Where will Wyoming's displaced fossil fuel workers go?

Nicole Pollack , Morgan Hughes Sep 5, 2021 Updated Sep 5, 2021



Tanner Hilderbrand practices using climbing equipment during an October 2017 wind turbine technician training course at Casper College. As Wyoming's traditional fossil fuel jobs diminish, more workers are moving into other fields, including those supporting renewable energy.

Josh Galemore file, Star-Tribune

There are times when Wyoming has been a really good place to work. The lows have always been low, but when the extractive industries of coal, oil and gas are booming, Wyoming is rich with high-paying jobs in the coal mines and oil fields.

But fossil fuels have fallen, and they aren’t rebounding. Even the verbiage has changed. It’s no longer a bust — it’s a permanent decline. Every year, those lucrative jobs are fewer and farther between.

Retraining of Wyoming’s energy workers has become a focal point for lawmakers and industry experts, who see potential for both calamity and possibility in the state’s changing job market.

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As rising U.S. demand for low-carbon energy displaces the traditional fuels that underpin the state economy, the coal, oil and natural gas jobs that have sustained Wyoming families for generations, and the communities built around them, are at risk.

Many national clean energy advocates have called for an industry-wide transition of fossil fuel workers to similarly compensated jobs in the renewable sector. Experts say it’s not that simple — and argue that existing programs don’t do enough to help workers find jobs comparable to the ones they’re leaving behind.

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Many state leaders hope to turn Wyoming into a hub for emerging technologies like carbon capture and blue hydrogen, the type generated using natural gas. Still, a shift away from traditional fossil fuel use will likely require an economic restructuring away from the state’s past reliance on severance taxes from fossil fuel extraction, {Daniel Raimi, a fellow at environmental research nonprofit Resources for the Future and a lecturer in public policy at the University of Michigan} said.

“There’s no income tax in Wyoming,” he said. “There are relatively low taxes for people on other sources, and that’s because coal, oil and gas have been paying the way. But that can’t last forever. And so the sooner the state starts to diversify its economy and diversify its revenue sources, the better.”