Energy, Clean Energy, Ethanol and Fracking

The AI Boom Is Prolonging Indiana’s Fossil Fuel Era, With Hidden Costs for Water

On: July 15, 2026

In: AI, Energy, Clean Energy, Ethanol and Fracking, fossel fuels, great lakes news collaborative, Indiana, industry, Latest News, Water quality

By Christian Thorsberg, Circle of Blue

The Great Lakes News Collaborative includes Bridge Michigan, Circle of Blue, Great Lakes Now at Detroit PBS, Michigan Public and The Narwhal who work together to bring audiences news and information about the impact of climate change, pollution, and aging infrastructure on the Great Lakes and drinking water. This independent journalism is supported by the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation. Find all the work HERE.

Growing up in the shadow of a coal plant in rural Indiana gives a child a unique relationship with the passage of time.

As a little girl in the small town of Wheatfield, population 900, Barb Deardorff recognized the months by the height of the cornstalks and beansprouts which grew on her family’s farmland. The years were marked by what loomed beyond these fields — the R.M. Schahfer Generating Station and its ever-rising piles of toxic coal ash, their ascending silhouettes a scourge framed for years by her school bus window.

“My whole childhood, thirteen years, twice a day to and from school, I was watching the coal ash landfill build up layer by layer,” says Deardorff, now 50 years-old, in her Wheatfield home in June.

Deardorff’s kitchen today looks out onto a long, flat treeline, above which, just a couple miles away, the flues of that same half-century-old coal plant continue to billow smoke. They stand as readily visible emblems of an old energy era giving way to a new energy revolution that is putting fresh water, clean air, and human health at risk in small Great Lakes communities.

Wheatfield is a microcosm of industrial eras old and new. Having endured for decades the transformational effects of living in the midst of America’s 20th-century coal boom, residents are now left to wonder and worry how the age of artificial intelligence — bolstered by hyperscale data centers and the power plants they depend on — will affect their community.

These concerns are justified. In the past two years, aided by state and federal policy, the tech giant Amazon has invested roughly $29 billion to turn Northwest Indiana into what it calls a new “Silicon heartland,” flush with three energy-intensive data center campuses, one already completed, spanning 2,200 acres. Next door to the Schahfer generating station, Indiana approved two natural gas-fired turbines for construction. Those plants are poised to power the newest Amazon installation — a $7 billion data center — and are estimated to consume roughly 6 billion gallons of water annually from the nearby Kankakee River.

The R.M. Schahfer Generating Station in Wheatfield, Indiana. (Photo credit: Christian Thorsberg / Circle of Blue)

Amazon found a ready ally in the Hoosier state, which has embraced data centers and their thirst for power. Last year, state regulators granted the region’s primary utility first-of-its-kind authority to generate energy just for data centers. And in response to Trump administration directives, officials have re-written state energy policies to keep old coal plants — including Schahfer — operating to supply data centers indefinitely.

Experts anticipate that by 2040, more than one-fifth of Indiana’s energy needs will come from data centers alone.

The surge in construction investment and new power supply coincides with a comprehensive weakening of environmental protections on both the local and federal level — a risky proposition in a state that already is home to some of the most polluted waters, largest losses of wetlands, and worst air quality in the country.

Deardorff has a front row seat to a show of power and technology unlike anything seen before in this region, or across the country. Like other residents of rural communities bullied by data center construction, she says she feels almost helpless. As someone whose conception of time is inseparable from Schahfer, she says she feels suddenly entangled in multiple discouraging realities.

“Everything, everywhere,” she says, “is happening all at once.”

Barb Deardorff, pictured outside her home, with the Schahfer plant behind her in the distance. (Photo credit: Christian Thorsberg / Circle of Blue)

What Was and Is No More

Deardorff has reason to be suspicious of the mammoth display of technology and energy generation under construction around her home.

She has not known life without the R.M. Schahfer Generating Station as a neighbor. She was an infant when the coal-fired power plant opened its doors in 1976, and has lived next to its operations ever since, watching it become one of the country’s largest single emitters of greenhouse gasses. By one estimate, the plant causes 20 premature deaths each year from drifting soot and smog. And its groundwater, recent testing has shown, is contaminated with carcinogenic heavy metals — an existential threat for the dozens of residents who live within several miles of the facility and rely on shallow private wells as their sole source of drinking water.

So when Schahfer announced in 2018 that it would close its doors at the end of 2025, celebrations rang out for many. The prospect of life without the plant represented, literally, a brand-new horizon.

“I got emotional, because I thought we outlasted them,” says Deardorff, whose family has lived in Wheatfield for six generations and previously farmed the land where the coal plant sits. “We were here before them, we dealt with them, and I thought we were going to be here after them.”

Residuals of Ash

This dream was short-lived. Not only has a series of 90-day extension orders from the federal government kept Schahfer operational as usual into the present, but the plant’s legacy of waste and health concerns are crescendoing. Deardorff and others worry that the new landscape of data center and natural gas construction and operation could eventually produce more degradation.

At the Wheatfield home of Chris Hunter, a retired local farmer, coal ash’s stubborn tendency to permeate water and air lays bare. Just hours after severe thunderstorms and tornadoes tore through the town, Hunter’s wife, Cindy, ran a paper towel along the white exterior window sills of their home, located roughly two miles downwind from Schahfer.

Immediately, a dark, sooty film appeared on the pristine white background, the now-darkened paper towel a canvas that distills Wheatfield’s modern story.

“You just get it jammed down your throat,” Hunter says, looking out at the coal plant from his front lawn and thumbing through the wipe. “And we watch it all through our windows.”

In a state known for its high cancer rates — Hoosiers are nearly 12 percent more likely to die from the disease than the average American — Northwest Indiana where Hunter and Deardorff live stands out as a statewide hotspot for incidences of lung, colon, and breast cancers.

The statistics are made material in Wheatfield, where many residents living in the vicinity of Schahfer share stories of family members and friends who have suffered from poor health.

Deardorff recalls several neighbors and friends who have been diagnosed with cancer in recent years. Matt Mish, 35, who lives within a half-mile from the coal plant on his grandparents’ old farm, says that his grandmother died of cancer in 2015.

Hunter says he lost his younger brother at 52 years-old to a rare type of cancer, and his father to liver cancer at 62 years-old. His mother, 90, has lived with Parkinson’s disease for more than two decades.

“But how are you gonna really prove it,” Hunter asks, “and say it was [the coal plant]?”

All of these residents breathe Wheatfield air, and are among the dozens of people who rely on private wells to draw groundwater from the shallow local water table. Existential concerns for the quality of this supply were raised in 2018, when testing showed that Schahfer’s coal ash landfill had contaminated the plant’s own groundwater with cobalt, arsenic, lithium, radium, boron, and molybdenum in levels above federal thresholds.

Meanwhile, water samples collected at 107 wells in and around the plant between 2010 and 2019 found that 86 percent had at least one pollutant in excess of federal advisory levels, according to Earth Justice’s Ash Tracker dashboard.

“And we only found out about that because a law passed requiring [the plant] to publicly make that data available,” Deardorff says. “Who knows how long they had contaminated the groundwater before then?”

Indra Frank, a doctor and coal ash advisor with the Hoosier Environmental Council, says there is significant concern that the plant’s polluted groundwater will spread through the area’s shallow, flood-prone topography and contaminate wells and ditches that supply water used for drinking, recreation, and irrigation, especially as construction on the natural gas plant and data center begins.

The plant’s own ash-contaminated groundwater, held largely in unlined ponds spanning more than 80 acres, sits at least 15 feet higher than the groundwater that area residents depend on.

