U.S. Department of the Interior

U.S. Geological Survey

Data Series 683

Energy Map of Southwestern Wyoming, 

Part A—Coal and Wind
Cover. Top: Naughton power plant near Kemmerer, Wyo. (photograph by L.R.H. Biewick, 2011). 

Bottom: Seven Mile Hill wind project (used with permission from Jeff Hymas, 2012, PacifiCorp).
Energy Map of Southwestern Wyoming, 

Part A—Coal and Wind

By Laura R.H. Biewick and Nicholas R. Jones

Data Series 683

U.S. Department of the Interior

U.S. Geological Survey
U.S. Department of the Interior

KEN SALAZAR, Secretary

U.S. Geological Survey

Marcia K. McNutt, Director

U.S. Geological Survey, Reston, Virginia: 2012

For more information on the USGS—the Federal source for science about the Earth, its natural and living 

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Although this report is in the public domain, permission must be secured from the individual copyright owners to 

reproduce any copyrighted materials contained within this report.

Suggested citation:

Biewick, L.R.H., and Jones, N.R., 2012, Energy map of southwestern Wyoming, Part A—Coal and wind: U.S. Geological 

Survey Data Series 683, 18 p. pamphlet, 5 pls. [Available at http://pubs.usgs.gov/ds/683/].
iii

Contents

Abstract...........................................................................................................................................................1

Introduction.....................................................................................................................................................1

Coal...................................................................................................................................................................1

Wind.................................................................................................................................................................3

Layer Information...........................................................................................................................................6

Downloadable Data and the Interactive Map...........................................................................................6

Environmental Quality ...................................................................................................................................7

Summary..........................................................................................................................................................9

Acknowledgments.........................................................................................................................................9

References......................................................................................................................................................9

Figures

1. Laramide sedimentary and structural basins and intervening uplifts in the Rocky 

Mountain region............................................................................................................................2

2. Paleogeographic reconstruction of the Upper Cretaceous ..................................................4

3. Late early Paleocene hydrographic basins and interpretive paleotopography.................5

4. Wyoming annual average wind power.....................................................................................6

5. Current electrical power sources in southwestern Wyoming..............................................7

Tables

1. Layer Information, described by their order in the Published Map File (48" x 33") ....... link

2. Southwestern Wyoming electrical generation capacity (MW)............................................8

Plates

1. Energy map of southwestern Wyoming, Part A—Coal and wind (34” × 33”)................ link

2. Coal mines in southwestern Wyoming (51” × 33”)............................................................. link

3. Coal fields in southwestern Wyoming (60” × 21”).............................................................. link

4. Coalbed gas assessment units in Southwestern Wyoming (44” × 27”) ......................... link

5. Wind farms in southwestern Wyoming (32” × 34”)............................................................ link
iv

Inch/Pound to SI

Multiply By To obtain

Length

foot (ft) 0.3048 meter (m)

Area

acre 4,047 square meter (m2

)

square mile (mi2

) 2.590 square kilometer (km2) 

Mass

ton, short (2,000 lb) 0.9072 megagram (Mg) 

ton, long (2,240 lb) 1.016 megagram (Mg) 

Energy

kilowatthour (kWh) 3,600,000 joule(J)

Megawatt (MW) 1,000 kilowatt (kW)

Conversion Factors
Abstract

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and the Wyoming 

State Geological Survey (WSGS) have compiled Part A of 

the Energy Map of Southwestern Wyoming for the Wyoming 

Landscape Conservation Initiative (WLCI). The WLCI represents the USGS partnership with other Department of the Interior bureaus, State and local agencies, industry, academia, and 

private landowners committed to maintaining healthy landscapes, sustaining wildlife, and preserving recreational and 

grazing uses while developing energy resources in southwestern Wyoming. This product complements the 2009 and 2011 

USGS publications on oil and gas development in southwestern Wyoming (http://pubs.usgs.gov/ds/437/), and the entire 

state of Wyoming (http://pubs.usgs.gov/ds/625/) by adding 

coal, including coalbed methane, and wind energy development in the area within the WLCI. Part A of the Energy Map is 

concerned primarily with the electrical power sources of coal 

and wind. 

