Connect with us

Wyoming

Blue hydrogen could be Wyoming's net-zero solution, study suggests

Published

on

Blue hydrogen could be Wyoming's net-zero solution, study suggests


LARAMIE, Wyo. — As global needs for more environmentally sustainable energy solutions grow, Wyoming’s chief industry, energy extraction, is at danger of being left to dry. However, a new study published by University of Wyoming researchers theorizes that the state might find its solution in hydrogen.

The study, authored here in Wyoming by a range of contributors from UW and state community colleges, suggests that a possible solution for Wyoming becoming a net-zero emissions economy lies in the often environmentally scrutinized natural gas industry.

Blue hydrogen is an energy resource sourced from natural gas production using a process called steam methane reforming that would be paired with carbon capture and storage. Like natural gas itself, blue hydrogen has a large range of electrical and energy uses. Importantly, it is much cleaner than pure natural gas.

The study then suggests that Wyoming could use the resource as its key to staying at the forefront of the country’s energy economy while still prioritizing net-zero emissions goals.

Advertisement
How does steam methane reforming work?

According to the United States Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, SMR is an energy production process that attaches itself to already existing natural gas production infrastructure.

Natural gas’ primary composition is methane, which is made of carbon and hydrogen molecules. By heating methane gas through thermal processes like steam power, the gas breaks up into its primary components.

Methane (CH4) contains more hydrogen than carbon, but carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide, which is a greenhouse gas, are still produced nonetheless. According to the study, SMR paired with carbon capture would alleviate greenhouse gas production during this process.

Notably, blue hydrogen is not actually the cleanest form of hydrogen gas production. Another process called renewable-powered electrolysis produces a cleaner form of hydrogen gas referred to as green hydrogen. However, the study authors point out that the production cost of green hydrogen is much higher than its blue counterpart and is less feasible for the state to produce en mass.

Wyoming’s unique position; what to gain

According to the study, Wyoming especially lends itself to being a potential key player in the production of the resource for a number of reasons. For one, blue hydrogen production runs on extant natural gas infrastructure, which Wyoming has. The Petroleum Association of Wyoming reports that in 2022, the state had around 17,800 gas producing wells.

Advertisement

A pro-energy regulatory environment that the state has fostered over the years is also an attractive factor to the industry, the study authors suggest. The study points to legislation such as the state’s Low-Carbon Energy Standards as being favorable for the resource’s growth here in the Cowboy State.

Federal tax incentives laid out by the Inflation Reduction Act would furthermore economically benefit the state if blue hydrogen production was kickstarted here.

Another potential benefit to this extraction method would be how it could stimulate the workforce economy within the state. At a time where the energy industry is often at odds with the federal regulatory environment, a new perspective on energy production could keep students studying here in Wyoming and getting oil and gas jobs in-state.

Researcher and UW Hydrogen Energy Research Center Director Eugene Holubnyak said in a UW Institutional Communications release that the benefits to Wyoming citizens was a factor in the paper.

“This study really allowed us to incorporate the views of the community colleges and explore some of the economic incentives and workforce training opportunities for a natural gas-based, low-carbon hydrogen industry,” Holubnyak said.

Advertisement

Resource and infrastructure requirements

Where it gets complicated is that coupling carbon capture and storage with MSR in hydrogen gas production is costly and sucks up water resources.

Hydrogen gas production isn’t an unheard of process. Currently, according to the study authors, 95% of the country’s hydrogen is produced through SMR. However, all of that is done so without the additional process of storing the carbon byproducts. Hydrogen produced this way, in keeping with the color trend, is called gray hydrogen.

Blue hydrogen production is 55% more expensive overall and increases water withdrawal intensity by 87%. The decision to prioritize blue hydrogen over gray hydrogen or natural gas would therefore be a weighty one.

Using National Energy Technology Laboratory assessments, adjusting them to the Wyoming economy and then factoring in the possible benefits from IRA tax credits, the authors did find that the state could be in a beneficial position if it began implementing plant-scale hydrogen production.

Put to an actual number, the study suggests that the state could up to $2 per kilogram of low-carbon hydrogen if captured carbon byproduct is properly stored in saline reservoirs. With the tax credits that would subsequently follow, the state would also earn $85 per metric ton of carbon dioxide captured.

