Wyoming

Plug Pulled on Project Bison CO2 Sequestration Project – SweetwaterNOW

Published

2 years ago

September 6, 2024

Plug Pulled on Project Bison CO2 Sequestration Project – SweetwaterNOW

CarbonCapture Inc. aimed to remove 5,000,000 tons of atmospheric CO2 annually by 2030 through Project Bison.

ROCK SPRINGS – What would have been a revolutionary carbon capture project in Sweetwater County is now dead as the company behind it has opted to focus its attention to other projects.

CarbonCapture Inc. announced recently that its Project Bison would be suspended due to competition for renewable energy, leading the company to focus on other carbon capture projects. Company references to Project Bison have been removed from CarbonCapture’s website, though links to news articles referencing Wyoming remain. A new project, Project Sonora, is listed on the company’s main page, with a short note advising that details about the project are forthcoming.

Project Bison was one of many industrial projects slated for southwestern Wyoming. Other industrial projects taking place include new trona mines in Sweetwater county and the joint venture between TerraPower and Rocky Mountain Power to build a nuclear reactor in Kemmerer. Kayla McDonald, the economic development specialist for the Sweetwater Economic Development Coalition, says the development is disappointing, but SEDC remains ready to assist if the company returns with new projects for the area.

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“It’s unfortunate for Sweetwater County and the State of Wyoming, but we wish the Project Bison team the best,” she said. “SEDC stands ready to support them should they consider future projects in Sweetwater County. In the meantime, the southwest side of the state has a lot of growth on the horizon and SEDC is doing its part in helping the projects that have been announced with initiative to help their projects be successful. We are excited for the future growth that awaits in Sweetwater County.”

The project termination comes months after CarbonCapture showed its Leo Series of commercial carbon capture units at an event in June. Ron Wild, regional business manager for Rocky Mountain Power, attended the event and said the company didn’t mention the possibility of suspending Project Bison at that time. The company listed Rep. J.T. Larson, R-Rock Springs, as one of the speakers at the event.

Despite progress being made on the project before its termination, there were concerns about how it would be powered. According to Politico, Department of Energy documents released through a Freedom of Information Act request outlined the company’s interest in small nuclear reactors as part of the initial concept for the Wyoming Regional Direct Air Capture Hub.

“It adds complication upon complication,” Wil Burns, the co-director of American University’s Institute for Carbon Removal Law and Policy told Politico in January. “You’re starting off with a complex new technology, and now you’re trying to wed another complex technology, including one that’s in transition.”

Prior to pulling the plug on Project Bison, CarbonCapture was active in the area. The company hired a Sweetwater County-based community relations manager and had representation on Western Wyoming Community College’s presidential search committee. The company also hosted local town hall meetings about the project.

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Wyoming

Momentum builds to reform Wyoming Public Records Act

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4 hours ago

March 23, 2026

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Momentum builds to reform Wyoming Public Records Act

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Wyoming

Wyoming Wrestling Finishes 12th at NCAA Championships with Three All-Americans – SweetwaterNOW

Published

16 hours ago

March 22, 2026

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Wyoming Wrestling Finishes 12th at NCAA Championships with Three All-Americans – SweetwaterNOW

CLEVELAND — The University of Wyoming wrestling team capped its 2025-26 season with a 12th-place finish and 38 points at the NCAA Championships inside Rocket Arena, marking the highest NCAA finish in head coach Mark Branch’s 18-year tenure. The Cowboys had three wrestlers earn All-American honors.

“It was a great weekend for the Cowboys,” Branch said. “I couldn’t be more proud of these guys for the way they fought through this incredibly difficult tournament. They handled themselves like champions. It was awesome to be around this, and it was awesome to celebrate this with them. Being an All-American is something they’ll have the rest of their lives, and I know how important that is, how big it is and how hard it is at this level.”

At 197 pounds, No. 5 Joey Novak earned his second consecutive All-American honor with a fourth-place finish. He defeated No. 11 Camden McDanel of Nebraska, 7-3, in the consolation semifinals before falling to No. 3 Stephen Little of Little Rock, 7-4, in the third-place match.

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“He embodies the Cowboy tough mentality,” Branch said. “He loves this program. It’s what you need in this day in age. You need guys like Joey. The leadership that Joey has shown is what we’ve been trying to build.”