The expanded boundaries of the WLCI encompass all of 

Carbon, Lincoln, Sublette, Sweetwater, and Uinta Counties, 

Wyoming, as well as areas in Fremont County, Wyoming, that 

are in the Great Divide and Green River Basins. With updated 

oil and gas data, other energy resources across southwestern 

Wyoming, including oil shale, uranium, and solar, are planned 

for inclusion in Part B of the Energy Map.

Introduction

To further advance the objectives of the Wyoming 

Landscape Conservation Initiative (WLCI) the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and the Wyoming State Geological 

Survey (WSGS) have compiled Part A of the Energy Map 

of Southwestern Wyoming. Focusing primarily on electrical 

power sources, Part A of the energy map is a compilation of 

both published and previously unpublished coal (including 

coalbed gas) and wind energy resources data, presented in a 

Geographic Information System (GIS) data package. Data 

are included from U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) coal and 

coalbed gas assessments (see references on pl. 1, 2, 3 and 4), 

an updated coal map of Wyoming (Jones and others, 2009), 

geology and coal stratigraphy of the Rawlins-Little Snake 

River area (Hettinger and others, 2008), a coalbed natural gas 

map of the Atlantic Rim (Quillinan and others, 2009), and 

spatial mapping and attribution of Wyoming wind turbines 

(O’Donnell and Fancher, 2010). In addition, National Coal 

Resource Data System (NCRDS) stratigraphic data, coalbed 

gas wells from the Wyoming Oil and Gas Conservation Commission (WOGCC), and Bureau of Land Management (BLM) 

authorized and pending coalbed gas units are included. Energy 

maps, data, documentation and spatial data processing capabilities are available in a geodatabase (ESRI, 2012), published 

map file (PMF; ESRI, 2008b), ArcMap document (MXD; 

ESRI, 2000), Adobe Acrobat PDF map (Adobe Systems 

Incorporated, 2010, pl. 1) and other digital formats that can be 

downloaded at the USGS website.

Accompanying the map (pl. 1) and the geospatial data 

are four additional plates that describe the geology, energy 

resources and related infrastructure. These tabular plates 

include coal mine (pl. 2), coal field (pl. 3), coalbed gas assessment unit (pl. 4), and wind farm (pl. 5) information with 

hyperlinks to source publications and data on the internet. The 

plates can be printed and examined in hardcopy or accessed 

digitally in Excel (Microsoft, 2007) and as Adobe PDF files. 

The data represent decades of research by the USGS, WSGS, 

BLM, private industry, and others and can facilitate landscape-level science assessments, and resource management 

decisionmaking. 

Coal

The sedimentary basins in Wyoming contain some of the 

largest fossil fuel deposits in the United States (U.S. Energy 

Information Administration (EIA), 2010). These basins developed throughout the Late Cretaceous–early Tertiary Periods 

during the Laramide Orogeny (fig. 1).

Throughout much of the Cretaceous Period, a good 

portion of the area that is today Wyoming, was at or near sea 

level. The climate was tropical to subtropical and temperatures 

were warmer, as evidenced by fossils in the rock record. A 

vast seaway occupied the Western Interior of North America, 

connecting the Circum-Boreal Sea with the proto-Gulf of 

Energy Map of Southwestern Wyoming, 

Part A—Coal and Wind

By Laura R.H. Biewick1 and Nicholas R. Jones2

1

U.S. Geological Survey

 2Wyoming State Geological Survey
2 Energy Map of Southwestern Wyoming, Part A—Coal and Wind

Figure 1. Laramide sedimentary and structural basins and intervening uplifts in the Rocky 

Mountain region extending from southern Montana to northern New Mexico. Modified from 

Dickinson and others (1988) in Finn and Johnson (2005).

