Both Chicago and Detroit have areas of vacant and underinvested land, and both are starting to see those plots as potential sites for clean energy projects, but is that what the communities want? The answer can be complicated, Audrey Henderson reports for the Energy News Network.

Detroit is home to 19 square miles of vacant land, and utility DTE Energy wants to build large-scale solar arrays on parts of it. Some residents and local officials say it’ll help combat dumping and other nuisance crimes, while also helping the city meet its climate goals. But other neighbors worry using the green space for solar will take away land from potential affordable housing projects, and say putting panels on top of other buildings or outside the city would make more sense.

A geothermal project in Chicago’s West Woodlawn neighborhood meanwhile avoids vacant plots altogether, while still bringing clean power to the South Side community. Geothermal systems require a lot of land to lay subterranean loop fields that circulate hot and cold water, making them hard to build in dense cities. But developers are putting this project’s loop fields in alleys between houses and apartment buildings, and linking those homes up to the heating and cooling source along the way.

Read more about the possibilities and hangups of siting clean energy in cities at the Energy News Network.

More clean energy news

📈 Methane emissions keep growing: The U.S. led an international effort to curb methane emissions, but a new study finds domestic emissions continue to grow amid increases in natural gas production. (New York Times)

🏡 Cracking the building code: A new federal rule will help counter weak building energy codes in North Carolina and other states by requiring new homes with certain federally-backed mortgages to include energy-saving features. (Energy News Network)

🚘 Turbocharging EVs: The Biden administration announces $3 billion in grants to build out an “end-to-end supply chain” for electric vehicles, seeking to challenge China’s dominance of the sector. (Associated Press)

🌊 Ongoing cycle: Offshore wind proponents say opposition to East Coast projects can be traced back to Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s fight against wind turbines in the Nantucket Sound in the early 2000s. (Inside Climate News)

⚛️ Nuclear’s second chance: As it seeks to meet growing energy demand for AI technologies, Microsoft announces a 20-year power purchase agreement that will revive Pennsylvania’s Three Mile Island nuclear plant. (Bloomberg, New York Times)

🏭 Gas’s broken promises: West Virginia’s natural gas industry has boomed, but communities are seeing population declines and job losses instead of prosperity the industry had promised. (Mountain State Spotlight) 

☀️ Coal plant reset: Repurposing the interconnection system at a large Minnesota coal plant set for retirement to support a massive solar project helps avoid potentially several years of regulatory steps to connect to the grid. (CNN)

📋 What’s stopping tribal clean energy: Researchers find a gauntlet of federal red tape hampers tribal nations’ clean energy development and could lead to $19 billion in lost revenues if the barriers aren’t addressed. (Grist)

🇺🇲 Plus, some politics

• Nearly half of the Inflation Reduction Act’s $115 billion in clean energy funding has gone to seven swing states critical to the U.S. election, creating as many as 50,000 jobs in electric vehicle, battery, and other clean energy manufacturing, according to a new analysis. (The Guardian)
• Environmental groups have seen donations skyrocket since President Biden left the ticket, and now plan to go on the offensive in presidential swing states and in tight congressional, state and local elections. (E&E News)
• Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson says some of the Inflation Reduction Act’s clean energy incentives are worth preserving even if his party takes over the White House and Congress next year. (E&E News)
• Vice President Kamala Harris has moved away from earlier Democratic Party pledges to end fossil fuel leasing on public land, raising concerns from advocates about political support for future climate action. (E&E News)

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Vacant lots are not a blank slate for clean energy is an article from Energy News Network, a nonprofit news service covering the clean energy transition. If you would like to support us please make a donation.

The clean energy transition doesn’t just need a ton of solar panels, electric vehicles, and batteries. It needs aluminum — a key component to all of those technologies and many more.

In the next 25 years, global aluminum demand is set to surge as much as 80% as we deploy clean energy and build out the grid. But if we keep making aluminum the way we have for decades, the emissions-heavy process will outweigh a lot of the clean benefits it’ll unlock.

A massive new aluminum smelter wants to set a new status quo, Canary Media reports in the first of a two-part series. Using $500 million from the U.S. Energy Department, the Century Aluminum plant aims to run on carbon-free energy and implement efficient designs to curb its emissions as much as 75% compared to traditional smelters. Procuring all that clean power won’t be easy, though, and the part of Kentucky where it’s likely to be built is also scaling up solar and transmission development to meet the demand.

