Massive wind project aims to save the sage grouse

RAWLINS, Wyo. -- The road to what will be the nation's most powerful wind farm is so muddy, it causes a Ford F-250 heavy-duty pickup to slide helplessly. Garry Miller, a vice president with Power Company of Wyoming LLC, has made this drive south to the Overland Trail Ranch many times. On a recent afternoon, he stepped out onto the soggy road near Miller Hill, which rises hundreds of feet above the sagebrush and greasewood on the valley floor. "This is it. This is where the turbines will go," Miller said, gesturing from the top of the hill down across the valley, tracking the path of the Pacific winds that sweep with great force across the 320,000-acre cattle ranch. Power Company of Wyoming plans to string 157 wind turbines here as part of the much larger Chokecherry and Sierra Madre Wind Energy Project. Once completed in the coming decade, it will number 1,000 turbines and rank as the largest onshore wind farm in North American, if not the world. The project will be capable of producing 3,000 megawatts of electricity -- enough to power more than 1 million homes and businesses. "This is a legacy project," Miller said. "We're pushing the boundaries of renewable energy." But there's a catch: The proposed project must share the landscape with the imperiled greater sage grouse...more