Hartville uplift

Granite

CORDILLERAN

OROGENIC

BELT

Denver

112° 110° 108° 106° 104°

46°

44°

40°

36°

N. DAK

Mountains

38°

42°

S. DAK

MONT

WYO

ID

ID

UT

WYOM

S. DAK

NEB

WYO NEB

COLO

 UT COLO

ARIZ N. MEX

Thrust or

reverse fault

COLO

N. MEX

Bull

Mountains

Basin Crazy

Mountains

Basin Bridger

uplift

Bear Tooth

uplift

Powder

River

Basin

Black Hills uplift

Miles City arch

Teton

uplift

Big Horn uplift

Casper Arch

Owl Creek uplift

Absaroka

volcanic

field

Shirley

Basin

uplift

Rawlins

uplift

Sierra Madre uplift

Hannah

Basin

Greater Green

River Basin

(Southwestern Wyoming

Province)

Wind

River uplift

Basin

North and Middle

Park Basins

Medicine

Bow

uplift

Park

Range

uplift

Axial Basin uplift

Uinta

Basin

Piceance

Basin

White

River

uplift

Sawatch uplift

South Park

Basin

Front

Range

Uplift

Uinta Uplift

San Rafael

Swell

Uncompahgre

uplift

Gunnison

uplift

San Juan

uplift

San

Big

Horn

Basin

Wind River Basin

Juan

volcanic

field

Raton

Basin

Sangre de Cristo uplift

San Juan

Basin

RIO GRANDE RIFT

(Neogene)

Nacimiento uplift

Sangre

de Cristo

uplift

EXPLANATION

Laramie

Basin

0 50 100 MILES

0 50 100 KILOMETERS

MONT
Wind 3

Mexico (Roberts and Kirschbaum, 1995). The body of water 

is known most commonly as the Western Interior Cretaceous 

Seaway. During the Late Cretaceous and into the early Tertiary, regional uplift forced the interior of the United States to 

rise, causing the epeiric sea to migrate to the northeast, thus 

severing the connection between the Arctic Sea and the Gulf 

of Mexico. Vegetation grew in coastal wetlands bordering the 

seaway from about 98 to 70 million years ago (fig. 2), and 

extensive coal deposits accumulated in lower coastal plain 

depositional settings (Johnson and others, 2005; Finn and others, 2005).

Over time, the seaway retreated, and marine and coastalplain environments became restricted to areas north and east 

of Wyoming, in what is now North and South Dakota. During 

the Paleocene Epoch (about 65 to 56 million years ago), 

wetlands in Wyoming developed in low lying floodplains and 

along fluvial corridors (fig. 3). 

Over geologic periods of time, the accumulation of 

organic material derived from these wetlands formed peat. 

Uplift during the Laramide Orogeny divided the area into 

structural basins and intervening highlands (fig. 1). Great volumes of erosional debris were carried from the uplands by rivers and streams, and deposited in the subsiding basins. These 

sediments buried and preserved the organic material, where it 

eventually was transformed into coal. Coalification is a slow 

two-phase process; the first (biogenesis) is the bacterial decay 

of plant matter. The second, heat-driven phase (thermogenesis) 

is a function of temperature, as maintained by the insulating 

effect of thick layers of sediment above the proto-coal through 

time (millions of years), (Jones, 2009).

In Wyoming, coal was initially discovered in 1843 by 

the Fremont Expedition. Commercial mining began with 

the arrival of the railroad in the 1860s. The first commercial 

mines were located in Carbon and Rock Springs, where large 

amounts of coal were needed to power steam engines for the 

railroad (U.S. BLM, 2008a). Today, coal is used to generate about 50 percent of our nation’s electricity, and coal-fired 

power plants dominate Wyoming electrical generation (U.S. 

EIA, 2010). Within the WLCI, there are several active surface 

coal mines in the Hams Fork, Green River and Hanna coal 

fields (pls. 1, 2, and 3). Some of the coal mines are no longer 

active and have been abandoned or reclaimed. For the former 

Rosebud Mine in the Hanna Basin, what began as a voluntary revegetation program in 1965, evolved into the complete 

reclamation of 4,000 acres (©Kiewit, 2010). The only active 

underground coal mine is currently the Jim Bridger longwall 

operation on the east flank of the Rock Springs uplift.