Recycling can meanwhile reduce the need for new aluminum in the first place, Canary Media continues. As much as 80% of aluminum produced in the U.S. is recycled, and the industry relies on trash pickers, scrappers, and everyday Pepsi drinkers to gather up recyclable material. But because secondary aluminum still demands some virgin material, experts say cleaning up smelters should be the industry’s top priority.

Also this week in essential clean energy materials: There’s a debate raging over the merger of two major steel companies, Grist reports. Japanese steelmaker Nippon Steel is looking to acquire U.S. Steel in a move some environmentalists say could slow both companies’ climate progress. The carbon-intensive industry has been notoriously slow to clean up its processes even with federal funding available, and advocates want to make sure the government keeps that in mind as it approves the consolidation.

More clean energy news

🚗 EVs start delivering: The first electric U.S. Post Office trucks are on the road in Georgia and already winning praise from drivers who prefer them to the previous hot, noisy and inefficient combustion vehicles. (Associated Press)

🛟 Life-saving clean transition: The Biden administration’s environmental protections and clean energy incentives will save as many as 200,000 lives by 2050 by reducing pollution, an advocacy group finds. (The Guardian)

🤖 Virtual reality: Clean energy advocates and solar companies partner to draft model utility rules and legislation to help states deploy virtual power plants, which could reduce the cost of the clean energy transition by tying together solar, storage, and other distributed energy technologies. (Canary Media)

🏦 Banking on clean energy: A federal green bank aims to channel $500 million to community financial institutions to fund solar arrays, renewable energy apprenticeships, electrified public transit, and more in rural areas, with priority for projects in Appalachia. (Grist)

☢️ Nuclear plants’ new lives: Several dozen retired nuclear plants around the country could be suitable for repowering, according to a new federal report analyzing retired coal and nuclear sites that could host new nuclear generation. (Utility Dive)

⛈️ Back-to-back climate threat: Experts warn Houston’s experience with Hurricane Beryl this summer — widespread power outages followed by a dangerous heat wave — is an “absolute certainty” to affect other parts of the U.S. that are unprepared for such a scenario. (Washington Post)

🇺🇲 Plus, some politics

• During last week’s presidential debate, Vice President Kamala Harris highlighted how the Inflation Reduction Act juiced clean energy and domestic oil and gas production while former President Donald Trump pivoted to promising tariffs he says will protect automakers and other industries from foreign competition. (Grist, The Hill)
• Oil industry leaders say they’re disappointed with Trump after he made an “incoherent” case for continued fossil fuel use at the debate. (Politico)
• More Republican lawmakers are standing up against calls to repeal the Inflation Reduction Act, citing hundreds of millions of dollars that have already flowed into red districts. (E&E News)
• The future of vice presidential candidate JD Vance’s hometown may hinge on a $500 million federal grant to help the city’s steel plant build a massive hydrogen-powered furnace to replace coal — though the company is considering abandoning the funding. (The Guardian, Politico)

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Clean energy needs clean aluminum is an article from Energy News Network, a nonprofit news service covering the clean energy transition. If you would like to support us please make a donation.

When it comes to transitioning from fossil fuels to clean energy, rural electric cooperatives often get stuck in neutral.

These small, member-owned utilities provide power to more than 40 million Americans in rural areas and suburbs that aren’t served by investor-owned or municipal utilities, according to the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association. Many face unique financial, cultural and political barriers that have made it hard to move beyond coal and gas.

But for the past five years, environmentalists have been quietly working with co-op leaders to change that status quo, E&E News reports. A series of meetings between the two camps has helped many find common ground in the clean energy transition, like when Colorado environmentalists and Tri-State Generation and Transmission agreed that the coal-heavy co-op should seek federal funding to move past fossil fuels.

And now, that request is a success. Tri-State is one of 16 co-ops getting a piece of $7.3 billion from the Biden administration to help them purchase clean power or build it themselves. The Inflation Reduction Act funding is expected to unlock enough clean electricity to power an estimated 5 million rural households.

Another winning bidder comes from Ohio, where Buckeye Power will deploy renewables and energy storage as coal generation shuts down.

Read all the details about how a co-op/environmentalist collaboration turned into federal funding in this Energy News Network report from the archives.

