Why is a big oil company investing huge amounts of money in Wyoming wind?
Anschutz Corporation, which made billions drilling oil, is building a 732 power line to carry renewable energy to cities including Los Angeles and Phoenix
Some days, the wind rips across Wyoming's southern plains at 70mph. Cottonwood trees bend, tall grass lies flat and 18-wheel trucks tip over along Interstate 80. It only takes a breeze of about 6mph to get the long white arms of an electricity-generating wind turbine turning, at full speed they can power thousands of homes.
As one of the US's windiest states, Wyoming has enormous potential to help power the country's green revolution, but renewable energy in the west has long been dogged by a fundamental problem of transmission. Wind and solar farms tend to be located in remote areas separated from populated cities by hundreds of miles of rugged terrain, a tangle of government regulations and resistance from landowners who don't want power lines buzzing over their yards.
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