how hard it's going to be to solve the climate crisis.
174. 10:25There are just so many conflicts out there on the land.
175. 10:28But there's common ground, too, if we're willing to look for it.
176. 10:31For me, the biggest issue that we all face right now
177. 10:36is this conflict between more conservation.
178. 10:40At the same time, we need more renewable energy.
179. 10:43You're going to see this country transition away from fossil fuels, but it's not
180. 10:47going to happen overnight.
181. 10:48It has to be organized and it's going to take a long time for that to happen.
182. 10:52We can produce all the energy that this country needs from renewable sources
183. 10:57without having a major impact on the biodiversity and on the lands.
184. 11:00That's the future we need to get to.
185. 11:04Thank you for watching. For more stories from our road trip, check out my article
186. 11:09at latimes.com/repoweringthewest.
187. 11:13And look out for more episodes in this series.