Advertisement

Not dismissing the economic potential of green hydrogen, which sells for at least $3 per kilogram, the study authors say both could ultimately have a solid future in Wyoming.

“As Wyoming has abundant natural gas and wind resources, blue and green hydrogen can be options in the near and long terms to create new jobs and diversify the state’s energy-driven economy, respectively,” according to the study.



Source link

Advertisement

Wyoming

Rivalries and Playoff Positioning Highlight Week 11 Wyoming Girls Basketball Slate

Published

on

Rivalries and Playoff Positioning Highlight Week 11 Wyoming Girls Basketball Slate


It’s Week 11 in the 2026 Wyoming prep girls’ basketball season. That means it’s the end of the regular season. 3A and 4A schools have their final game or games to determine seeding before the regional tournament, or if a team is locked into a position, one last chance to fine-tune before the postseason. Games are spread across four days.

WYOPREPS WEEK 11 GIRLS BASKETBALL SCHEDULE 2026

Every game on the slate is a conference matchup. Several rivalry contests are part of this week’s schedule, such as East against Central, Cody at Powell, Lyman hosting Mountain View, and Rock Springs at Green River, just to name a few. Here is the Week 11 schedule of varsity games WyoPreps has. All schedules are subject to change. If you see a game missing, please email david@wyopreps.com.

CLASS 4A

Final Score: Laramie 68 Cheyenne South 27 (conference game)

Advertisement

CLASS 3A

Final Score: Lyman 40 Mountain View 26 (conference game)

Submit a Score to WyoPreps

CLASS 4A

Final Score: Evanston 41 Riverton 39 (conference game)

Final Score: Natrona County 42 Kelly Walsh 38 (conference game) – Peach Basket Classic

Advertisement

Final Score: #4 Thunder Basin 64 Campbell County 32 (conference game)

CLASS 3A

Final Score: #1 Cody 77 Worland 33 (conference game) – 5 different Fillies with a 3, and Hays led the way with 34 points.

Final Score: #2 Lander 49 Lyman 34 (conference game)

Final Score: #4 Wheatland 51 Douglas 40 (conference game)

Advertisement

Final Score: #5 Powell 48 Lovell 42 (conference game)

Final Score: Burns 56 Torrington 43 (conference game)

Final Score: Glenrock 78 Newcastle 30 (conference game)

Submit a Score to WyoPreps

 

Read More Girls Basketball News from WyoPreps

Advertisement

WyoPreps Coaches and Media Basketball Polls 2-25-26

WyoPreps Girls Basketball Standings 2-23-26

WyoPreps Girls Basketball Week 10 Scores 2026

WyoPreps Coaches and Media Basketball Polls 2-18-26

WyoPreps Girls Basketball Week 9 Scores 2026

Advertisement

WyoPreps Coaches and Media Basketball Polls 2-11-26

WyoPreps Girls Basketball Week 8 Scores 2026

WyoPreps Coaches and Media Basketball Polls 2-4-26

WyoPreps Girls Basketball Week 7 Scores 2026

WyoPreps Coaches and Media Basketball Polls 1-28-26

Advertisement

Nominate A Basketball Player for the WyoPreps Athlete of the Week Honor

WyoPreps Coaches and Media Basketball Polls 1-21-26

WyoPreps Girls Basketball Week 5 Scores 2026

WyoPreps Coaches and Media Basketball Polls 1-14-26

WyoPreps Girls Basketball Week 4 Scores 2025-26

Advertisement

WyoPreps Coaches and Media Basketball Rankings 1-7-26

WyoPreps Girls Basketball Week 3 Scores 2025-26

WyoPreps Coaches and Media Basketball Rankings 12-24-25

WyoPreps Girls Basketball Week 2 Scores 2025-26

WyoPreps Coaches and Media Basketball Rankings 12-17-25

Advertisement

WyoPreps Girls Basketball Week 1 Scores 2025-26

 

CLASS 4A

Rock Springs at #2 Green River, 5:30 p.m. (conference game)

#4 Thunder Basin at #5 Sheridan, 5:30 p.m. (conference game)

Advertisement

#1 Cheyenne East at #3 Cheyenne Central, 6 p.m. (conference game)

Jackson at Star Valley, 6 p.m. (conference game)