A one-foot-thick wall of slurry, which extends underground to a layer of shale bedrock, is all that separates the plant’s active waste disposal area (WDA) from the rest of the region’s aquifer. This setup, Frank warns, is precarious. Currently, the WDA receives an average of 2.88 million gallons of “bottom ash sluice water, boiler room sump discharge, and stormwater” per day, according to documents published in 2020.

“You’ve got 15 feet of water pressure trying to push that water out from under the slurry wall,” Frank says.

For a brief period, it was believed that federal intervention would spur remediation at the site. The EPA in 2015 announced a mandate requiring utilities to clean unlined coal ash ponds that were found to be leaking. But the requirement had several loopholes, Frank says, that the coal plant’s owner, energy utility NIPSCO, has exposed to delay any cleanup.

“They’re claiming that the ash pond is not subject to the rule, because water isn’t visible at the surface of the ponds,” she says. “Some of these ponds, which are 20 feet deep, hold 19 feet of sitting water beneath their solid top layer.”

The slow-walk to addressing its coal ash storage may have paid off for the utility, which last year produced 200,000 tons of ash. In April, the EPA proposed aggressive rollbacks to the 2015 rule, putting Wheatfield’s coal ash piles in a doubly prolonged state of limbo.

“It would wipe out requirements for half the coal ash in the country, and that includes some of the coal ash at Schahfer,” Frank says. “It can continue to sit there and contaminate groundwater. They could stop monitoring the groundwater for certain sites. It’s pretty, pretty devastating.”

That the Kankakee River runs directly adjacent to the Schahfer plant is another point of vulnerability. No systematic testing of soils or farmland in the area has ever been done, despite Jasper County being home to some 600 farms. Many of these crop fields rely on the Kankakee River for water, and are connected to both each other and the watershed through a series of drainage ditches. This network was created in the 20th century through the mass-draining of a massive wetland ecosystem once known as “the Everglades of the North.”

As a result of this degradation, most of the area, including some of the coal ash ponds, sit today within 100-year flood zones. Heavy, erratic precipitation made more likely by climate change could exacerbate the movement of contaminated groundwater through farmers’ ditches and crops.

According to a February report from the Hoosier Environmental Council, based on state data, 270 miles of rivers and streams in Jasper County are impaired. A one-off sample at a local irrigation ditch that runs adjacent to Schahfer, the Stalbaum ditch, was found to contain elevated levels of molybdenum. “That’s consistent with contamination from coal ash getting into that ditch, which runs into the Kankakee River,” Frank says.

Deardorff grew up swimming in the river, but those days are long over. “I’m concerned about the effluent they emit into it,” she says. “I can see the pipe, I know where it comes out, and I’m never in the water downstream of it.”

An $11 billion, 1,200-acre Amazon Web Service data center in New Carlisle, Indiana. (Photo credit: J. Carl Ganter / Circle of Blue)

Data Centers’ Indirect Water Use

Concerns about the environmental risks of data centers in Wheatfield center for the time being on water availability.

On the surface, the new Amazon data center’s estimated yearly water use — between 8 million and 10 million gallons, according to Jasper County Plan Commission documents — is hardly eye-opening, especially for a facility of its size.

But the much-greater water needs of the two fossil fuel-fired plants operating in its service expose the resource stress the industry indirectly creates.

In Wheatfield, the Kankakee River is poised to feel the consequences the most.

According to Indiana Department of Environmental Management data, the Schahfer coal plant’s intake well — located in an area of medium-high water stress, according to the World Resources Institute — has the capacity to draw 131 million gallons of water per day from the river. Actual withdrawals from 2022 through 2024 were much less, though not insignificant, according to self-reported data collected by the state: an average of roughly 11.5 million gallons of river water per day, with peak days reaching 25 million gallons of water.

Much, but not all, of this water is returned to the Kankakee at a higher temperature after being treated on site. And this treatment is crucial and subject to scrutiny: in 2024, which is the most recent data available from the EPA, wastewater stored on-site included 567,763 pounds of chemicals including arsenic, barium, lead, and mercury.

That same year, the coal plant consumed roughly 940 million gallons of river water, according to data collected by the U.S. Energy Information Administration and analyzed by Circle of Blue.

The natural gas turbines are expected to have an even bigger footprint. According to GenCo testimony from this April, the facility plans to draw up to 23 million gallons of water per day from the Kankakee, consuming roughly 16 million gallons of this — amounting to an estimated 5.8 billion gallons of water consumed annually.

The total indirect cost of water, then, sums to nearly 7 billion gallons of water per year — enough water to supply approximately 64,000 American homes for a year — consumed from the Kankakee River in service of electricity production for Indiana’s ‘Silicon Heartland.’

The post The AI Boom Is Prolonging Indiana’s Fossil Fuel Era, With Hidden Costs for Water appeared first on Great Lakes Now.

Original Article

Great Lakes Now

https://www.greatlakesnow.org/2026/07/15/the-ai-boom-is-prolonging-indianas-fossil-fuel-era-with-hidden-costs-for-water/

Circle of Blue

It may be almost impossible to make data centers pay their ‘fair share’ of electricity costs

On: July 8, 2026

In: Energy, Clean Energy, Ethanol and Fracking, Featured, industry

By Theodore J. Kury, University of Florida

The Conversation is an independent and nonprofit source of news, analysis and commentary from academic experts.

Many major tech companies have pledged to pay their fair share of the costs associated with generating and transmitting more electricity to serve large data centers. But ratepayers across the United States are worried about the potential costs they might have to bear. That’s because it’s not immediately clear how the cost of data centers’ energy will be calculated. The effects of price increases are likely just beginning, and their full effects may not be felt for years.

For example, a recent report by the organization that monitors the PJM market, an area that encompasses all or part of 14 mid-Atlantic and Midwest states, concluded that expected power demand from data centers was a primary reason for US$23 billion in customer price increases that will last until at least the end of 2028.

I have studied the programs states have launched to address the needs of these large electricity customers. Prices are set by state utility commissions, who determine which customers’ rates will increase by how much to pay for new investments in electricity infrastructure. It’s not simple.

The complexity of setting prices

Setting a price for electricity is straightforward in principle but complicated in execution. Regulators identify the costs to provide service, allocate the costs to customers and design prices to recover those costs.

First, regulators identify the costs that a utility company incurs to provide service. Regulators look at the value of the assets the utility company invests in, such as power plants, transmission lines and substations, as well as its day-to-day operating expenses, such as salaries, fuel, replacement parts and electricity it purchases from other sources. Then these costs are allocated to categories of customers, such as residential, commercial and industrial.

Ideally, costs are allocated to the customers who cause them, but that can be complicated to determine. For example, imagine a data center is built in an area that lacks existing power lines and is located 50 yards from a nearby electric substation. It’s clear that the data center should pay to run a 50-yard power line from the substation to the data center.

But what if the power company needs to upgrade the substation to handle the increased needs of the data center? Or secure additional sources of electricity? In these cases, the investments are part of the electricity grid that everyone uses. These costs will likely be shared among all customers.

Cost analysts review each line of a utility company’s costs, often thousands of items, and determine how each cost will be allocated. Each decision incorporates one basic idea: What’s your share?

For instance, if a group of customers uses 20% of the electricity delivered by the utility, they would be allocated 20% of the costs associated with energy delivery. Other cost items may be allocated based on the number of customers or how much electricity customers use at particular points in time, but the idea is the same.

Finally, the analysts set prices that are designed to recover the costs allocated to each customer group. So, the costs that are allocated to you are directly reflected in the electricity prices that you pay.

Flexibility and a potential loophole

One common criterion for figuring out how much a customer should pay is based on what is called “coincident peak demand” – the amount a customer group uses at the moment when all customers are collectively using the largest amount of electricity. Costs associated with overall peak usage are typically split proportionally – but this opens an opportunity for data centers to exploit the system.

