ROCK SPRINGS - State Department of Environmental Quality Director John Corra remembers seeing the bumper stickers on Sweetwater County cars that appeared after the boom of the late 1970s and early '80s.

The abbreviated version went something like this: "Please, God, give us one more boom, and we promise not to screw it up this time."

"We've got that (one more boom), and now's our chance to do it right," Corra told a small crowd of area residents during Thursday's session of a two-day conference. "We are on the right track to not waste this boom."

Corra said the Rocky Mountain region has a broad array of natural resources that the nation will want to tap over the next decade. He predicted the current boom lasting at least another decade in southwest Wyoming.

He noted there are 18 coal-fired power plant construction projects on the drawing board or under way in the region, including three in Wyoming.

Corra spoke at a conference titled "Boom and Bust: A Public Dialogue" at Western Wyoming Community College here. The gathering ends today.

Communities like Rock Springs in Sweetwater County and Pinedale in Sublette County are feeling the strains from the boom, with increased population and increased pressure on services and infrastructure.

"The nation is increasingly turning to Wyoming to help meet its energy needs … and (environmental) issues will increasingly be dealt with on a regional and national scale," he said. "No longer in Wyoming are we all by ourselves on these issues. The state we live in tomorrow is going to be different than the one we're accustomed to now."

Corra said one of the best ways for communities to handle the county's current economic upturn from the energy boom is for residents to become more involved in government and more engaged with industry.

"How and why we live in Wyoming depends on natural resources, and the challenge is to maintain and balance both," he said. "We did it back in the 1970s and we got a handle on it. The impacts of this boom will be in direct proportion to how well the stakeholders all work with each other."

Wind energy

One way to help avoid the boom-and-bust cycle that comes with the state's mineral-based economy is to develop more renewable energy sources in Wyoming, industry representatives told conference participants.

"The era of cheap energy … from oil, coal and natural gas is over," cautioned Hugh Yendole, business development manager for Shell Oil Co.'s wind energy division, which built the Rock River Wind Energy Plant near Laramie.

"Shell wants to be in the energy business 50 years from now, and to do that, we have to embrace other energy technologies," said Yendole, who has led the company's buildup of a global wind portfolio for the past decade.

Electricity from wind amounts to less than 1 percent of all the power generated in the United States, according to federal figures. Europe, on the other hand, produces five times as much wind power as the United States.

Yendole said the expiration and renewal several times in the past 20 years of a federal 1.5-cents-per-kilowatt-hour tax credit for wind-produced electricity has resulted in a "boom-and-bust" cycle that has hurt the industry by quashing investment and development efforts. When the production tax credit expired, "people went to work somewhere else," he said.

Yendole said more electrical transmission capability is needed for wind energy to really take off in Wyoming. He noted the transmission line serving the company's Rock River wind farm was constructed 60 years ago.

Solar power

Solar power is another cost-effective renewable energy source that has a variety of "ideal applications" for Wyoming, particularly for ranching and the oil and gas industry, said Scott Kane with Creative Energies Inc., a recoverable energy business based in Lander.

"The solar resource in Wyoming is not world-class, but it's pretty darn close," Kane said.

He said solar energy can be particularly helpful for Wyoming ranches, remote homes and mountain cabins where power transmission lines don't reach.

Solar power also has a lot of industrial applications as well and is being used in natural gas fields such as the Jonah field in western Wyoming to power wellhead and pipeline monitors, among others.

"But where solar really shines is in the ranching part … There are a great many needs for small amounts of power in distributed locations such as ranch houses, water pumps, sheds and barns," Kane said.

Southwest Wyoming bureau reporter Jeff Gearino can be reached at (307) 875-5359 or at gearino@trib.com.

Today's schedule

Here's what's on tap today at the "Boom and Bust: A Public Dialogue" conference at Western Wyoming Community College in Rock Springs:

* 8-9:30 a.m. - Bureau of Land Management; Michael Holbert, Rock Springs Field Office manager. Moderator: Bruce Anderson.

* 10-11:30 a.m. - Industry; Jeff Johnson, EnCana USA; Tom Volner, Halliburton; Don Likwartz, Wyoming Oil and Gas Conservation Commission supervisor; Don Hogan, Questar. Moderator: Kevin Holdsworth.

* 1-3:30 p.m.: Wrapup: Chance for the audience to talk about concerns. Mayors: Tim Kaumo, Rock Springs; David Gomez, Green River; Rose Skinner, Pinedale. County commissioners: John Palleson, Sweetwater; Betty Fear, Sublette. Moderator: Jan Torres.