State moves against ‘green’ project that would vaporize life-sustaining water supplies

In the American West there are large parcels that qualify as desert, with nominal annual precipitation and little groundwater available.

There are few, in any, deeply flowing rivers cascading down between tree-lined banks. Instead, there are vast acreages of dry scrub brush and plains grasses.

And people need water to live.

Supplies are such a priority that states routinely engage in wars over river water as it flows from one state to another, Colorado, home to many headwaters along the Continental Divide, has a separate court system to resolve water fights, and there, you can be a billionaire and own thousands of acres of land, even build a megamansion, but without state permission to use water you won’t be allowed to live in it.

Explains Rep. Tomi Strock, a Republican from Douglas, Wyoming, about the developing controversy involving the Focus Clean Energy’s Pronghorn project in Converse County.

“Do not take something that is used to keep us alive. You can do without food a lot longer than you can water,” Strock said.

That project is planned to install wind turbines across the desert landscape.

Ranchers, first, didn’t like that idea.

But opposition got serious when they found the project’s electricity actually would “power a process called electrolysis that would split their water into hydrogen and oxygen to produce ‘green’ jet fuel.”

Strock has proposed a plan, a “clear Wyoming first water protection bill.”

According to research by the Cowboy State Daily, a state legislative committee approved the bill 8-1.

“When the industrial process destroys the water molecule itself, it efficiently removes that water from the natural water cycle as water, changing its form and availability in a way that cannot be reclaimed for downstream uses in the same way.” Strock explained. “And in our arid state, that is not a policy choice. It’s a long-term resource decision.”

The plan would declare, legally, that splitting water molecules to industrially produce hydrogen “shall not constitute a beneficial use of water,” which is the foundational legal bedrock that governs every use of water in the entire state.

There already have been results. The report explained, “Focus Clean Energy announced Jan. 29 that it has reworked its plans entirely, dropping hydrogen production and reducing the project’s footprint from roughly 57,000 acres to about 16,571 — a reduction of approximately 70%.”

Company officials said they anticipated their changes would resolve most of the concerns.

They said the decision was market-based, as hydrogen for power “is not advancing at the same way as other industries are.”

The report noted that while the Focus decision to drop hydrogen work means the new legislation may not impact its results, the law could affect the same company’s Sidewinder project planned for Niobrara County, where hydrogen work still is planned.

“State Engineer Brandon Gebhart told the committee that if the bill’s declaration that water-splitting is not a beneficial use remains in place, his office would have no ability to permit the process under any circumstance — including with wastewater or produced water from oil and gas operations,” the report said.

A compromise may be developed that would allow “byproduct water,” which is not used for municipal supplies, to be used.

Brett Moline of the Wyoming Farm Bureau Federation delivered his organization’s verdict.

“When you use water to make hydrogen, it’s no longer water. It’s removed from the system. In a state like Wyoming, every area of the state at some point has a shortage of water.”