Data centers often are able to fine-tune their electricity consumption, using more one minute and less another, in ways that residential users can’t easily replicate. Computerized systems can automatically adjust the amount of work a data center is doing, while a homeowner would either have to race around shutting off appliances to meaningfully reduce the amount of power their home was using or invest in a device that does.

Their flexibility means data centers may be able to learn to predict when system loads will peak and consume little to no power in just the right period to avoid contributing to peak loads, as has happened with cryptocurrency-mining operations in Texas. So when regulators look at their usage to determine prices, data centers may be able to avoid paying any costs allocated through coincident peak demand, even if they use large amounts of electricity at other times.

Who speaks for you?

When utility regulators decide how costs should be allocated to each customer group, they solicit input from different groups. The utility company initially submits its own proposal for how it thinks costs should be allocated across its system.

Large industrial customer groups representing customers such as factories will also submit their own proposals for how to allocate costs and set rates. Retail customer groups representing large and small stores will submit theirs. And large data centers, with the resources to hire experts in cost allocation, will submit theirs as well. Some states have specific state-government agencies to do some of this work on behalf of particular commercial groups, such as Pennsylvania’s Office of Small Business Advocate.

Regulators don’t always get a good sense of residential customers’ voices, though. Every state except Georgia, Idaho and Louisiana has an office of the consumer advocate that represents customer interests in proceedings before the state utility regulator. But they are often charged with representing all customers in the state without bias, meaning they cannot advocate for outcomes that would impose costs on one group of customers in favor of another.

So while every state’s consumer advocate is concerned with keeping the utility’s costs as low as possible, they may be barred by law from adopting a position on how those costs should be allocated. This lack of representation in this aspect of rate-setting for average households may lead to situations where the data centers’ advocates argue for minimal costs to be allocated to them – but nobody advocates on behalf of residents to examine or refute that argument.

Citizens left holding the bag

There are other risks for residential customers, too. Utilities’ investments in electricity infrastructure last for many years. But not every proposed data center will get built, and some may use less energy than originally projected. Technology may even change, making some data centers obsolete after a year or two of operations.

If those events happen, then any costs the utility company incurred to provide enough electricity will be spread among all the other customers.

The allocation process may be even more complicated for municipal utilities regulated by city councils or independent boards, or cooperative utilities regulated by elected boards in rural communities. These groups may not have full-time staff who are utility or regulatory experts, yet they face the same decision-making challenges as trained professionals and might have to retain outside experts to aid in the process.

Consumers need to be aware of the importance of cost allocation and how it affects their electricity rates. I believe they should provide public comments to the regulators and speak during open hearings, as there may not be anyone else effectively advocating for their interests.

The post It may be almost impossible to make data centers pay their ‘fair share’ of electricity costs appeared first on Great Lakes Now.

Original Article

Great Lakes Now

https://www.greatlakesnow.org/2026/07/08/it-may-be-almost-impossible-to-make-data-centers-pay-their-fair-share-of-electricity-costs/

The Conversation

On fabled Au Sable River, a fight for soul of Michigan’s holy waters

On: July 7, 2026

In: Energy, Clean Energy, Ethanol and Fracking, industry, Lake Huron, Michigan

By Kelly House, Bridge Michigan

The Great Lakes News Collaborative includes Bridge Michigan; Circle of Blue; Great Lakes Now at Detroit PBS; Michigan Public, Michigan’s NPR News Leader; and The Narwhal who work together to bring audiences news and information about the impact of climate change, pollution, and aging infrastructure on the Great Lakes and drinking water. This independent journalism is supported by the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation. Find all the work HERE.

On any given summer evening along this storied Michigan river, Tom Buhr can be found fly fishing in cold, rushing water that makes him feel “more complete and better” than anywhere on Earth.

Fifty miles downstream on a pontoon in one of the Au Sable’s lake-like reservoirs, Douglas Ridenour can relate to the feeling.

The agreement ends there.

Despite a shared love for the river, the men stand on opposite sides of a struggle for its future, prompted by Consumers Energy’s proposal to sell 13 century-old Michigan dams — including six on the Au Sable — to a private equity firm.

For the company, it’s a financial decision designed to avoid hundreds of millions in maintenance costs and liability for high-hazard structures that don’t generate enough electricity to pay their way.

For many residents along the nationally-renowned 138-mile waterway that originates north of Grayling and empties into Lake Huron at Oscoda, a regulatory review of the deal has become a proxy for a deeper battle over whether the dams should exist at all.

Foote Pond Overlook is located at the top of a steep sand bluff known as Champagne Hill, offering visitors panoramic views in Oscoda Township. On a warm summer weekend, the Au Sable River below is often packed with boaters and swimmers. (Ella Miller/Bridge Michigan)

The struggle for the future of the Au Sable mirrors a national debate. It pits environmentalists and fly fishers like Buhr, who favor free-flowing rivers with colder water and more fish, against flatwater enthusiasts like Ridenour who value the lakefront living created by reservoirs.

Across the country, “you’ve got old mill dams and old power dams that were important things at the time, but now maybe aren’t,” said Bob Dalton, a national dam safety expert based in Illinois. The question then becomes “what are we going to do now, and what’s it going to look like 100 years from now?”

At stake are not just the environment and ways of life for water users, but public safety, taxpayer dollars and the future of scores of businesses and communities that have popped up along the artificial lakes.

A nationwide issue

Across the nation, thousands of dams have exceeded the standard 50-year lifespan and face mounting maintenance costs.

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The average US dam is 65 years old, while Michigan’s average is 80.

Consumers Energy’s 13 dams on the Au Sable, Grand, Kalamazoo, Manistee and Muskegon rivers average 106 and generate only 1% of the utility’s annual power output, while the cost to maintain them keeps growing.

In view of that math, Consumers wants to sell them for $1 apiece before their federal operating licenses expire in the coming years. The proposition has drawn rebuke from critics, who fear new owners won’t pay to keep the structures safe.

A state judge has advised utility regulators to reject the sale in a final decision expected this September.

Consumers officials say such an outcome would lead them to seek removal of all 13 dams — an effort sure to trigger yet more regulatory review and intense public debate.

Federal records show licenses for another 15 Michigan hydropower dams will expire in the coming decade, likely prompting similar debates about whether to keep, sell or remove them.

Nationwide, some 100 dams were dismantled last year, including six in Michigan. Experts expect the number to keep climbing as owners look to avoid costly repairs.

Foote Dam is one of six hydroelectric dams on the Au Sable River, located in Oscoda Township. Completed in 1918, the dam is the farthest downstream of the six and is nine miles away from the Au Sable’s mouth at Lake Huron. (Ella Miller/Bridge Michigan)

Here on the Au Sable, uncertainty about the fate of its six dams has reignited an age-old debate about what a river should be, and who gets to decide.

“Rivers are defined as flowing water,” said Bryan Burroughs, executive director of the river advocacy group Michigan Trout Unlimited. “You shut that off, and it’s going to cause a lot of problems.”

But to folks like Ridenour, who lives near the lowest Au Sable dam and has been recreating in its reservoir for more than 50 years, the impoundments enhance the river’s variety in ways too important to lose.

The Au Sable in its current configuration is “100% nature,” Ridenour said, but “I have no interest in being here if the river is only 20 feet wide.”

The river of dreams

Unlike other regions, where coldwater rivers are disappearing due to climate change, Ice Age glaciers blessed Michigan with a sandy landscape rich in frigid springs that produce blue-ribbon trout rivers.

The Au Sable stands out among them, a mystique owing to good publicity and relative proximity to Michigan’s population hubs.

