Energy Capital Economic Development breaks ground on Wyoming Innovation Center

By Tim Velder, PRECorp

If you are a company wanting to test technologies on a larger scale, the Wyoming Innovation Center (WyIC) near Gillette, is the place for you.

With funding support from the Wyoming Business Council, Economic Development Administration, the City of Gillette and Campbell County, the WyIC broke ground at the Fort Union Industrial Park north of Gillette on June 7, 2021.

The center will have seven pilot pads of up to 40,000 square feet in size where tenants can test projects with lab spaces. Specific focus will be placed on coal conversion sciences, rare earth minerals, and fly ash remediation.

One tenant will be the University of Wyoming School of Energy Resources. Their ideas will seek answers to capturing rare earth elements from coal fly ash and coal seams, as well as making construction materials out of coal.

“We’re so excited about building up these new technologies, getting them out of our labs, out into the fields and making them a reality,” said Holly Krutka, executive director of the University of Wyoming School of Energy Resources.

An ultimate goal is to allow researchers to develop a financially-sound market for lab-proven technologies. “I couldn’t overstate how important that is,” Krutka said. “Technologies go through a valley of death, and one of the hardest points is when they’re at the pilot scale.”

Powder River Energy Corporation (PRECorp) CEO Mike Easley explained the mindset of northeast Wyoming has remained resilient in the face of a changing appetite for carbon-based energy production. PRECorp is the rural electric cooperative serving much of the coal industrial load in Campbell County. Easley said that instead of taking on the identity of a victim, northeast Wyoming’s economic drivers are imagining themselves as “creators” by advancing science and technology with the available natural resources.

Easley also said this process of creation has brought national and international collaborations to a “Carbon Valley” concept for Wyoming, based loosely on the idea of “Silicon Valley” in California.

Wyoming Gov. Mark Gordon attended the groundbreaking and praised the efforts of local economic development leaders who see the value in locally available resources such as rare earth elements and uranium, not just coal, oil, and natural gas.

There is much more work to do, such as engaging tenants and investments in the ongoing work at the center.

For more information contact Energy Capital Economic Development CEO Phil Christopherson at 307-686-2603.

Web resources:

http://www.energycapitaled.com/

http://www.energycapitaled.com/about/services/

Sidebar:

The Wyoming Innovation Center (WyIC)

Since the dawn of time, coal has been used as a fuel source. Studies and research have shown that there are more useful and valuable ways to use coal. Almost everything that is refined from oil can be refined from coal.

There is an incredible amount of lab research that demonstrates refining coal into products such as carbon fiber, asphalt, fuels of all types, activated carbon, char for agricultural use, and many other practical products.  In most cases the research has stayed in the lab and has never resulted in the development of marketable commercial products.  Times are changing, and there are opportunities to take existing research and commercialize it for new and profitable products. 

One critical piece is needed: a place where these technologies can be proven out on a small, pre-commercial plant-size level.  That is the purpose of the WyIC; to have a place where the lab research can be taken from the lab and proven to be commercially viable.  Once the process and products are proven, the next step is a commercial industrial manufacturing plant to make the product.  This will provide two important components for our future economic growth. 

• First, we will have a more diverse economy that is not dependent upon the price, demand or political climate of coal, oil and gas. 
• Second, with coal as the primary raw material for these Advanced Carbon Products, our people will still be mining coal, with the added bonus of new customers for their products.