At 184 pounds, No. 6 Eddie Neitenbach secured his first All-American recognition with a seventh-place finish. He won his final match via medical forfeit over No. 22 Zack Ryder of Oklahoma State.

“Eddie is awesome,” Branch said. “He came in with the most favorable seeding, meaning I was surprised how high a seed he was. Don’t let that fool you. He’d been hanging around 8/9/10 in all the polls. It wasn’t a given he was going to come in and place. He definitely had to show up, and he put together a heck of a tournament.”

Heavyweight No. 18 Christian Carroll also earned his first All-American honor, finishing eighth. Carroll dropped his final match to No. 10 David Szuba of Arizona State by disqualification.

“Christian was gutsy, and he’s learning a lot about himself,” Branch said. “He certainly was feeling the weight of this tournament on him. After losing that first match, his confidence was shaken a little bit. But he picked it up and battled back and showed a lot of grit there. He showed what he’s about and what he’s capable of. He’s been an awesome addition to our team.”

Elsewhere, Gabe Willochell went 3-2 at 149 pounds, advancing to the blood round, while Luke Willochell (133) and Riley Davis (174) each recorded one win in the tournament.

Penn State won the team title with 181.5 points, followed by Oklahoma State with 131 and Nebraska with 100.5.

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Wyoming

Wyoming’s Turkey Vultures Do Much More Than Hang Around Looking Creepy

Published

1 day ago

March 22, 2026

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Wyoming’s Turkey Vultures Do Much More Than Hang Around Looking Creepy

Many people in Wyoming aren’t terribly fond of turkey vultures. They poop all over trees, barf up “pellets” of leftover gristle and who knows what else, and just hang around looking creepy.

That’s a rush to judgment, vulture advocates say. They admire turkey vultures as a bird that can migrate from Canada all the way to South America and play a vital role in keeping the landscape clear of rotting carcasses.

One of the first signs of spring is vultures showing up in Wyoming, usually in March. They roost by the hundreds on the University of Wyoming campus, in Casper and elsewhere across the state.

They’ll fly out in the morning, usually between dawn and about 8 a.m., and spend the day soaring through the skies, looking for carrion to devour. Then they return in the evening to roost for the night.

Around October, they’ll leave, migrating south for the winter.

Much remains unknown about Wyoming’s turkey vultures. To help find out more, the UW Biodiversity Institute launched the Vulture Watch Wyoming volunteer program in 2024. A vulture-watching training session is set for March 24.

Turkey vultures show up in Casper in March, and stay until October, when they migrate south. (Courtesy: Joanne Theobald)
Every spring, hundreds of turkey vultures show up on the University of Wyoming campus and stay until fall. (Courtesy: Anna Petrey)
Every spring, hundreds of turkey vultures show up on the University of Wyoming campus and stay until fall. (Courtesy: Anna Petrey)

Here Come the UW Vultures

In Laramie, the UW campus is turkey vulture central; there have been as many as 297 of them counted roosting in trees or on buildings, mostly around the Old Main building or in clusters of spruce trees around 15th and Garfield streets.

Vultures seem to like spruce, cottonwood and poplar trees. They don’t seem to care much for pine trees, and nobody is sure why, said Elizabeth Wommack, curator and collection manager of vertebrates at the UW Museum of Vertebrates.

They first started showing up on campus around 2010, she told Cowboy State Daily.

“They sort of used that core group of spruces when they first arrived, and they spread out to other trees,” she said.

Anna Petrey, a Ph.D. student in Clinical Psychology at UW, told Cowboy State Daily that she developed a fascination with turkey vultures after spotting them on campus and joined Vulture Watch Wyoming.

“Vultures are a really precious and interesting bird to me,” she said.

She understands that most people don’t perceive vultures that way.

“I think it’s in part because people do find them to be stinky and gross. But I thought, ‘that can’t be fair, I need to learn more about them,’” she said.

“I think they’re pretty cool-looking; that might be an unpopular opinion,” Petrey added.

Even when there are hundreds of them roosting on campus, it’s easy to miss noticing them.

“They roost up high in trees, and people might not look straight up and see them,” she said.

Vultures are also incredibly quiet, because they basically can’t vocalize, she added.