More clean energy news

🎓 Fossil fuels hit the books: A peer-reviewed study documents how oil and gas companies have “embedded” themselves at colleges and universities through donations, sponsored scholarships, and seats on governing boards, with researchers concluding academic integrity is “at risk.” (Floodlight, The Guardian)

☀️ Supercharging U.S. solar: The anticipated launch of Hanwha Qcells’ end-to-end solar factory in Georgia is expected to supercharge the U.S. solar supply chain, which has already quadrupled in the two years since the passage of a federal climate package. (Canary Media)

🔌 Politically charged: Unionized workers at an Ohio electric vehicle battery manufacturing plant lament the partisan divide over EVs, noting that the industry has helped preserve good-paying jobs. (Inside Climate News)

🏭 LNG fight continues: Gulf Coast residents and environmental groups turn to federal courts to try to block a wave of liquified natural gas export facilities they say haven’t been adequately vetted for their potential impacts on environmental justice, greenhouse gas emissions, fisheries and more. (Floodlight)

🛢️ Oil taps the climate law: Oil and gas producers plan to take advantage of a tax credit in the landmark federal climate package to inject carbon dioxide to squeeze more oil from the ground, but critics warn about a lack of federal oversight and uncertainty about the practice’s effectiveness. (E&E News)

🏠 Passive housing, aggressive efficiency: Some affordable housing developers embrace Passive House building standards that make homes highly energy-efficient with only slightly higher upfront costs. (Energy News Network)

🌬️ Wind’s PR nightmare: Vineyard Wind’s broken turbine blade, misinformation campaigns and a lack of forthrightness from offshore wind developers is causing a “public relations nightmare” for the industry. (Rhode Island Current)

🇺🇲 Plus, some politics

• Former President Trump promises to rescind any unspent Inflation Reduction Act funds if he wins the election — a move Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen says would be a “historic mistake” that would harm the cities, states, manufacturers, and households benefiting from the law. (Politico, The Hill)
• The Biden administration is racing to spend out Inflation Reduction Act funding and enact environmental rules as a potential Trump presidency looms, experts say, though some proposed regulations will remain unfinished. (Axios, The Hill)

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Rural electric co-ops ready to ditch the coal status quo is an article from Energy News Network, a nonprofit news service covering the clean energy transition. If you would like to support us please make a donation.

It’s been nearly 20 years since states and cities started adopting climate goals, setting themselves on a path toward reducing emissions and rolling out clean energy. Whether they’re actually on track to meet those goals is up for debate.

Advocates across the country have sued municipalities they say are failing on their climate commitments, like those in San Diego who alleged the city’s climate plan lacked funding and a clear timeline, and a group in Vermont that said the state wasn’t complying with its 2020 emissions law.

But in Maine, climate advocates are getting specific with their complaints, the Energy News Network reports. A pending youth-led lawsuit targets the state’s environmental protection agencies, and says they haven’t adopted strong enough regulations to propel the state’s electric vehicle rollout.

The suit centers on Maine’s 2019 climate law. In it, the state said it would focus on cutting emissions from its “most significant sources” — and transportation tops that list. But even though the state has incentivized electric vehicle adoption, it’s still far from meeting its EV goals. So advocates say the state should implement California’s strongest-in-the-nation EV standards, which go even further than federal rules.

Environmental law professor Jennifer Rushlow told ENN that narrow lawsuits like this one tend to be more successful than broad suits that “get kind of lost to politics.” — and can inspire change in public opinion, too.

Read more about Maine’s unique climate lawsuit at the Energy News Network.

More clean energy news

💰 More federal spending is coming… Researchers estimate the clean energy transition by 2031 will demand $1 trillion in federal spending — about 15 times what has been distributed so far via the Inflation Reduction Act. (Grist)

🏭 But is it all smart? The U.S. has spent more public money on carbon capture and gas-produced hydrogen than any country, a new report finds, even though the technologies remain unproven as cost-effective climate solutions. (The Guardian)

♻️ A new spin for wind: National Renewable Energy Laboratory researchers say they’ve developed a wind turbine blade made from plant materials that can be recycled into new shapes or blades. (New York Times)

👷 Clean jobs report: The Department of Energy says clean energy jobs last year grew at twice the rate of other sectors and saw unionization rates higher than in the broader energy industry. (Reuters)

Dig deeper: The Bureau of Labor Statistics says wind energy is the country’s fastest growing field and projects 60% job growth over the next 10 years. (Axios)