Some coals contain enough gas to be potentially economic. Coalbed methane (CBM) is natural gas that formed in 

coal deposits during and after the coalification process. CBM, 

also referred to as coalbed gas or coalbed natural gas (CBNG), 

is used for a variety of purposes ranging from domestic 

heating to commercial electrical power generation (WSGS, 

2010a). Evidence for the occurrence of CBM includes direct 

measurements in wells and coal cores, gas-related explosions 

and fires in underground coal mines, inferences from the rank 

of coal, surface venting of gas, and thermal histories of coal 

fields (DeBruin and others, 2004). According to WSGS geologist Scott Quillinan, "CBNG activity in the area southwest of 

Rawlins started in 2000 with a handful of exploratory wells. 

As of November, 2009, there were 676 wells drilled. Of these, 

277 were producing CBNG." (WSGS, 2010b; pl. 1). For the 

Atlantic Rim area, the BLM has approved 2,000 wells—1,800 

for CBM and 200 for conventional natural gas (WSGS, 

2010b). 

In 2002 and 2003, the USGS assessed coalbed gas 

resources in the Southwestern Wyoming and the Wyoming 

Thrust Belt Provinces. Using a geologic-based assessment 

methodology, the USGS estimated a mean of 1.89 trillion 

cubic feet (TCF) of undiscovered coalbed gas in seven coalbed 

gas assessment units (AUs), six in the Southwestern Wyoming Province (Kirschbaum and others, 2002) and one in the 

Wyoming Thrust Belt Province (pl. 4; Kirschbaum and others, 

2004). Although these AUs extend beyond the boundary of the 

WLCI, 74 percent of the area covered by these AUs is within 

the WLCI.

Wind

Because national and regional forecasts project an 

increase in consumption of electrical energy continuing into 

the foreseeable future, renewable energy, including wind 

generation, is expected to provide a larger component to 

maintain adequate electrical power (U.S. BLM, 2010b). One 

of the most favorable locations for wind power development 

in the Nation is located in southern Wyoming. Across southern 

Wyoming from the Utah border on the west to the Nebraska 

border on the east, a gap in the Rocky Mountains channels 

strong winds generated from across the plains, making this 

area ideally suited for wind power development (U.S. EIA, 

2010, and fig. 4). In the 1986 Wind Energy Resource Atlas of 

the United States (Elliott and others, 1986), the Solar Energy 

Research Institute (now the National Renewable Energy Laboratory), reported that in this 150-km (90 mi)-wide gap, areas 

of highest wind are where there is enhanced channeling by the 

terrain (for example, between two mountain ranges) and (or) 

where there is terrain-induced flow acceleration (for example, 

over hilltops, uplands, or low ridges). 

In 2010, the U.S. Department of Energy's Wind Program 

and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) 

published a wind resource map for the state of Wyoming (U.S. 

Department of Energy and AWS Truepower, 2010; fig. 4). The 

wind resource map shows the predicted mean annual wind 

speeds at an 80-meter (m) height, presented at a spatial resolution of about 2 km. Areas with annual average wind speeds 

around 6.5 m/s and greater at an 80-m height are generally 

considered to have a resource suitable for wind development. 

Utility-scale, land-based wind turbines are typically installed 

between 80-100 meters (U.S. Department of Energy and AWS 

Truepower, 2010). NREL estimated the windy land area and 
4 Energy Map of Southwestern Wyoming, Part A—Coal and Wind

Figure 2. Paleogeographic reconstruction of the Cretaceous Western Interior 

Seaway during the Late Cretaceous (modified from Roberts and others, 1995; 

Roberts and Kirschbaum, 1995).

Coastal plain

Alluvial plain

Seaway Fault Alluvial fans

Carbonates

Rivers

Highlands

Ancient soils

Volcanic deposits

Thick coal beds (>1 m)

Thin coal beds (<1 m)

Active volcanoes

EXPLANATION

Early Campanian

W E S T E R N

I N T E R I O R

S E A W A Y

500 KILOMETERS 0

0 250 500 MILES

250

N
Wind 5

wind energy potential in various capacity factor ranges for 

each state using AWS Truepower’s gross capacity factor data. 

Maps and wind potential estimates for the state of Wyoming 

are available at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Wind Powering America website at http://www.windpoweringamerica.gov/

wind_resource_maps.asp?stateab=wy. 

