Wyoming's renewed push toward nuclear energy development is often framed as an economic opportunity. But as federal and state leaders accelerate siting, licensing, and deployment - particularly on public lands - important questions remain about who bears the long-term risks and how those decisions affect Wyoming's land-based industries. In this rep...

Wyoming's workforce is changing, but many state hiring practices have not kept pace. Across public agencies, degree requirements are often used as a default screening tool, even for positions where the work can be performed just as effectively through experience, certifications, military service, or on-the-job training. In a state with a large rura...

Wyoming Liberty Group, working with Always On Energy Research, released a policy report titled "Balancing the Scales: How Wyoming Can Protect Its Energy Revenues," authored by Trevor Lewis and Gabriel Collins, with project oversight by Isaac Orr. For the past several decades, Wyoming has benefited enormously from tax revenues generated from extract...

by Wyoming Liberty Group Recently, state lawmakers said no to the idea of storing other states' nuclear waste in Wyoming. But if history has taught us anything, it's that just because a bill dies in committee doesn't mean the issue is dead. The idea of Wyoming as a repository for spent nuclear fuel has resurfaced repeatedly for decades. With nuclea...

by Wyoming Liberty Group As the Wyoming legislature recently opened its general session, it may be a good time to revisit a major issue for the state: The possibility of storing nuclear waste in our proverbial backyard. As you may recall, the controversial issue came up last year, championed by Donald Burkhart Jr. (R-Rawlins), co-chairman of the Mi...

by Wyoming Liberty Group What's one of the driving forces fueling renewed interest in nuclear energy in Wyoming and elsewhere? In brief: AI. It's important that we in the Cowboy State better understand the forces moving behind the scenes that may shape our future. So, follow this chain reaction of reasoning: Artificial intelligence is in its global...

by Wyoming Liberty Group Why does it take thousands of years—even tens of thousands of years—to store nuclear waste? Better yet, why should we in Wyoming care? The answers to both questions are important to the Cowboy State, especially now that the legislature's Minerals, Business and Economic Development Committee recently approved a draft bill th...

by Wyoming Liberty Group TerraPower, the nuclear company founded by Bill Gates, recently announced that it had awarded a contract to a firm to design, test and do other stuff for something called a "sodium-air heat exchanger" and "air stack structures and equipment for the Natrium Reactor Demonstration Project currently under construction in Kemmer...

by Wyoming Liberty Group Recently, the state legislature's Minerals, Business and Economic Development Committee passed draft legislation that would open the door in Wyoming to the temporary storage of nuclear fuel waste. Temporary, by the way, is a relative term. More on this in a moment. But what this means, in the short term, is this: We all nee...

by Wyoming Liberty Group Let's give a shout out to our very own Harriet Hageman, Wyoming's sole representative in Congress. Rep. Hageman recently called out the Bureau of Land Management—otherwise known as BLM—and its misguided Western Solar Plan, which would vastly expand the amount of public land that could be used for big industrial solar projec...