“The best that they can do is a quiet hiss, and that’s all they can produce,” Petrey said.

Every spring and summer, hundreds of turkey vultures roost in trees on the University of Wyoming campus. (Courtesy: Mason Lee)
Turkey vultures scour the countryside across Wyoming, looking for carrion to eat. (Courtesy: Rena Parsons)
The turkey vulture on the left in this photo is a juvenile, identifiable by its gray head and beak, compared to the red head and white beak of an adult. (Courtesy: Joanne Theobald)

Roosting, Not Nesting

Wommack said that roosting spots are where turkey vultures go to rest and sleep. They don’t nest or raise their young in those places.

Vultures nest in hidden, isolated places, and don’t like their nests being disturbed, she said.

“The nests are hidden, in places like crevices, caves or hollow trees,” she said.

A turkey vulture nest was once discovered in the trunk of an abandoned car in Nebraska, Wommack said.

Juvenile turkey vultures are ready to leave the nest after a few months. They can be identified by their gray heads and dark-colored beaks.

That’s in contrast to the red heads and “bone-white” beaks of adults, Wommack said.

It’s uncertain just how many turkey vultures spend the spring, summer and early fall in Wyoming, she added.

That’s one of the mysteries that she hopes the Vulture Watch Wyoming program will help unravel, she said.

“It’s one of those common avian species that we sometimes take for granted,” she said.

“We decided that reaching out to the community and asking the community to help would be the best way to find out more about them,” Wommack added.

Turkey vultures show up in Casper in March, and stay until October, when they migrate south. (Courtesy: Joanne Theobald)
Turkey vulture have warts on their faces, called crunkles. (Courtesy: Joanne Theobald)

Nature’s Clean-Up Crew

Vultures are designed to consume dead animals, particularly in warm weather, Wommack said.

“They don’t have the same equipment that eagles do,” such as huge claws and sharp, curved beaks for catching prey and killing it, she said.

Those same features allow eagles to turn to scavenging during the winter, because they can rip into frozen carcasses.

Vultures, on the other hand, require softer carcasses that have started to rot a little, which is why they show up to scout the Wyoming landscape during the warmer months.

Vultures search for food by soaring at high altitudes. As one might expect, they have excellent eyesight for spotting dead animals below, Wommack said.

They also have an incredible sense of smell, which helps them find rotting carcasses from great distances, she added.

In Wyoming and across the Great Plains region, turkey vultures don’t have much direct competition.

Farther east or west, they must contend with black vultures or California condors, both of which are bigger and will bully turkey vultures off carcasses.

Adult turkey vultures weigh about four pounds on average and have wingspans of 4½ to 6 feet.

“They have about the same wingspan as golden eagles, but they weigh much less than golden eagles,” Wommack said.

There are written records of turkey vultures in Wyoming going back to the 19th century, she said.

Turkey vulture have warts on their faces, called crunkles. (Courtesy: Joanne Theobald)

‘Crunkles’ in Casper

Multitudes of turkey vultures roost in trees in Casper, said resident Joanne Theobald, a Vulture Watch Wyoming volunteer.

“I’m lucky enough to live in a tree neighborhood in Casper. So we’re lucky enough to have roosting vultures, including one right outside my window, in my neighbor’s tree. So I get the view without the mess,” she said.

Though vulture poop is remarkably clean, it builds up over time, so she understands why homeowners with trees get fed up with it.

“They also throw these pellets; they barf them up. And then there’s the feathers too,” she said.

“People just kind of develop this idea that vultures are dirty, or that they mean death, or they’re going to carry off your small animals,” Theobald said.

“People think they’re creepy, because they’re ugly, but that’s not their fault,” she added.

In addition to their bald heads, vultures develop white facial warts, called “crunkles,” she said.

That might make them even less visually appealing to some, but Theobald said she wonders if the differing number of crunkles on vultures’ faces could help identify individual birds.

Theobald hosts presentations to educate people about vultures and dispel some of the negative impressions about them.

And she thinks Wyoming makes a great place for turkey vultures to come hang out during the warm months.

“If I were a vulture, I would love Wyoming. It’s windy here and they just love to ride the thermals. And there’s wide open spaces with lots of things just dying of natural causes,” she said.

Mark Heinz can be reached at mark@cowboystatedaily.com.

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