Dale Wireline has spent 21 years pulling hydrocarbons out of Wyoming's Powder River Basin, first with coal bed methane, then moving to tight oil when the Bakken boom spilled south. His surname—which he swears is real, inherited from a grandfather who worked oil rigs in Oklahoma—is also the name of a petroleum engineering technique involving lowering instruments into wells. "Yeah, I've heard every joke," he says. "Wireline logging, wireline services, the whole bit. My ex-wife used to say I was destined for this job before I was born."
We're talking in his truck in a Gillette parking lot on a Thursday afternoon. He's just finished a shift and still has his work boots on. The Wyoming wind rattles the windows. Dale is 43, compact and weathered, with the kind of conversational directness that comes from spending most of your working life in industrial settings where clarity matters.
He's also six months into what he describes as "the most annoying decision of my entire life."
Last September, a geothermal startup in Utah offered him a position as a drilling engineer. The pay is comparable to what he makes now, maybe slightly better. The work would use nearly identical skills—understanding subsurface formations, managing drilling operations, troubleshooting equipment failures. He's even completed an online certificate program in geothermal systems.
He still hasn't made a decision.
So what's stopping you?
Honestly? I don't know if I believe it's real. Not the job offer—that's real. The company's real. But whether there will actually be, like, a career there in five years? Whether geothermal actually scales the way everyone says it will? I've been reading the research, and yeah, my skills transfer. I get that. But I've also watched a lot of "next big things" in energy come and go.
And then there's the other stuff. My son is in Denver with my ex-wife. If I take the Utah job, I'm actually closer to him—four hours instead of six. That's not nothing. But I've lived in Gillette my whole adult life. I know every person at the grocery store. My poker game is on Wednesdays. I'm not trying to be sentimental about it, but... I don't know. Leaving feels like admitting something.
Admitting what?
That this is over. The oil and gas thing. That I spent two decades getting really good at something that's being phased out, and now I need to scramble.
Look, I'm not an idiot. I understand climate change. I've read the projections. But there's this feeling of being told your skills are obsolete when they're not obsolete, they're just... inconveniently located? The Nature Communications study everyone keeps citing says guys like me have transferable skills but we're not co-located with where the green jobs are growing.1 Which is a fancy way of saying: you're qualified but you're in the wrong place, so uproot your entire life.
You mentioned you completed a geothermal certificate. That suggests you're taking this seriously.
Oh, I'm taking it seriously. I spent four months doing online coursework through some program out of Cornell. Geothermal reservoir characterization, heat extraction systems, the whole curriculum. And here's what's funny—it's like 80% stuff I already know. Formation permeability, fluid dynamics, thermal conductivity. It's not that different from what I do now, just hotter and with different fluid chemistry.
But then I'll be talking to guys at work, and they'll say, "You really think that's going anywhere? Geothermal?" And I'll defend it, right? I'll cite the data about enhanced geothermal systems, the DOE funding, the potential capacity. But privately I'm thinking... maybe they're right? Maybe this is just the next ethanol or clean coal or whatever—something that sounds good in a press release but never actually employs the numbers they promise.
What would make you trust it more?
I don't know. More time? Which I don't have, because the Utah offer isn't going to stay open forever. They're building out their team now. If I wait six months to see how it develops, I've lost the opportunity.
He pauses, looks out at the parking lot.
I've been through this before. In 2015, 2016, when oil prices crashed, half the guys I knew got laid off. I survived that round, but it was close. And everyone said, "This is temporary, prices will recover, the industry will bounce back." And they did! For a while. But now it feels different. Not because of prices but because of... trajectory. The writing on the wall.
Except I still see rigs operating. I still see job postings. So maybe the writing's not as clear as everyone says.
Your ex-wife and son being in Denver—how much does that factor in?
More than I want it to. We split up three years ago, and part of it was this exact thing—she wanted to leave Wyoming, I didn't. She got a job in Denver, took our son, and now I drive up every other weekend. It's fine. We make it work. But if I'm in Utah, that's four hours instead of six. I could do weeknight dinners. I could be more present.
But then I think, what if the Utah job doesn't work out? What if the company folds or the funding dries up and I'm stuck in Salt Lake City with no network, no connections, starting over at 43? At least in Gillette I know people. I've got 21 years of contacts in this industry. That has value.
Have you talked to other petroleum engineers who've made the jump to renewables?
A few. There's a guy I know who went to offshore wind, working on installations in the Atlantic. He says it's fine, the work is similar, but he's also living in a state he never planned to live in and he misses Texas.
Another guy went to a carbon capture project—which, let's be honest, is basically the oil industry's attempt to keep existing while looking green. He likes it but he's also pretty open that it might be a dead end if the economics don't work.
Nobody I've talked to regrets leaving, exactly. But nobody's like, "This was obviously the right choice and everything's great." It's more like... they made a decision and now they're living with it. Which is probably what I'll do too, whatever I decide.
What does your son think?
He laughs. He's 10. He thinks it would be cool if I lived closer. He doesn't really understand the job part. He just knows I drill holes in the ground for energy, and whether it's oil or geothermal doesn't really register as different to him. Kids are good that way. They just want you around.
His mom—my ex—she's been pretty clear she thinks I should take the Utah job. Not for her sake, but because she thinks I'm being stubborn about Wyoming. She might be right. I don't know.
The research shows that fossil fuel workers typically don't travel far for employment opportunities. Does that match your experience?
Oh yeah. Most guys I know have never worked outside Wyoming or maybe Montana. The industry's been concentrated here for so long that you didn't need to move. You could build a whole career within a 100-mile radius. And that's created this... I don't know what to call it. Rootedness? Inertia? Both?
Like, there's a guy I work with, he's 55, been doing this his whole life. He's not going anywhere. He'll ride this out until retirement or until he gets laid off, and then he'll figure something out locally. Maybe drive truck, maybe work at the mine. He's not moving to Nevada for a geothermal job. That's just not happening.
But I'm 43. I've got 20-plus years of work left, theoretically. So the calculation is different. Except it's also not, because I'm still... here. Still in Gillette. Still having this conversation instead of just taking the job.
What would need to happen for you to say yes?
I think I just need to accept that there's no perfect information. That I'm not going to know for sure whether geothermal is going to be a stable 20-year career path. Nobody knows that. The people hiring me don't even know that.
He taps the steering wheel.
There's this line from the research I keep thinking about—that fossil fuel workers have the skills but are "not co-located with current sources of green energy production."2 And I just think, okay, so the solution is I uproot my life? That's the answer? Move to where the jobs are?
Which is fine, that's how labor markets work, I get it. But it's also asking me to abandon everything I've built here on the promise that the green jobs will actually materialize in the numbers they're projecting.
And maybe they will! Probably they will. But I've been in energy long enough to know that projections and reality don't always match up.
So where does that leave you?
Probably taking the job. I mean, I've already done the certificate. I've already had the conversations with the Utah company. I've already started imagining what it would be like to live closer to my son. At this point, not taking it feels like the more active decision—like I'm choosing to stay in a declining industry because I'm too stubborn to admit things are changing.
But I reserve the right to be annoyed about it. About the whole situation. About the fact that I got really good at something that's now being phased out, and my reward is having to move to Utah and start over.
It's not tragic or anything. People deal with worse. But it's also not nothing.
The wind picks up again, rocking the truck slightly.
I'll probably call them next week and say yes. Or the week after. Soon. I'm pretty sure the geothermal jobs are real. Pretty sure.