The river’s easy accessibility from Detroit, Flint or Saginaw has won it some influential boosters, from early 1900s lumber baron William Mershon to the founders of Trout Unlimited, a national river advocacy group that was born on its banks.

Au Sable disciples often describe it in near-spiritual terms: An 8-mile stretch near Grayling is known as “the holy waters.” A sign downtown glorifies it as “the best of all rivers.” People interviewed for this story called it “my cathedral,” “my happy place,” and “the place where I’m most at peace.”

On a late spring evening, it’s easy to understand the hype.

Bullfrogs bellow in the cedar swamps, trout leap from the water to feed on mating mayflies, loons glide between cattails and wild rice beds in stillwater reservoirs surrounded by towering dunes.

But pristine as the Au Sable may seem, it has been dramatically altered by humans — a period Buhr, the fisherman who has written two books about the river, laments as its “225-year monetization.”

Ezra Ferrier, 8, Gabriella Ferrier, 4, Clement Ferrier, 2, and Cece Ferrier, 10, of Monroe, scale a log jam with help from their grandma during a visit to Lumberman’s Monument Visitor Center in Oscoda Township. The site teaches visitors about the history of the area’s lumber industry through interpretive signs, exhibits, demonstrations and programming. (Ella Miller/Bridge Michigan)

The fur trade virtually emptied the watershed of its beavers. Unregulated commercial and sport fishing drove Arctic grayling to local extinction and dramatically reduced sturgeon, walleye, whitefish and sucker populations. Timber companies razed the pine forests, leaving the Au Sable sunbaked and sand-choked.

The subsequent building of hydroelectric dams fragmented the river into seven sections, submerging 59 miles between Mio and Oscoda under vast artificial lakes and prompting generations of debate about whether it was a good idea.

Should they stay or should they go?

Few along this river seem to be comfortable with Consumers’ plan to essentially give the dams away to a Maryland-based private equity firm in a deal that would cost ratepayers $3.4 billion and leave few guarantees about the structures’ future.

Prospective owner Confluence Hydro has vowed to shore up the dams to keep them operating for decades to come, but the deal doesn’t hold the company to those vows.

Many, including the judge who recommended denying the sale, wonder how Confluence intends to turn a profit on such costly assets. They fear the answer lies in skipping maintenance required for safety, or selling off thousands of acres of landholdings that surround the dams.

But given Consumers’ vow to dismantle the dams if the sale doesn’t proceed, some fans of the impoundments are willing to take the gamble.

Douglas Ridenour, 68, takes his 50-year-old pontoon boat for a ride around Foote Dam Pond in Oscoda Township. Ridenour has been visiting Foote Dam Pond for decades, but moved there six years ago in his retirement to take advantage of the recreational opportunities the reservoir provides. He’s one of dozens of homeowners who have leased access to dock their boats in the reservoir. (Ella Miller/Bridge Michigan)

“They are the only horse traveling in our direction right now,” said Ridenour, the reservoir resident who co-administers a pro-dams Facebook group that has grown to 3,400 members. “So we kind of feel like the only choice we have is to hop on.”

The environmentalists and trout fishing enthusiasts who oppose dams see that as a perilous choice. In their eyes, removal is the best way to eliminate safety risks posed by the aging structures while righting a historic wrong.

Thanks to decades of tree-planting, sediment removal and other restoration work, the Au Sable has partly recovered from its industrial past, said Karen Harrison, president of the local Trout Unlimited chapter, “but it can come further.”

Retired Michigan Department of Natural Resources Fisheries Biologist Steve Sendek, right, and son Alex Sendek, of Grayling, push a dead pine tree they cut down into the Au Sable River, which will be used to repair a woody trout habitat first created by the DNR about 50 years ago, in Grayling Township. When the DNR stopped maintaining the habitats in the late 1990s, Sendek stepped in with the help of funding from local organizations to hire a crew to restore them each summer. The woody habitats provide trout with a place to conserve their energy and take shelter from predators. “We’re taking care of that original investment the DNR put into the fish habitats and making sure it stays functional for a long time,” Sendek said. (Ella Miller/Bridge Michigan)

The dams block migratory fish from their habitat, contributing to sharp declines for a host of species. They trap sediment, starving the river of nutrients while muck piles up in the reservoirs. Fish die in the spinning hydroelectric turbines and the sun beats down on the pooled water, warming it to unsafe temperatures for coldwater fish.

Three of the Au Sable dams warm the river so badly they violate state standards, complicating their path to relicensing.

Were it not for the dams, officials with the Michigan Department of Natural Resources have estimated, the lower Au Sable river could support millions of salmon and steelhead, tens of thousands of lake sturgeon and abundant trout, walleye, whitefish and other species.

Experience with other dam removals has shown changes can happen quickly.

Burroughs of Trout Unlimited recalls a dam removal on another Michigan river, in which “before we even finished with the excavator, we saw trout moving upstream.”

Old dams are also prone to failure without constant maintenance — which Buhr called his primary reason for supporting removal.

“They aren’t getting any younger,” he said. “I think getting the dams out — or at least most of them — has to be done from a safety standpoint.”

And then there’s the question of cost: By Consumers’ estimate, removing all 13 dams would be tens of millions of dollars cheaper for its ratepayers than keeping them in place and relicensing them, although critics on both sides have disputed that math.

“We have a responsibility to prioritize customer affordability in decisions about the future of the dams,” company spokesperson Katie Carey said.

But in the communities surrounding the dams, removal is seen as a threat to local economies and a way of life.

In their century of existence, the dams have helped cultivate a multi-million-dollar tourism economy in a region with few other economic opportunities.

Public boat ramps and campgrounds have cropped up along their collective 10 square miles of reservoirs, attracting swimmers and water skiers, pontoon cruisers and RVers who supply welcome business to area restaurants, bait shops and grocery stores.

While Consumers owns much of the shoreline and bottomlands, it has leased dock access to hundreds of private residents, making them de-facto lakefront homeowners. It’s not clear what would happen to that land if the reservoirs were drained.

Portaging over the dams has become a rite of passage for participants in the river’s annual canoe marathon, which boasts Consumers Energy as its chief sponsor.

And while the dams have displaced coldwater and migratory fish, they’ve created habitat for lake species like bass, perch and bluegill. The lowermost barrier — Foote — blocks invasive sea lamprey that might otherwise travel upstream to spawn by the millions.

If all that went away, “there goes the summer revenue,” said Debbie Sytek, who manages the office at Alcona Park, a 440-site campground on the reservoir created by the thirdmost-downstream dam.

With a summer staff of 23 people, Alcona Park qualifies as a major employer in an area this remote.

“What draws people here is the pond,” Sytek said. “The beauty, the slowness … What does this park look like if the water’s not there?”

Economic studies commissioned by Consumers found that removing the Au Sable dams would reduce gross regional product by $8.7 million while costing 278 jobs.

“It’ll be another Air Force leaving the area,” predicted 68-year-old Ray Rolwing, who owns a home near Cooke Pond and remembers the boarded up shops and population exodus that followed the military’s 1993 closure of its Oscoda base.

Fans of flowing rivers have criticized the analyses by Public Sector Consultants, arguing a free-flowing river has greater economic potential than researchers acknowledged.

A group of kayakers take off on a trip down the Au Sable River from Carlisle Canoe Livery in Grayling. Known for its clear waters, steady currents and scenic views, the Au Sable River is one of the most popular spots in Michigan for paddlers. (Ella Miller/Bridge Michigan)

Upstream of the dams, in the reaches famous for their stable currents and abundant trout, canoe liveries, fly shops, motels and restaurants bustle with visitors all summer. As diminishing snowpack imperils coldwater rivers from Montana to Minnesota, some predict Michigan’s reliable springfed flows will become an even bigger draw.

