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2007 ENERGY TOUR: Day 6 June 30, 2007Today we did some sightseeing at Devil’s Gate, near Alcova, Wyoming. This was a major crossing on the Oregon Trail, the Mormon Trail, the California Trail, and the Pony Express. There were pioneer re-enactments you could participate in as well as a museum, visitor’s center, and trails to hike. It was very interesting and a lot of fun.  As we made our way across Wyoming we drove to a huge wind farm near Arlington, Wyoming. It was very impressive to see hundreds of massive windmills turning on a hill known as Foote Creek Rim. This is the largest Wind installation in Wyoming, and is owned by a company based in Oregon.  We went through the historic town of Sinclair, Wyoming and saw the historical buildings and the huge oil refinery plant. This town is on the National Historic Registry, and the refinery has always been one of the more important refineries in Wyoming. We have seen a lot of oil refineries and oil and natural gas wells in Wyoming. When we approached the capital city of Cheyenne we noticed something interesting. There were swathers and balers cutting and baling the wild grass at the side of the freeway. We don’t know what this baled grass is used for nor do we know why it is done (except for fire safety). But we thought it would be a great idea to use the cut grass for bio-mass for fuel. Imagine the amount of biomass you could harvest along the nations roadsides! We would like more information on this so if anyone knows what this is all about please let us know.  We topped off the fuel tank at a Sapp Brothers station just East of Cheyenne at exit 370 off I-80. We needed to top off because we are driving across Nebraska tomorrow and until we reach eastern Nebraska there are not many fueling stations. We are planning our trip based on the information at www.biodiesel.org for biodiesel filling station locations. When you look at this map you will notice that in the west it is important to plan where your next biodiesel fueling stop will because they are relatively scarce, but when you look at the Midwest there are hundreds of locations.  While at Sapp Brothers we found it interesting that all of the biodiesel pumps had trucks filling up, in comparison very few of the regular diesel pumps had trucks filling up. This was heartening to see. If the trucking industry encourages the use of biodiesel, then that could bring about some very positive changes in biodiesel demand. We settled for the night in Pine Bluffs, Wyoming, right on the border of Nebraska. |
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