🚘 More power for charging: The Biden administration announces $521 million in grants for electric vehicle charging, and says the number of publicly available chargers has doubled since 2021. (Utility Dive)

☀️ Solar’s bright future: A columnist details how increasingly cheap and widely available solar power will make once-far-fetched applications and technologies possible. (New York Times)

🇺🇲 Plus, some politics

• Vice President Kamala Harris’ promise not to ban fracking if she’s elected president pleases oil and gas executives while disappointing environmentalists — though both say there’s a wide gulf between her positions and Donald Trump’s. (E&E News)
• Experts debunk false and misleading claims about electric vehicle mandates, electricity availability, and other energy topics former President Trump and Sen. J.D. Vance are making on the campaign trail. (E&E News)

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This climate lawsuit gets specific is an article from Energy News Network, a nonprofit news service covering the clean energy transition. If you would like to support us please make a donation.

In central Ohio, a fight has been going on for more than a year between developers of a solar project and a so-called “grassroots” group that doesn’t want it built.

Knox Smart Development popped up late last year to fight the 120 MW Frasier Solar project, holding a town hall and otherwise campaigning to stir up opposition to the project. Kathiann Kowalski reported for the Energy News Network that the group has appeared at three public hearings in front of Ohio’s energy project siting board, and made more than 100 unique arguments against approving the project.

The problem? Half of those comments contained misinformation, and “do not present credible or compelling opposition to the proposed project,” said Heidi Gorovitz Robertson, a professor at Cleveland State University College of Law.

Last week, Knox Smart Development founder Jared Yost hinted at where some of Knox Smart Development’s support and misinformation may be coming from.

In a hearing with the energy siting board, Yost testified that Tom Rastin, the former head of oil and gas compressor company Ariel Corportation, is one of the group’s biggest donors. Rastin also reportedly leads The Empowerment Alliance, a dark money nonprofit that advocates for the natural gas industry. Another Empowerment Alliance leader spoke at one of Knox Smart Development’s town halls last year. 

Yost denied that The Empowerment Alliance influenced his opposition to the Frasier project, but clean energy advocates say Knox Smart Development is just another example of how fossil fuel interests are disguising themselves behind community-led groups to make their fights against clean energy feel organic and credible.

Read more about how misinformation is fueling this unfolding solar fight at the Energy News Network.

More clean energy news

👷 Unions’ clean energy: The Inflation Reduction Act’s labor standards for clean energy development could create as many as 3.9 million jobs across 6,285 burgeoning projects, a labor advocacy group says. (Utility Dive)

🔌 Virtual (power plant) reality: Xcel Energy in Minnesota wants to build virtual power plants that combine solar power generation and energy storage — a technology analysts say is “well past pilot scale” and ready for full deployment in North America. (Energy News Network, Utility Dive)

⚠️ Cautionary tale: State policies could supercharge utility-scale clean energy deployment, but experts say too rapid of an expansion could strengthen opposition, and that local participation in the siting process is still key. (Utility Dive)

🚘 EVs’ new charge: Experts say solid state batteries have the potential to transform the auto sector by giving electric vehicles hundreds of miles more of range per charge. (Inside Climate News)

🔋 Managing the load: Cleantech experts say home power management systems are set to become essential as homeowners switch to electric appliances and vehicles, as well as add at-home power generation. (Bloomberg)

🚍 Going for sustainability gold: A sustainability advocate says Los Angeles will need an “epic transportation reboot” to achieve a zero-emission Olympic Games in 2028. (Los Angeles Times)

🇺🇸 Plus, some politics:

• Conservatives for clean energy: A national advocacy group founded in 2016 aims to make the conservative case that clean energy will win in free market competition and support private property rights. (USA Today)
• Keeping climate quiet: Observers say Vice President Kamala Harris is seemingly making a “deliberate choice” to minimally mention climate as she tries to downplay divisive issues in her campaign, though allies say it’s still clear where she stands on the topic. (Washington Post, New York Times)
• Learning from Minnesota: U.S. climate advocates say Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz’s measured and bureaucratic approach to clean energy programs, and success in attracting federal funding, will lead to policy gains at the federal level. (E&E News)

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The misinformation at the heart of rural solar opposition is an article from Energy News Network, a nonprofit news service covering the clean energy transition. If you would like to support us please make a donation.