“People will travel from all over the world to fish a run of Atlantic salmon up the world-famous Au Sable, or to fish for trout in sections of river that haven’t been fished for a hundred years,” predicted Josh Greenberg, a fishing lodge owner who leads the conservation group Anglers of the Au Sable.

Room for compromise?

In view of the tradeoffs, some on the Au Sable see room for a compromise in which some dams stay and others go.

Many see Foote Dam — where Ridenour lives — as a strong candidate to stay in place. Beyond its utility as a lamprey barrier, it impounds the river’s largest and most popular reservoir, generates more electricity than any of the other five dams, and needs the least near-term investment, according to 2022 estimates Consumers shared with area residents.

Many dam opponents see the upper impoundments — Mio, Alcona and Loud — as prime targets for removal. Taking them out would mitigate the river’s temperature problems while extending its free-flowing section by dozens of miles.

Savings from decommissioning rather than repairing the dams, Buhr suggested, could compensate residents who’ll lose lakefront property while helping affected communities transition to a river-based economy.

“I won’t be satisfied unless the local economy and property owners are satisfied,” he said.

It’s a reasonable prospect to Curtis Township Supervisor Kevin Perry, whose community surrounds the Alcona Dam.

“I would rather not lose the dam, because let’s face it, change always hurts,” Perry said. But “if you market it correctly,” an undammed river could become an asset, just as the reservoirs are today.

Back at Alcona Park, campers Marjon and Michael Jones spent a recent breakfast pondering what such an arrangement would mean for them.

Every summer for the past 16 years, the Detroiters have parked their RV along the shoreline and spent the season fishing, boating and watching sunsets over the Alcona Dam Pond.

Were it to be replaced with a narrow river, Michael said, “we would have to go somewhere else.”

Marjon agreed. But noting Michigan has thousands of other lakes to explore, she said she would still support dam removal.

“In spite of how much we love this place,” she said, “if you really want things natural, then dams are an unnatural thing.”

An overlook gives visitors a view of the Au Sable River from the AuSable Valley Scenic Vista in Glennie. Designated a “blue ribbon trout stream” by the Michigan Department of Natural Resources, the 138-mile river is known for its clear waters and abundant recreational opportunities. (Ella Miller/Bridge Michigan)

The post On fabled Au Sable River, a fight for soul of Michigan’s holy waters appeared first on Great Lakes Now.

Original Article

Great Lakes Now

https://www.greatlakesnow.org/2026/07/07/on-fabled-au-sable-river-a-fight-for-soul-of-michigans-holy-waters/

Bridge Michigan

As affordability issues surge, is it finally time for offshore wind?

On: April 30, 2026

In: Cleveland, Energy, Clean Energy, Ethanol and Fracking, Featured, Industry, Energy, Economic Development, lake erie, Latest News, Ohio, wind

Covering an area the size of the United Kingdom and surrounded by half a dozen large, energy-hungry metropolitan regions, the Great Lakes, surprisingly, boasts not a single offshore wind energy project.

We know that the resource and the demand are there. But no offshore wind effort has ever taken off.

Past efforts at a demonstration project called Icebreaker, slated for Lake Erie off the coast of Cleveland, fizzled out in 2023. In Ontario, which boasts 5,200 miles of Great Lakes coastline, a moratorium on offshore wind has been in place since 2011, with the provincial government having to fork out millions of dollars in damages to one wind energy company for doing so.

But today, with electricity prices surging around the region, is it finally time for offshore wind to take its place? Do communities even want them?

Here, we speak to advocates for and opponents to offshore wind and investigate the myriad challenges such projects in the Great Lakes face.

What’s changing now?

A perfect storm of events has combined to push electricity prices to record levels for thousands of communities around the region.

Utility companies such as Consumers Energy in Michigan, We Energies, which operates in Wisconsin and Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, and a host of others have embarked on system upgrades that are set to add up to 14% to the cost of monthly electricity bills for consumers, with further rate hikes likely in the years ahead.

On top of that, the federal government has mandated that coal-fired electricity plants in Michigan, Indiana, Pennsylvania and elsewhere that were scheduled to be retired now remain open. That means that federal subsidies that are essential for keeping these loss-making plants running are likely to cost ratepayers billions more dollars.

Then there’s the contentious wave of data centers opening across the region, creating a huge new demand for utility-scale electricity.

All the while, recent years have seen a drive in Great Lakes states and provinces to reach net zero carbon emissions. Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota plan to reach that goal by 2050.

Ontario aims to get to 80% below its 1990 level of carbon emissions in the same time. New York state has declared an even more ambitious plan, to reach net zero by 2040.

On top of that, with the federal government banning offshore wind projects in oceans surrounding the U.S., there’s been a renewed push to see the Great Lakes — controlled by eight U.S. states and the Canadian province of Ontario, rather than authorities in Washington D.C. and Ottawa — become a new front in the development of the technology.

What is the energy potential for offshore wind on the Great Lakes?

Experts say offshore wind generated from the lakes could provide three times the amount of the electricity used by the eight U.S. Great Lakes states in 2023. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) data from 2021 crunched by the Woodwell Climate Research Center found that Great Lakes water generates more wind than anywhere else east of the Mississippi River.

“According to reports done for Ontario’s Ministry of Natural Resources, Great Lakes offshore wind can be implemented with minimal aquatic impacts. If the turbines are 10 to 15 km offshore, they will be almost invisible,” said Jack Gibbons of the Ontario Clean Air Alliance.

“Offshore wind in the Canadian section of the Great Lakes has the potential to supply more than 100% of Ontario’s electricity needs.”

The Port of Cleveland is one of the main backers of offshore wind on the Great Lakes. (Photo Credit: Stephen Starr)

Icebreaker, the Cleveland project, got as far as securing a 50-year lakebed lease from the state of Ohio in 2014. Predicted to provide 20 megawatts of electricity, enough to power more than 7,000 homes, its main goal was to function as a trial project.

But Icebreaker is not completely dead, yet. Last year, a Maryland-based company called Mighty Waves Energy acquired the project, raising hopes among Cleveland leaders and many residents around the region that the first steps towards a lake-based wind energy future remain in place.

Mark Hessels, CEO of Mighty Waves Energy, spoke with Great Lakes Now over the phone, but declined to go on the record to discuss the company’s proposed new offshore wind project, and failed to provide a statement when asked.

What are the big challenges?

And yet, the barriers appear immense.

John Lipaj has been sailing and boating on Lake Erie ever since he was a child.

“I spent every summer out there on a boat. In July and August, when the temperatures rise, the wind would die,” he said, illustrating one of several reasons he and others think offshore wind isn’t suitable for Lake Erie.

“If there’s no wind at exactly the time of year when electricity is needed most, for air conditioning, then what’s the point of building offshore wind?”

As a board member of the Lake Erie Foundation, a nonprofit, that’s not the main reason he and the organization he represents opposes offshore wind on Lake Erie.

“One of the things we were most concerned about is that bald eagles were almost extinct, and they’ve really come back along the Lake Erie shore. Now, they’re thriving,” he said.

“If there’s no wind at exactly the time of year when electricity is needed most for air conditioning then what’s the point of building offshore wind,” says John Lipaj of Lake Erie Foundation. (Photo Credit: Stephen Starr)

“In the winter, they’ll fly out a couple of miles [offshore] looking for fish, especially if there’s ice [on the shoreline]. We’ve got real concerns about the bald eagle population being hurt by the wind turbine out on the lake, because that’s their feeding ground.”

In 2022, a wind energy company was fined $8 million and sentenced to probation after its wind turbines were found to have killed more than 150 eagles over the course of a decade across ten U.S. states, including Michigan and Illinois.