One large area of exceptionally good wind energy potential extends from the Rawlins area eastward to Medicine Bow 

and then south along the Laramie Mountains to the Colorado 

border (fig. 4; Elliott and others 1986). In the expansive treeless plateau between Laramie and Rawlins, Foote Creek Rim 

is one of the windiest places in America, with average wind 

speeds of 25 mph; 25–70 percent windier than other good 

wind sites (see pls. 1, 5; U.S. BLM, 2008b). The Foote Creek 

Rim Wind Farm, near Arlington, was the first commercial 

wind farm to go online in Wyoming, beginning operations in 

1999 (U.S. BLM, 2008b). In extreme southwestern Wyoming, 

wind measurements at Bridger Butte, near Fort Bridger, 

showed class 6 annual average wind power at heights to 50 

m (164 ft). Areas designated class 3 or greater are suitable 

for most wind turbine applications; fig. 4, Elliott and others, 

1986. Two wind farms on Bridger Butte, Mountain Wind I 

and Mountain Wind II, began operations in 2008 (©PacifiCorp, 

2010, pl. 1 and 5). Winter is the season of maximum wind 

power, with class 7 (the highest) power in the best areas. In 

summer, the season of minimum wind power, class 3 power 

can be expected in the best areas (Elliott and others, 1986).

Seven current wind farms operating in southwestern 

Wyoming are producing about 674 megawatts (MW) from 

approximately 504 wind turbines (pls. 1, 5). Five additional 

wind energy projects are proposed, in progress or under 

construction, and may add as many as 1,639 additional wind 

turbines capable of producing 2,700 to 3,700 MW of energy 

(pls. 1, 5).

Figure 3. Late early Paleocene hydrographic basins (top) and interpretive paleotopography 

(bottom) in Wyoming. The large lake system probably drained northward into ancient 

Montana. Most of the area drained northward (Lillegraven and Ostresh, 1988).

45°00’05”

111°03’19”

40°59’53”

104°03’30”
6 Energy Map of Southwestern Wyoming, Part A—Coal and Wind

Layer Information

Part A of the Energy Map of Southwestern Wyoming 

(pl. 1) displays many overlapping coal and wind features. 

Plate 1 was created directly from the ArcMap project (ESRI, 

2000), which contains a number of additional layers not shown 

on the hardcopy map —that is, coal thickness and overburden 

categories, surface geology, surface and mineral ownership, 

and a variety of base cartographic GIS services. All of the 

layers included in the interactive map are described in table 

1 with hyperlinks to source data information websites. Not 

described are geographic data, including county lines, lakes 

and rivers, and map annotations (largely from Jones and others, 2009). Further instructions for accessing the interactive 

map are included in the next section, 'Downloadable Data and 

the Interactive Map'. 

Table 1. link

Downloadable Data and the Interactive 

Map

Part A of the Energy Map of Southwestern Wyoming is 

available as a GIS map project (both MXD and PMF formats) 

that can be downloaded at the USGS website. The GIS lets 

us visualize, question, analyze, and understand the coal and 

wind data in many ways that reveal relationships, patterns, 

and trends more effectively than with the static PDF map. 

The publishing process uses the ArcMap project (MXD) 

and creates a special file called a published map file (PMF). 

ArcGIS Publisher (ESRI, 2008a) is the extension used to 

create the PMF from the MXD; it packages the required data 

with the PMF file for easy distribution. PMFs can be viewed, 

explored, or printed using any ArcGIS (ESRI, 2000) desktop 

product, including ArcMap and the free ArcReader (ESRI, 

2008b) application. Users can download and install the free 

Figure 4. Wyoming wind potential map (written commun., U.S. Department of Energy and AWS Truepower, 2012). 

Areas with annual average wind speeds around 6.5 m/s and greater at an 80-m height are generally considered to have 

a resource suitable for wind development. Wind potential estimates for the state of Wyoming are available at the U.S. 

Department of Energy’s Wind Powering America website at http://www.windpoweringamerica.gov/wind_resource_maps.

asp?stateab=wy.

13-MAR-2012 4.1.1

Cheyenne

Gillette

Laramie

Casper

Sheridan

Green River

Evanston

Rawlins

Rock Springs

Where science delivers performance. NATIONAL RENEWABLE ENERGY LABORATORY

Wyoming

Annual Average

Wind Speed

at 80 m

Source: Wind resource estimates developed by AWS Truepower,

LLC. Web: Http://www.awstruepower.com. Map developed by

NREL. Spatial resolution of wind resource data: 2.0 km.

