The prospects for electric power exports from Wyoming and the significance of wind power will be the topics of an energy discussion sponsored by the University of Wyoming/Casper College Center in Casper on Thursday.

The free public event will take place at 7 p.m. on the Casper College campus, in the Wheeler Auditorium, located in the Wold Physical Science Center.

A scientist will discuss how wind power, backed up by power-storage technology, can be a serious player in electric power markets nationwide and can help mitigate global climate change.

Jeffery Greenblatt, of Environmental Defense in Oakland, Calif., will describe the overall picture of new efforts and technologies the world needs to undertake in the next 50 years just to keep greenhouse gas emissions capped at their current levels.

Wind - a perennial, renewable resource in Wyoming - could play an important role, according to Greenblatt, particularly if wind power generation is accompanied by advanced energy storage techniques.

Such techniques as "compressed air energy storage," which packs wind-produced energy into underground strata for later use, can help transform wind energy from an intermittent to a steady energy source, and bring it major new markets, he says.

The head of the Wyoming Infrastructure Authority, which is charged with planning and developing major electric transmission lines to carry electric power out of the state, will outline what his agency sees in the power markets and how transmission lines out of Wyoming will make a difference in how state energy resources are developed.

However power may be produced in Wyoming, the cost of getting it to distant markets will be a major factor in decisions to build power-generating facilities. Steve Waddington, who has spent much of his career in the electric utility industry and now directs the state Infrastructure Authority, is focused on questions of how the state can help develop new, cost-effective power transmission lines out of the state.

UW adjunct faculty member Anne MacKinnon will moderate the discussion.

Thursday's event is part of lecture series titled "Energy Futures: Global Changes that Challenge Wyoming."

It is sponsored by UW's Helga Otto Haub School of Environment and Natural Resources, the UW Stroock Forum on Wyoming Lands and People, UW's new School of Energy Resources, the UW/CC Center, Casper College and the Casper Star-Tribune.