Some conservation organizations opposing offshore wind have even come under fire. A report by Grist in 2021 alleged that the American Bird Conservancy, a $30-million non-profit, has been one of the most powerful environment-focused opponents to wind turbine projects across the country, having received around $1 million from fossil fuel interests.

A request by Great Lakes Now for comment from the American Bird Conservancy was not received by the time of publication.

All the while, others believe the potential threat to wildlife can be mitigated.

“Some people are unaware that the National Audubon Society supports Great Lakes offshore wind power. The good news is that offshore wind can be done in a bird-friendly way,” said Gibbons of the Ontario Clean Air Alliance.

“We are recommending that the turbines should be turned off from dusk to dawn during the migratory bat seasons (late April and May and mid-July to the end of September) when wind speeds are less than seven meters per second, since bats fly more when wind speeds are low.”

Threats to wildlife aside, for Professor Melissa Scanlan, director of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee’s Center for Water Policy, five leading factors have combined to stall progress in offshore wind:

Jurisdictional fragmentation that prevents states and provinces from combining their efforts;
Inadequate planning;
Policy instability at the federal government level;
Protracted litigation in the case of Ohio;
And a lack of sustained political will.

And there are other challenges.

“There’s definitely misinformation that circulates about offshore wind,” she said.

“From the research we’ve done, we think you can address that through transparent, science-based planning processes,” said Scanlan. “Without doing a more rigorous science-based planning process, if there’s a vacuum of reliable information, that can allow misinformation to be circulated more freely.”

On top of that, there are reservations around the economic return of such projects. Estimates suggest the cost of offshore wind on the Great Lakes could range from 7.5 to 12.9 cents per kilowatt hour. That’s more than double the cost of onshore wind or utility-scale solar.

But while the costs of delivering offshore wind are not inconsiderable, experts such as Scanlon say there’s also both a dollar and environmental cost of continuing to deploy fossil fuels for electricity generation.

Moreover, interest groups have allegedly been at work to make such efforts difficult to bring to fruition.

The former proprietor of the Icebreaker project, the Lake Erie Energy Development Corp., has claimed that corruption within Ohio’s energy regulatory body and state leaders’ close ties to energy giant FirstEnergy made the project unworkable, and has sued FirstEnergy for up to $10 million. Restrictions that the project faced, including calling for turbines to be shut down at night for eight months of the year, essentially torpedoed the project.

What would facilitate off-shore wind?

Industry innovators say that an easing of regulations at the state level would make a huge difference to the emergence of offshore wind in the Great Lakes. Investment in the form of tax breaks from state governments, which handle the leases and permits for any offshore wind projects in the Great Lakes, are another way.

And while the cost of producing offshore wind is higher than its onshore equivalent, higher winds offshore combined with technological advances mean that energy production capacity from offshore could be up to 60% more than onshore.

Scanlon of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee’s Center for Water Policy is among the researchers who say offshore wind projects could play a significant role in meeting our rapidly growing energy needs.

“As a society, we need to develop energy resources that are not in conflict with protecting the environment,” she said.

“Offshore wind is no different from that.”

The post As affordability issues surge, is it finally time for offshore wind? appeared first on Great Lakes Now.

Original Article

Great Lakes Now

https://www.greatlakesnow.org/2026/04/30/as-affordability-issues-surge-is-it-finally-time-for-offshore-wind/

Stephen Starr, Great Lakes Now

Which Great Lakes states are advancing balcony solar?

On: April 10, 2026

In: Energy, Clean Energy, Ethanol and Fracking, Featured, Industry, Energy, Economic Development, Latest News

By Sarah Shemkus

This story was originally published by Canary Media.

Balcony solar is one of the hottest ideas in renewable energy right now. Boosters say the systems — DIY kits that can be plugged right into a standard outlet — save users money without any need for subsidies, government incentives, or utility permission.

As Americans continue to struggle with soaring power prices, about half the states in the U.S. are considering legislation to pave the way for residents to adopt plug-in solar and start generating some of their own electricity from their own backyard or porch.

“It’s about energy affordability,” said Cora Stryker, co-founder of Bright Saver, a nonprofit that promotes plug-in solar. “Every legislator wants their constituency to have less trouble meeting their energy demands.”

As these efforts work their way through the legislative process, we will be monitoring the action here, using information from Bright Saver and bill-tracking databases.

Latest action: Maine Gov. Janet Mills (D) signed the state’s plug-in solar bill into law on April 6.

The post Which Great Lakes states are advancing balcony solar? appeared first on Great Lakes Now.

Original Article

Great Lakes Now

https://www.greatlakesnow.org/2026/04/10/which-great-lakes-states-are-advancing-balcony-solar/

Canary Media

Residents across Michigan unite for solar discounts

On: April 9, 2026

In: Energy, Clean Energy, Ethanol and Fracking, Industry, Energy, Economic Development, Latest News, Michigan, Planet Detroit, solar power

By Ethan Bakuli, Planet Detroit

This article was republished with permission from Planet Detroit. Sign up for Planet Detroit’s weekly newsletter here.

In the middle of a five-day power outage brought on by an early spring storm, Woody Gontina’s house appeared to be the only one on his street that still had its lights on.

At the time, Gontina had just installed a 5.4-kilowatt solar-and-battery-storage system at his home.

“Because of the solar and the battery, we had our whole house powered day and night throughout that outage,” recalls Gontina.

While Gontina could not have foreseen the storm’s impact, it was an early proof of concept for the Royal Oak city commissioner, who was in the early stages of encouraging his neighbors to install solar panels on their properties through an initiative called Solarize Royal Oak.

In the past few years, a largely grassroots solar installation trend has taken shape across a handful of Michigan towns and counties, as residents like Gontina have sought to capitalize on group-buy discounts and federal incentives to upgrade their homes.

“There wasn’t really a champion to push (Solarize) forward,” said Gontina. “I had the time and the interest to do it, and I also understood that the city was very challenged in terms of resources and didn’t have the time to meet an initiative like that.”

Now overseen by the Great Lakes Renewable Energy Association, the Solarize program has expanded to Grand Rapids, Lansing, Kalamazoo, as well as Oakland, Washtenaw, and Wayne counties, where city and county officials have taken over administering it to homeowners and businesses.

While federal incentives for solar have shrunk and solar installations have declined under the Trump administration, advocates of Solarize are still encouraging residents and businesses to take advantage of remaining opportunities and to embrace renewable energy sources amid utility rate hikes.

“As we see our energy costs continuing to rise, that’s really the biggest argument for renewables,” said Gontina. “Our electric provider, DTE, has demonstrated that they will not stop continuing to ask for increases at a regular pace until there’s something legislatively done to stop that.”

National grassroots solar installation program appeals to Michigan homeowners

While Solarize has found its footing in Michigan in the past decade, its origins trace back to 2009, when residents in Portland, Or. began hosting neighborhood seminars with local contractors to learn about residential solar panel installation. The program rapidly expanded the city’s solar footprint, according to a report from the Energy Trust of Oregon.

For Ann Arbor energy manager and resident Julie Roth — who now works for the city’s Office of Sustainability & Innovation — hearing about the early success of Solarize was enough of a rationale to try it in her neighborhood in 2019. At the time, she was interested in installing solar panels on her roof but was concerned about the high upfront costs and the wide range of contractor quotes.

“I pitched it to my solar installer (contractor),” said Roth. “I said, ‘Well, what do you think if I get a bunch of people here and we all do it together. Would you give us a discount?’ He said, ‘Sure,’ and came up with a sort of discount structure.”

After she sent out an invite on Nextdoor and Facebook, Roth says, she was surprised at the turnout.

