Episode Details

It's time to take a look at what's happening around Wyoming for Monday, March 30th. I'm Mac Watson.

A top Department of Energy official says the nuclear industry is finally at a tipping point after decades of stagnation. Cowboy State Daily's David Madison reports that as federal regulators are clearing the path for nuclear power projects, Wyoming is positioned to be a leader in a U.S. nuclear boom.

"When this Under Secretary of the Department of Energy said that he's been waiting for the nuclear industry to hit a tipping point, and he feels like it's tipping. It's tipping in the direction of Wyoming in that camera is happening in that we can develop the uranium resources that the state has, and then we have things like this energy dominance fund, where there's going to be millions of dollars available to assist in the development of different energy capacities, and one of them could be the enrichment of uranium on its way to creating fuel."

According to Bloomberg NEF analysis, global electricity demand is projected to increase 4.5% in 2026 and grow at least 2.8% annually through 2030. The jump is driven by expansion of electric vehicles, industrialization, greater demand for cooling in developing countries — and the rapid growth of U.S. data centers, which has upended years of flat demand.

Read the full story HERE.

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When Wyoming's most-decorated soldier returned to Vietnam as part of a Wyoming PBS documentary, Lee Alley did not expect to meet a man who witnessed his actions at a battle that led to a Medal of Honor nomination. Cowboy State Daily's Dale Killingbeck reports that the words his former foe spoke changed his life.

"He got a Distinguished Service Cross, many more medals, and then went on to a life after the service here in Wyoming, but struggled with nightmares, and then returned to Vietnam, just in the past year, and met a former foe who knew exactly what happened that day. He said, They hug. They hugged one another. And the man asked him, 'Do you have nightmares?' And he said, 'Yes, I have nightmares.' And he said this, a Vietnamese ex-soldier said to him, 'Let's say from this point on, we're not going to have nightmares. Let's bury the past.'"

With his 80th birthday coming in a couple of months, Alley can now go to sleep at night without nightmares that have plagued him since returning from a year on the jungle front lines and finding the university he left a foreign place.

Read the full story HERE.

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A Navy veteran thought his dream of being a farmer has passed. Cowboy State Daily's Renee Jean reports that then Lonnie Frericks moved to Buffalo, Wyoming, where the veteran and a tiny runt goat named Tenacity crossed paths.

"She was so tiny, she should have been a stillbirth, but somehow she lived. And there was just something about her, her spunk, the spark in her eyes. He could tell she was still fighting to live. And so he decided to save this little goat, and kind of, in a way, save himself. He's been in the military, seen a lot of terrible things, holding this little life in his hand, he didn't want it to die. Sometimes you do things because you're human, right, instead of because they make sense economically and not everything's about economics."

Frericks is a relatively new Cowboy State resident, though an old hand at farming.

Read the full story HERE.

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