Episode Details

It's time to take a look at what's happening around Wyoming, for Tuesday, December 3rd. I'm Wendy Corr, bringing you headlines from the Cowboy State Daily newsroom - brought to you by the Cowboy State Daily Morning Show with Jake. From 6 a.m. to 10 a.m., Monday through Friday, Cowboy State Daily's Jake Nichols takes you deeper into the stories that matter - and keeps up with the news, weather and sports in your part of Wyoming. Just tune into Cowboy State Daily Dot Com and join the conversation.

Wyoming and 10 other states are suing three massive investors, accusing them of colluding to downsize coal companies in the name of achieving net-zero carbon emissions, all while driving up energy prices for Americans and monopolizing the market in the process.

Cowboy State Daily's Clair McFarland reports that Blackrock Inc., State Street Corp. and Vanguard Group Inc. all acquired large percentages of major coal companies, then used their influence to bully the companies into cutting production - that's according to the lawsuit.

"The lawsuit alleges that these investors together own, like a third of the biggest coal companies, right? Which you know, you're not even over 50% at that point, even if even all three of them together. But they're alleging that Black Rock and Vanguard and State Street are kind of leveraging the influence that they do have through that 33% to, you know, to cast votes and rally supports and just replace the directors of the coal companies with those who are willing to downsize and to cut production."

The document also points out that renewable energy sources like solar and wind can't furnish the constant power supply that power companies are obligated to provide.

Read the full story HERE.

A company based in Turkey is making a big play in Wyoming's trona patch.

Sisecam has decided to negotiate for Ciner Group's indirect shares in Sisecam Wyoming and Pacific Soda, which is building out Wyoming's largest new trona mine.

Cowboy State Daily's Renee Jean reports that the move, if realized, positions Sisecam as the parent of Pacific Soda and the largest new trona mine in the largest trona patch in the world.

"Trona is used for all kinds of things… It's used to make glass. It's used for detergents. It's used for soaps. It also useful in just manufacturing processes… part of what's pushing up the demand right now for trona is lithium batteries. Those are used in a lot of electrical vehicles and other applications… And so, you know, having these companies come in and add millions more tons of trona to the supply line is really pretty cool, and it keeps America's edge on the trona supply chain."

Trona is a limited resource, with only three known locations in the world - in Wyoming, China and Turkey - but Wyoming's, at a 90% share, is the largest reserve by far. Trona is a common source of soda ash, which is used to make a variety of necessary products, ranging from detergents and soaps, to glass and lithium batteries.

Read the full story

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