“I thought that I would have three people sitting around my dining room table awkwardly trying not to make eye contact with the installer or me, and then we would all go home, and it would be over,” said Roth.

Instead, 40 people showed up to that first meeting at her house. Within a year, about a dozen people from that night installed solar panel systems on their homes.

“It basically started because we were trying to overcome barriers to adoption,” she said. “We didn’t have any staff. It started as a volunteer thing. We didn’t have any money, and so with no resources and very little bandwidth, what can you do?”

As residents like Gontina and Roth have become ambassadors for Solarize, encouraging neighbors to host their own events and create more group-buy discounts on solar, it’s brought greater interest from county governments and statewide organizations seeking to broaden its appeal.

“We really want to position ourselves as a resource, as an advocate, and relationship builder,” said Julie Lyons Bricker, chief sustainability officer for Oakland County, one of the latest counties to adopt the Solarize program.

Since launching in 2021, the county’s Sustainability Office has focused on both improving energy efficiency across Oakland’s 62 cities, townships, and villages and guiding homeowners and businesses toward available incentives, says Lyons Bricker.

With Solarize Oakland County, the county hopes to raise awareness on how solar works, what’s needed to get it installed, and what people should expect from their contractors. Groups of residents can be matched with GLREA-approved vendors and receive a bulk discount of 5 to 15% on their solar panel purchases.

A diminishing landscape for solar installation

As momentum for solar installations has picked up in some communities across Michigan, the national solar industry has had to contend with tariff pressures and a freeze on approvals for major infrastructure projects, amid a pivot away from the clean energy policies and investments that emerged during the Biden administration.

Solar installations have declined, leading to an industry-wide disruption, with utility-scale solar installations down 16% and community solar down 25% in 2025, according to a recent report from the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA).

Last year, the Residential Clean Energy Credit — a 30% federal tax credit on solar, wind, and geothermal home installations — was cut six years short when Trump signed the “One Big Beautiful Bill” in July 2025, ending a credit that had been set to run through 2032.

“It’s an economic investment when you’re thinking about installing a system,” said Gontina. “Anything that is available to help with that investment only makes it easier.”

While the residential tax credit ended in December, multiple financial incentives for businesses and houses of worship remain active through the end of 2027. Bricker says the county is still trying to encourage commercial property owners to take advantage of that opportunity while it lasts.

For renters, lower-income residents, and those with roofs unsuitable for panels, rooftop solar programs like Solarize remain largely out of reach. The Trump administration’s termination of the federal Solar for All program in 2025 eliminated $156 million in Michigan projects designed to expand solar access for low-income households — projects already underway in Detroit, Highland Park, Benton Harbor, and beyond.

Community solar legislation, which would allow residents to subscribe to off-site solar arrays and receive bill credits without owning a system, has bipartisan support in Michigan but has yet to advance.

Solar panel parties spawn citywide energy push

Gontina says that the Solarize Oakland County program could help the rest of the county catch up to what individual towns like Royal Oak are attempting to do.

“You’re bringing a bigger tent to the picture so that more people feel like they have an opportunity to be included,” he said.

Although Solarize is transitioning toward a “top-down” approach, Roth credits the “grassroots” solar parties she and others hosted with helping grow the city’s residential solar installations over the last several years.

“It grows the movement more when you’re talking to your neighbors than when you’re just talking to a city representative,” said Roth. “The community engagement and buy-in and ownership are much higher, especially when you’re not just looking at getting solar up, you’re looking at engaging a community around energy.”

She added: “We’re there as technical experts to some degree, to add legitimacy, and to continue to bring people along, and to make sure that the installers are being responsive.”

Although Ann Arbor Solarize’s numbers have slowed down in recent years, city data shows that the number of residents installing solar panels has increased in tandem with the program’s launch in 2019 and the growth of the solar installation market.

Ann Arbor has averaged about 180 residential solar installations annually since 2020, compared to 17 per year between 2008 and 2019.

Nearly seven years later, the success of Ann Arbor’s Solarize program has contributed, in part, to the city’s push to create a municipal-owned utility designed to help residents and businesses access solar energy and battery storage without upfront costs. The program will be optional, and will supplement, not replace, the use of DTE’s electric grid, according to city documents.

Ann Arbor’s Sustainable Energy Utility, authorized by roughly 80% of voters, is designed in part to address those barriers. Unlike rooftop solar programs, it would allow residents and businesses to access solar and battery storage without upfront costs — with the city owning the equipment and customers paying a monthly rate. Pilot projects targeting lower-income neighborhoods are expected to launch in 2026, with citywide expansion planned for 2027.

Roth hopes the city’s trend in renewable energy adoption and utility ownership can be a model for other communities. These days, she relishes the sight of solar panels around Ann Arbor.

“You walk around, you walk your dog in the neighborhoods, and it’s like, ‘solar there, solar there, solar there,’” she said. “It’s so visible. And that’s really exciting to see the actual physical changes in your community.”

The post Residents across Michigan unite for solar discounts appeared first on Great Lakes Now.

Original Article

Great Lakes Now

https://www.greatlakesnow.org/2026/04/09/residents-across-michigan-unite-for-solar-discounts/

Planet Detroit

Ohio energy corruption case goes nowhere after jury deadlocks over bribery charges

On: April 8, 2026

In: Energy News Roundup, Energy, Clean Energy, Ethanol and Fracking, Industry, Energy, Economic Development, Ohio, Politics, Policy, Environmental Justice

Catch the latest energy news from around the region. Check back for these monthly Energy News Roundups.

Ohio prosecutors are back to square one in their corruption case against two former FirstEnergy executives. Prosecutors accused former CEO Chuck Jones and senior vice president Mike Dowling of paying a state energy regulator a $4.3 million bribe. But the high-profile case ended in a mistrial after the jury couldn’t agree whether Jones and Dowling were guilty, even though others (including Ex-Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder) have been convicted and sentenced to prison in connection with the energy bribery scandal. A retrial is expected.

The Trump administration ordered two aging Indiana coal plants to be kept open another 90 days, through mid-June, at a cost utilities say is climbing into the hundreds of millions. The U.S. Department of Energy first moved to block the plants’ planned retirement in December, citing a need to prevent electricity shortages. Days after the administration extended its order, the Illinois and Minnesota attorneys general sued, arguing in separate filings that keeping the plants open would increase costs for ratepayers in their states.

A Wisconsin coal plant’s retirement is being delayed — again. Utility We Energies said it will continue operating the Oak Creek Power Plant’s two remaining coal units through the end of 2027 to ensure energy reliability and affordability. The utility previously pushed back the units’ retirement from 2024 to 2025, then to 2026, citing high energy demand. Groups opposed to extending the plant’s life said it will have negative environmental and health impacts and lead to higher costs for ratepayers.

The Trump administration and Japanese partners plan to build a massive data center in Ohio powered by its own gas plant, at a cost in the tens of billions of dollars. If completed as planned, the Pike County technology campus would be the largest single private-sector investment in state history, Cleveland.com reported. There are already questions, though, about the kinds of delays a project of this scale could face.

And northwest Indiana could lose 12,000 jobs by the mid-2030s if the steel sector continues business as usual, according to a new report from the Indiana University Environmental Resilience Institute. If companies instead adopt cleaner technologies, the state could gain jobs while reducing carbon emissions and negative health impacts, the report found. Steelmaker, U.S. Steel, challenged some of the findings in the report that comes as Cleveland-Cliffs, another steelmaker, appears poised to recommit to coal at an Ohio steel mill.

