Wyoming Moves to Pull the Plug on Costly Pronghorn and Sidewinder Wind Projects
Good news for eagles, hawks and other birds of the region.
The last time we looked at the Trump administration’s reversal of wind farm approvals, the Interior Department, led by Secretary Doug Burgum, had just put a deep freeze on the continuing construction of five East Coast wind farms.
These pauses included several projects familiar to our readers:
- Vineyard Wind 1
- Revolution Wind
- CVOW – Commercial
- Sunrise Wind
- Empire Wind 1
However, those are not the only projects that have been pushed by green energy industries, eco-activists, and politically motivated bureaucrats. As I have noted in a previous post, Wyoming has been the site of several of these projects.
Now Wyoming’s top land officials have moved to rescind the state wind leases underpinning the Pronghorn H2 and Sidewinder projects, effectively putting both projects on a path toward cancellation.
The State Board of Land Commissioners took a series of 3-2 votes that will begin the process of canceling two controversial eastern Wyoming wind leases that the panel approved last year.
The decision came after extensive and emotional public comment Thursday opposing the leases — one related to the Pronghorn H2 Clean Energy Project in Converse County and one for the Sidewinder Clean Hydrogen Project in Niobrara County.
The State Board of Land Commissioners consists of Gov. Mark Gordon, Auditor Kristi Racines, Treasurer Curt Meier, Secretary of State Chuck Gray and Superintendent of Public Instruction Megan Degenfelder. Gray, Racines and Degenfelder voted in favor of rescinding the leases while Gordon and Meier opposed the motion.
Commissioners supporting the reversal — which still must play out procedurally — cited a December ruling by Eighth Judicial District Court Judge Scott Peasley that invalidated another state land lease for the Pronghorn project. That lease, on a state land parcel south of Glenrock, was unlawful, the judge concluded, because it didn’t expressly prescribe that electricity from the windfarm would be pumped into the grid — a violation of the state’s own rules.
State officials rescind wind leases for Pronghorn and Sidewinder https://t.co/oHqd6BB88M #wyoming #usa #windpower
— Power Plant World (@powerplantworld) February 11, 2026
Pronghorn H2 is a Focus Clean Energy project originally designed as a combined wind‑and‑solar facility powering still-in-development hydrogen production on about 46,000 acres in Converse County. However, after a December 2025 ruling by District Court Judge F. Scott Peasley that vacated the project’s wind lease from the state, citing the fact that wind farms on state leases must provide electricity back to the grid
The developers then nixed the hydrogen production portion and substantially reduced the acreage requirements, and then tried to sell the new plan as an effective means of energy generation in the winter-blasted state.
Focus Clean Energy announced Thursday that its Pronghorn H2 Project footprint has been reduced to about 30% of its original size, from more than 57,000 acres down to about 16,571 acres.
… The company also said it is eliminating the hydrogen production component that had been central to the project’s original vision, which means it no longer needs industrial-scale water supplies.
“Rapidly increasing energy demand means Wyoming needs additional electric generation, and the Pronghorn Project is repositioned to help meet that need,” said Paul Martin, lead developer for the Pronghorn Project. “We anticipate these significant changes will resolve many of the concerns expressed by the community.”
Martin told Cowboy State Daily the decision was driven by market conditions rather than politics.
Sidewinder is a related Focus Clean Energy wind project in neighboring Niobrara County, intended to work in tandem with Pronghorn and originally linked to clean hydrogen production. The developer plans to continue the legal battle.
Meanwhile, Focus Clean Energy, the Colorado-based Pronghorn H2 and Sidewinder developer, says it is confident Wyoming’s top court will reinstate its wind lease.
“We believe we’re very likely to have that overturned at the Supreme Court, and then that just reinstates the lease and we move forward,” the company’s President Paul Martin told WyoFile.
Wyoming’s land commissioners didn’t just hit pause on another overhyped green mega‑scheme; by moving to pause the Pronghorn H2 and Sidewinder leases after emotional local testimony, a damning court ruling, and a last‑minute downsizing sales pitch, they began the process of pulling the plug on projects the public never really wanted and that still couldn’t prove they could reliably or inexpensively power that chilly corner of the country.
Many of the locals will be thrilled by this development.
Good news for eagles, hawks and other birds of the region. https://t.co/697rWJ4zi9 pic.twitter.com/WwTmCB88RI
— Leslie Eastman ☥ (@Mutnodjmet) February 12, 2026
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Comments
The greenies have a love for wind projects. They get all fired up when a turtle gets caught in a piece of debris, but look the other way when these wind farms systematically kill eagles, hawks and song birds. They don’t care that the low frequency hum disrupts whales brain functions when placed offshore.
We used to kill whales for Oil. Now, we kill whales for Wind.