Projection: Lambert Conformal Conic WGS84

>10.5

10.0

9.5

9.0

8.5

8.0

7.5

7.0

6.5

6.0

5.5

5.0

4.5

4.0

<4.0

Wind Speed

m/s

110° 108° 106° 104°

44°

42°

0

0 100 MILES

100 200 KILOMETERS
Environmental Quality 7

ArcReader software from ESRI. To access the MXD requires 

ArcGIS 9.3.1 or later software (ESRI, 2000). 

As described in the Introduction section of this report, 

the Energy Map of Southwestern Wyoming, Part A, is a 

compilation of both published and previously unpublished 

energy resource data. For the previously published data, the 

accompanying metadata have been retained as published. The 

difference between the original published data and the version included here is that, other than the coalbed gas assessment units (AU), the features have been clipped to the WLCI 

boundary. Although they appear clipped to the WLCI boundary on the map, each of the AU areas in its entirety is included 

in the geodatabase. 

All data are stored in a file-based geodatabase (WLCI_

CoalWindMap.gdb) using the World Geodetic System (WGS) 

1984 projection, which is a standard projection for distributing 

geospatial data. For the ArcGIS.com web services (formerly 

ArcGIS Online; ESRI, 2010), data descriptions, sources, and 

credits are stored as layer properties. Included in the geodatabase for each coal bed or zone in the 1999 assessment, are 

the data-point locations (drill hole or outcrop), and the spatial 

query layers that contain representations of numerous themes 

for multiple theme queries. Attributes of the spatial query layer 

include coal thickness category, overburden category, mine 

name, quadrangle name, surface ownership, and subsurface 

coal ownership.

Environmental Quality

The USGS has a long standing program assessing energy 

resources, including coal, gas, oil, uranium, and geothermal, 

as well as assessing environmental and health effects of the 

development and utilization of these resources. Investigation of geologic, technologic, environmental, and economic 

factors controlling the production and use of both conventional fuels (oil, gas and coal) and unconventional fuels such 

as gas hydrates, coalbed methane, oil shale, heavy oil and 

natural bitumen, and tar sands is carried out by the USGS 

Energy Resources Program. Schweinfurth (2009) described 

how the continued and increasingly large-scale use of coal in 

the United States and in many industrialized and developing 

nations has raised speculation about possible hazards to environmental quality and human health. There is still much to be 

learned about coal to make its use less harmful to humans and 

nature and more useful for the general welfare (Schweinfurth, 

2009). 

One type of renewable electricity is produced from wind, 

which may reduce greenhouse gas emissions produced from 

burning fossil fuels in power plants. The BLM reports that 

generating energy from wind is only one aspect of developing 

renewable energy resources on the public lands in Wyoming. 

The lack of power transmission infrastructure in the relatively remote and unpopulated areas of Wyoming with high 

wind potential would require the construction of new power 

transmission lines (U.S. BLM, 2010c). Wind turbines can 

interfere with viewsheds of pristine areas of natural beauty 

like some of Wyoming’s historic trails, and the wind turbine 

air-warning systems cause light pollution and potential adverse 

impacts on rural communities and family ranches. Further 

studies on the technology and design of wind turbines and 

more careful placement, such as outside of migratory paths, 

are needed to address the problem of bat and bird fatalities. In 

areas like the city of Rawlins where both private and Federal 

oil and gas rights are present, the need for turbines, oil and gas 

wells, ranching and recreation must coexist (Heather Nino, 

U.S. BLM in Nuccio and others, 2010). 

Data included in this report show that electrical generation in southwestern Wyoming is largely from coal, wind 

and hydroelectric. Table 2 shows that most of southwestern 

Wyoming’s current electrical generation capacity is from coalpower generating facilities (approximately 3,024 MW). 

Electrical generation is based on many factors, including, 

but not limited to load and demand. Wind energy can only 

generate power if the wind is blowing within a certain range. 

Wind turbines will shut off if wind speeds are too slow, too 

fast, or too gusty. Considering these aspects, we can only 

generalize potential electrical power sources.

