A sign of the times in Gillette, Wyoming. A U-Haul dealer has been sold out since earlier this month. It’s also an affirmation that the state’s coal industry is slowly dying and replaced by the wind industry.
As the New York Times recently reported, the last coal mine in southwest Wyoming closed nearly ten years ago and the region is about to become home to the largest wind farm in North America. Maybe the world.
Wyoming remains the nation’s biggest coal-producing state as train-load after train-load is still moved by rail out of the state and into places such as Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska where it is burned to produce electricity.
But Wyoming’s energy landscape is quickly changing and more and more coal industry employees are being laid off, forcing them to move out of state in search of new employment.
While millions of dollars are being invested in Wyoming’s growing wind industry, the end result will mean only hundreds of jobs, not thousands. And the thousands losing their jobs in the coal industry don’t have the technical skills to obtain the wind industry jobs.