Good news for Wyoming. Too bad for Rhode Island. Revolution Wind is back to the erection phase of its monstrosity being built on Coxes Ledge, a designated HAPC. (Habitat Area of Particular Concern)
It’s directly in the path of many migrating birds and directly on top of a complex spawning habitat for Cod and other marine life.
I’m happy for Wyoming but we’ve got more to do on these over priced killing machines.
Preventing construction of new wind power boondoggles is all well and good. Now, work on shutting down existing wind farms which have fallen short of their hype – which is all of them. Then, find a way to dispose of or recycle the no longer usable materials these white elephants were made from (insert obligatory image of thousands of unrecyclable wind turbine blades stacked and rotting in wind power graveyards).
Here’s one: https://ktxs.com/resources/media/de15075d-f9ce-4049-8e2c-dc8e7c302c1b-jumbo16x9_WindTurbine1.JPG?1661380532253
I’d suggest that approval for every proposed electrical generation project be be required to
1. deliver no less than 75% of the total output capacity under all normal conditions to include seasonal weather changes. Wind and solar have obvious drawbacks in ability to produce and deliver reliable power.
2. That the 75% power requirement must be delivered within the State not exported to other States
3. Post a bond for failure to deliver and a second bond to cover clean up/remediation costs
4. Make all intermittent electric generation (wind/solar) ineligible for tax credits/deferments.
5. Deny use of eminent domain to acquire land or easements for ANY project that ships across State lines. Eminent domain is supposed to be used as a last resort to support projects that primarily benefit the local community not to create an easier, less costly path to supply the benefits out of State.
To me, this one is ENTIRELY Wyoming’s decision.
A 75% rule is felony stupid. It would exclude coal, natural gas, and hydro, all of which are well below that threshold. And within states? So you are against the Colstrip, Montana coal generator that has sent its power to WA State? You are against the Pacific Intertie, the world’s longest high-voltage line that runs from The Dalles (Oregon) Dam to the the “grapevine” north of Los Angeles? You are against the Hoover Dam, which sends power to three states?
Really, just how dumb are you? Wait, better not answer that.
nothing wrong with wind and solar as back ups and not funded by taxpayers
if thats what local entities want
but the dems are all about moving our middle class power to those that neither deserve it nor know how to even handle the work load
maga
Cute headline “pull the plug.” Absolutely pull the plug. The wind turbines are gigantic and not easily disposed of when they break down. Think of all the energy, human and otherwise, that gets wasted putting in the access roads, hoisting them, and burying them (landfill) when they’re dead. What a joke.
It must at some point be recognized that, despite the claims of the eco-whackos, the only positive Return on Investment (ROI) for wind and solar projects are in extremely tiny and remote areas. These are typically places where wind energy is abundant and the sun shines for most of the time during daylight hours, and also locations where the cost of running a power line to the area wanting electrical power is simply too high. Remote islands and remote mountain sites are two of the most sensible places in which to put such generation.
Using intermittent, unreliable, and short-lived generation sources like wind and solar for base-load generation makes absolutely no sense whatsoever for any other locations. Without the indirect and direct subsidies that wind and solar plants receive they would NEVER be built by any private entity, since they need to actually make a profit (unlike government-driven projects).
Personally I live in the 2nd windiest area in the lower 48…the windiest is not officially recognized but is quite probably Clark, WY, where wind gusts have been so bad that the wind has actually ripped up blacktop roads. There are many remote cabins in those areas where it doesn’t make sense to run a power line, but NONE of them use bird-choppers. It’s simply too windy (one of the things they hate to admit is that when the wind is too strong they have to feather the blades and not run the bird-choppers at all). So these are some of the locations where solar power sort of makes sense. But note that these are all privately installed (although with the subsidy) in very small cabins with minuscule loads.
Building them for base-load generation is simply insane.
I have my own reasons for not liking wind turbines, but facts are facts. The machines have gearing that shut them down when the wind blows too hard. There are a bunch of reasons to oppose those things, but that’s not one of them.
This entire thing was a scam for tax money from day one.
Big Tech (largely comprised of Dhimmi-crats) is ironically reversing the vile, stupid and impoverishing Dhimmi-crats’ decades-long, dishonest anti-nuclear power demagoguery, hysterics and histrionics, by funding massive investments in nuclear power plants and/or small modular nuclear reactors.
Naturally, the Dhimmi-crats will come on board, when they deem it politically safe/expedient for them to do so, at which point they’ll pretend that the shift to nuclear power was their idea.
Not to worry, help is on the way:
https://www.youtube.com/@CopenhagenAtomics/videos
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-k55FMaCDc&pp=ygUwYWJpbGVuZSBjaHJpc3RpYW4gdW5pdmVyc2l0eSBtb2x0ZW4gc2FsdCByZWFjdG9y
They are being built. They will likely flourish as they are installed as dedicated power for data centers.
a scam for tax money
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