Southwestern Wyoming wind energy nameplate capacity is 

currently about 674 MW, and hydro about 100 MW. Approximately 79 percent of electrical generation capacity is from 

coal, approximately 18 percent from wind and approximately 

3 percent from hydro (fig. 5).

18%

79%

3%

Current Electrical Power Sources

(generalized nameplate capacity)

Coal Hydro Wind

Figure 5. Generalized current electrical power nameplate 

capacity by source in southwestern Wyoming.
Status Name Secondary energy source

postponed

onlineonlineonlineonlineonline

Fontanelle PowerplantKortes PowerplantSeminoe PowerplantStrawberry Creek PlantSwift Creek Powerplant

onlineonline

Jim Bridger Plant

Naughton Power Plant

diesel

natural gas

Jones and otheStafford, 2010Jones and otheU.S. BLM, 20

Jones and otheStafford, 2010Jones and othe

TotalsTotalsTotalsTotalsTotalsTotals

Stafford, 2010

onlineonlineonlineonlineonlineonlineonlineonline

Foote Creek Rim wind projectHigh Plains wind projectMcFadden wind projectMedicine Bow wind projectMountain Wind wind projectRock River LLC wind projectSeven Mile Hill wind projectWyoming Wind Energy Center

Jones and otheStafford, 2010Jones and otheStafford, 2010

PacifiCorp, 20

90%completionconstruction

Dunlap I wind projectDunlap II wind project

proposedproposedproposed

Chokecherry wind projectSierra Madre wind projectWhite Mountain wind project

Simpson Ridge wind project

Capacity (MW) CO2 Number of units Primary energy source

111189

0 74

126

windwindwindwindwind

10

3651.6

1.5

1.5

7

hydro

2,317.7 827 4 Coal

Coal

Coal

707.2 273 3

3,024.9 1,100

0000

13331

100.6 0 11

hydrohydrohydrohydrohydro

84.8

99

28.5

8.6

140.7

50

118.5

144

00000000

133

66191067507980

windwindwindwindwindwindwindwind

674.1 0

0

504 wind

300 200 wind construction

1,350

650360

000

675325240

2,360 0 1,240 wind proposed

300 0 199 wind

300 0 199 wind postponed

Jones and otheStafford, 2010

Table 2. Southwestern Wyoming electrical generation capacity, November 2010.

[MW, approximate values]
References 9

Summary

Both coal and wind are among the energy resources being 

developed in southwestern Wyoming. Collecting baseline 

data to assess what is known about southwestern Wyoming’s 

energy resources and ecosystems, and developing methods for 

archiving and disseminating this information to collaborators 

and the public (Nuccio and others, 2010), are the focus of the 

USGS and partners of the WLCI. Work to assemble a comprehensive inventory of pertinent data available to the public as 

an online resource is being done for the WLCI. An integrated 

assessment (IA) was initiated to synthesize what has been 

learned about WLCI systems to date, and to develop associated decision tools, maps, and a comprehensive report (Bowen 

and others, 2010). To further advance the objectives of the 

USGS and the WLCI, the Energy Map of Southwestern Wyoming, Part A, represents decades of research by the USGS, 

WSGS, and others, and will facilitate landscape-level science 

assessments, and informed resource management decision 

making. Energy maps, data, documentation and spatial data 

processing capabilities for this report can be found at http://

pubs.usgs.gov/ds/683.

Acknowledgments

The Energy Map of Southwestern Wyoming was funded 

by the USGS Wyoming Landscape Conservation Initiative 

project. Part A of the Energy Map of Southwestern Wyoming 

is a compilation of both published and previously unpublished 

energy resources data. Because the coal map of Wyoming 

(Jones and others, 2009), was published as GIS layers, some 

of the data, symbology, and many of the annotations included 

on plate 1 were taken directly from that source. The manuscript was technically reviewed by David C. Scott and William 

R. Keefer of the USGS, and we thank them for their thoughtful evaluations and suggestions. Lisa Binder (USGS) is gratefully acknowledged for editorial review.

References

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Biewick and Jones—Energy Map of Southwestern Wyoming, Part A—Coal and Wind—Data Series 683