More energy news, in case you missed it:

General Motors temporarily laid off 1,300 workers at a Detroit electric vehicle plant, citing lower-than-expected demand for EVs, even as other reports suggest EV demand has risen again alongside oil prices.
Google announced a deal with energy company DTE Energy for a 1-gigawatt data center near the Detroit airport.
Also in Michigan, LG Energy Solution struck a $4.3 billion deal with Tesla to manufacture battery cells for utility-scale storage systems at a Lansing plant.
BP locked out more than 800 workers at its Whiting, Indiana refinery, the largest refinery in the Midwest, amid stalled contract negotiations.
Ohio regulators voted to open more than 8,000 acres of publicly owned land for fracking, making Egypt Valley Wildlife Area home to the largest fracking project on public lands in the state.

The post Ohio energy corruption case goes nowhere after jury deadlocks over bribery charges appeared first on Great Lakes Now.

Original Article

Great Lakes Now

https://www.greatlakesnow.org/2026/04/08/ohio-energy-corruption-case-goes-nowhere-after-jury-deadlocks-over-bribery-charges/

Nicole Pollack, Great Lakes Now

Ohio blocks big solar farm, despite apparently fake public comments

On: March 26, 2026

In: Energy, Clean Energy, Ethanol and Fracking, Featured, Industry, Energy, Economic Development

By Kathiann M. Kowalski

This story was originally published by Canary Media.

Ohio regulators have blocked yet another major solar project because of local pushback, even though a significant number of public comments opposing the array appear to be fabricated. It’s the latest blow to solar in a state that defers to local governments on renewable energy, but not on fossil fuels.

The Ohio Power Siting Board decided last Thursday to deny a permit for the 94-megawatt Crossroads Solar Grazing Center, which would combine solar panels with sheep grazing in central Ohio. Although the project otherwise met all legal requirements, the board concluded that it “fails to serve the public interest.”

Regulators acknowledged that Crossroads Solar would have statewide benefits, create jobs, and increase local tax revenue. But they said the project’s merits are outweighed by the existence of “consistent and substantial opposition” from local governments and nearby residents.

Critics of the decision are troubled that the regulators basically shrugged off the fact that a substantial number of public comments filed in opposition to Crossroads Solar were duplicative, anonymous, or seemingly faked. A recent Canary Media review found that dozens of comments contained apparent lies about people’s names or residence in Morrow County, where the project site is located. The board acknowledged those concerns in its ruling but asserted that substantial public opposition existed regardless of the potentially fabricated comments.

The controversy about those false comments, along with anonymous or multiple submissions, feeds into broader criticism that the board has reduced renewable energy siting to a local popularity contest.

“When the volume of public input is prioritized over its substance, it weakens trust in the process and makes it harder to build the energy system Ohio needs,” said Nathan Rutschilling, managing director of energy policy for the Ohio Environmental Council.

Like many states, Ohio faces soaring electricity demand and rising power bills. Clean energy could help address those challenges — provided it can get built.

“If we’re going to deny solar the ability to compete in Ohio’s marketplace, I think that’s going to result in an artificially high price for Ohio consumers,” said Democratic state Sen. Kent Smith, who is a nonvoting member of the siting board. He described the board’s Crossroads Solar denial as “a dangerous thing for the state in terms of both affordability and reliability.”

An uphill battle for Crossroads Solar

State and local restrictions on renewable energy have proliferated across the country in recent years, and Ohio is no exception. The state’s wind and solar developers face hurdles that fossil fuel companies do not, thanks to a 2021 law that lets counties ban renewable energy developments — an authority they do not have over oil, gas, and coal projects.

Morrow County instituted such a ban across half its townships last year. But because Crossroads Solar was in the regional grid operator’s queue before the 2021 state law took effect, it is exempt from the blanket prohibition.

However, for the past few years, the Ohio Power Siting Board and its staff have denied or recommended against permits for solar farms when all nearby local governments have been against a project. The Ohio Supreme Court has not yet ruled on a legal challenge to that practice, even though oral argument was held more than a year ago.

Initially, it seemed as if Crossroads Solar might escape this fate. Although Morrow County commissioners and the boards of trustees in two townships where parts of the project would be built were against it, the board in a third township — Cardington — remained neutral. Since opposition wasn’t unanimous, the siting board’s staff recommended in early December that regulators deem the project in the public interest.

But shortly after that recommendation, meeting minutes show that one Cardington township trustee changed his position because the staff report “did not set well with him.” That led the Cardington trustees to pass a 2–1 resolution opposing Crossroads Solar. The switch-up ultimately resulted in the siting board staff reversing its stance, filing testimony in January that encouraged regulators to rule against the project.

The Power Siting Board relied on that reversal to declare that Crossroads Solar was not in the public interest. It also asserted that there was “strong, united opposition to the project” by people in the area. It’s worth noting, however, that many locals supported Crossroads Solar. Its developer, Open Road Renewables, found that nearly half the public comments from people in nearby towns approved of the project, once the duplicate, anonymous, and unverifiable submissions were removed.

Siting practices under fire

The Crossroads Solar case exposes deeper flaws in Ohio’s renewable energy siting process, some say.

It’s problematic that a single person’s vote on a town council “essentially derailed the whole project,” said Heidi Gorovitz Robertson, a professor at Cleveland State University’s College of Law. She argued that instead of reciting objections, regulators should evaluate whether those concerns have a factual basis and whether a developer’s plans already address them — and then decide whether any remaining issues actually justify denying a permit.

In the case of Crossroads Solar, Open Road Renewables agreed to address specific concerns about the project. In a late December settlement with the Ohio Environmental Council, the Ohio Chamber of Commerce, and various landowners, the company promised to follow best practices to keep roads clear and clean, use panels with an antireflective coating, minimize impacts to agriculture during construction, file a sheep-grazing plan to manage vegetation, work with a landscaping company to screen the panels from public view, and more.

But the Power Siting Board wasn’t swayed by the compromise, noting that the local governments and individual opponents who intervened in the case didn’t take part in the settlement negotiations, despite being invited to do so.

The board also appeared to buy into several obviously unfounded objections to Crossroads Solar, said Craig Adair, vice president of development at Open Road Renewables. For example, its ruling cited community skepticism about the company’s intention to graze sheep around the panels, since no contracts for such an arrangement had yet been signed. The board also noted opponents’ fears that the permit would later be transferred to another firm that wouldn’t make good on Open Road Renewables’ promises.

But the application’s commitment to use sheep would become part of the permit conditions, Adair noted. And, as a matter of basic contract law, any company that acquired the project would be subject to the same conditions as Open Road Renewables regarding permits, leases, easements, and other agreements.

The board also didn’t examine whether local governments’ objections to Crossroads Solar were based on misinformation, such as a laundry list of concerns about fires, contaminated drinking water, heat islands, and stray voltage.

“It’s taking fact and truth out of the equation, and it’s truly about concerns and politics,” said Doug Herling, a vice president at Open Road Renewables.

Instead, the board “denied a project that has no fuel requirements while we’re in the middle of an oil and gas crisis,” Herling continued, referencing the current supply disruptions caused by war in the Middle East. He also pointed out that solar can be built faster than gas plants, which face yearslong supply chain backlogs, and it doesn’t emit planet-warming and health-harming pollution.

Herling and Adair said the company plans to ask the board to reconsider its ruling.

Meanwhile, the permit denial “sends a dangerous signal to investors,” Adair said.

“I wish the state of Ohio luck in meeting its power needs and keeping power prices from going through the roof,” he said. For renewable energy developers, “it’s now a game of Russian roulette as to whether you would get a permit and what those criteria are.”

The post Ohio blocks big solar farm, despite apparently fake public comments appeared first on Great Lakes Now.

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https://www.greatlakesnow.org/2026/03/26/ohio-blocks-big-solar-farm-despite-apparently-fake-public-comments/

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