CLASS 3A

#3 Pinedale at Mountain View, 4 p.m. (conference game)

#1 Cody at #5 Powell, 5:30 p.m. (conference game)

Advertisement

Buffalo at Glenrock, 5:30 p.m. (conference game)

Submit a Score to WyoPreps

CLASS 3A

Newcastle at Buffalo, 12:30 p.m. (conference game)

Glenrock at Rawlins, 3 p.m. (conference game)

Torrington at #4 Wheatland, 5:30 p.m. (conference game)

Advertisement
Submit a Score to WyoPreps

 

Wyoming Boys 4A Swimming & Diving State Championships 2026

4A Boys State Swim Meet for 2026 in Cheyenne

Gallery Credit: David Settle, WyoPreps.com





Source link

Advertisement
Continue Reading

Wyoming

Political storm in Wyoming as far-right activist caught handing checks to lawmakers

Published

on

Political storm in Wyoming as far-right activist caught handing checks to lawmakers


Controversy has engulfed Wyoming’s state legislature after a conservative activist was photographed handing checks to Republican lawmakers on the state house floor, in an incident that has highlighted intra-conservative divisions and the role of money in the Cowboy state’s politics.

The political storm started on 9 February, when Karlee Provenza, a Democratic lawmaker, took a photo showing Rebecca Bextel, a conservative activist and committeewoman for the Teton county Republican party, handing a check to Darin McCann, a Republican representative, on the legislative floor. Marlene Brady, another Republican representative, stands in the photo’s background, a similar piece of paper pinched between her fingers.

“You have a person from the richest county in the country coming down to Cheyenne to hand out checks on the house floor,” Provenza said. “I have never seen something so egregious.”

Questions around the checks were soon swirling, and answers weren’t forthcoming. When asked what Bextel gave to her, Brady told a reporter for local outlet WyoFile: “I can’t remember.”

Advertisement

Then Bextel herself addressed the incident. “I raised $400,000 in the last election cycle for conservative candidates, and I will be doubling that amount this year,” Bextel wrote on Facebook on 11 February. “There’s nothing wrong with delivering lawful campaign checks from Teton county donors when I am in Cheyenne.”

Since then, it has emerged that the checks came from Don Grasso, a wealthy Teton county donor, who told the Jackson Hole News and Guide that he wrote the checks for Bextel to deliver to 10 Freedom caucus-aligned politicians. Grasso said the checks were intended as campaign contributions, and were not tied to specific legislation. It is unclear how many checks were ultimately delivered, but two of four confirmed recipients include the speaker of the house, Chip Neiman, and John Bear, the former head of the Wyoming Freedom Caucus.

The Wyoming house has formed a legislative investigative committee, and the Laramie county sheriff’s office said they’d open a criminal investigation.

Bextel declined to answer questions from the Guardian. Brady, McCann and Bear did not respond to requests for comment.

Neiman said he considered the criticism a “wraparound smear campaign”. He said: “It never once crossed my mind that this was bribery.

Advertisement

“These legislators, myself included, are now guilty until we can prove that we’re innocent. How is that right in this country? Isn’t that a little bit backwards?”

The scandal has highlighted long-standing divisions in Wyoming’s Republican party, which in recent years has seen a growing divide between old school, more moderate conservatives and a harder-right Freedom Caucus.

Several former Republican lawmakers forcefully condemned their colleagues for accepting the checks, and a local Republican party branch called for the lawmakers’ resignations.

Ogden Driskill, a Wyoming Republican senator, told the Guardian he does not consider Bextel’s actions to be illegal, but that “just because you can do it doesn’t mean you should”.

Bextel has spent years pushing against housing mitigation fees in Wyoming, and Driskill noted that she distributed the house floor checks just days before a bill she had publicly supported was set to be heard. Bextel was registered as a member of the press, not as a lobbyist when she delivered the checks.

Advertisement

“Ethically and morally, it’s bankrupt to a massive degree,” Driskill said.

Neiman said that he and other legislators who received checks have supported similar bills in the past: “Bribery is paying somebody to do something they would not otherwise do.”

Nationally, the 2024 election cycle saw record-spending from the mega-wealthy, as well as dark money groups. Wyoming followed the trend, in a tense red-on-red primary season.

For those gearing up to campaign this year, Teton county, the richest in the US, and Bextel’s picturesque home turf, is an essential stop. Its extreme wealth gives it a foothold on the national level as well. Palantir chief executive Alex Karp and Donald Trump attended an annual Republican leadership fundraiser at Jackson Hole in 2024, and JD Vance attended the same one in 2025.

Bextel pulls dollars from Teton county into the Freedom Caucus side of Wyoming’s conservative split. She hosted no-press-allowed meet and greets earlier this year benefitting leading candidates for Wyoming’s governor and open US House seat.

Advertisement

In an interview with the Open Range Record, a media network she co-founded, Bextel said controversy around the checks was solely because she was making “even playing field” in Wyoming against the state’s more moderate Republicans, who she calls “George Soros” candidates. She said that she will be sure to keep raising money – just away from the legislative floor.

“I guess I’m gonna ask all the gentlemen and gentleladies to step outside the Capitol while I hand them a check,” Bextel said. “Let me be clear: I’m doubling down.”

But it’s not just wealthy local donors putting their weight behind the factions. Last election cycle, out of state groups spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on anonymous and often inaccurate mailers.

“These actors, especially from the far right, they like to push the bounds of the norms,” said Rosa Reyna Pugh, an organizing and advocacy consultant at Western States Center, an Oregon-based non-profit focused on democracy in the western United States. “They like to see what policies they can kind of push, and see where they can play a piece,” Reyna Pugh said.

While Neiman and Driskill fight politically, they do agree on one thing: summer will bring an expensive and brutal campaign season.

Advertisement

“You’re going to see more dark money than you’ve ever seen. We’ve done absolutely nothing to enforce it. Our secretary of state has not even made a slight attempt to deal with it,” Driskill said. “You’re going to see lots and lots of outside money and I think you’re seeing it on both sides.”

As national questions swirl around pay-to-play politics and profiteering in the Trump administration, Provenza wants better for the Cowboy State.

“We should not be aligning ourselves with how the federal government is conducting itself or how federal elections conduct themselves,” Provenza said. “We owe something far better and more honest to the people of Wyoming than that.”



Source link

Advertisement
Continue Reading

Wyoming

Wyoming man reaches plea deal to avoid jail time in wolf-abuse case

Published

on

Wyoming man reaches plea deal to avoid jail time in wolf-abuse case


A Sublette County man who captured and brought an injured wolf into a bar in February 2024 has struck a deal with prosecutors that could keep him out of jail, reports WyoFile.

A signed plea agreement filed with the Sublette County District Court and acquired by WyoFile on Wednesday afternoon means that Cody Roberts, 44, would likely no longer face trial. It had been set to begin March 9.

Under the deal, Roberts withdraws his earlier not guilty plea and changes that plea to guilty or no contest for felony cruelty to animals.

The deal calls for a prison sentence of 18 months to two years that would be suspended in favor of 18 months of supervised probation and a $1,000 fine. Additionally, agreed-upon conditions of his probation include: no hunting or fishing; no alcohol, presence at bars or liquor stores; and a requirement that Roberts follow recommended addiction treatment.

Advertisement

As part of the deal, the parties are asking that a “pre-sentence investigation report” be ordered by the court.

Roberts allegedly acquired a wolf by striking it with a snowmobile, leaving it “barely conscious” on Feb. 29, 2024. Photos and video from that night showed him posing for pictures with the animal and even kissing it. The wolf’s behavior suggests that it was gravely injured, according to biologists who’ve reviewed video of the muzzled animal while it was prone and barely moving on the floor of the Green River Bar.

The Wyoming Game and Fish Department initially handled the incident, issuing Roberts a $250 fine for possession of warm-blooded wildlife. The state agency declined to seek stiffer penalties or jail time, and Game and Fish officials maintained that predatory animals, including wolves, were exempted from felony animal cruelty laws.

Sublette County law enforcement officials disagreed. In August, prosecutor Clayton Melinkovich convened a grand jury that indicted Roberts for felony animal cruelty. That crime could have put Roberts in jail for up to two years, though his plea agreement averts mandatory time behind bars as long as he successfully completes probation.

WyoFile is an independent nonprofit news organization focused on Wyoming people, places and policy.

Advertisement





Source link

Continue Reading

Trending