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SOLAR: The U.S. Energy Department plans a 1,000 MW solar installation on about 8,000 acres of the Hanford nuclear weapons production site in south-central Washington. (Canary Media)
ALSO:
CLEAN ENERGY: Data show the California grid met 100% of its electricity demand with renewable energy during 5- to 10-minute periods on 100 of the last 144 days. (news release)
ELECTRIC VEHICLES: A southern California city becomes the nation’s first to replace its entire fleet of gasoline-powered police patrol cars with electric vehicles. (Associated Press)
ELECTRIFICATION: The U.S. EPA awards Alaska organizations nearly $39 million to replace households’ fossil fuel based heating systems with electric heat pumps. (KTOO)
BATTERIES: A developer and a Colorado electric cooperative bring a 78.3 MW battery energy storage system online. (news release)
CLIMATE:
UTILITIES: Tucson, Arizona’s city council considers establishing a municipal utility as part of its goal to achieve community-wide carbon-neutrality by 2045. (Cronkite News)
HYDROPOWER: A firm deploys a 1.25 MW wave-energy generator at a U.S. Navy testing site off Hawaii’s coast. (Marine Technology)
HYDROGEN: California environmental justice advocates worry a public-private effort to establish a hydrogen production and distribution hub in the state could increase pollution if strict guidelines aren’t followed. (Grist)
OIL & GAS: Oregon advocates continue to protest a natural gas pipeline expansion even though developers began construction earlier this month. (KTVZ)
COAL: Wyoming officials predict a 25% dip in coal production from the Powder River Basin and weak natural gas prices could diminish mineral tax revenues and strain the state budget. (Cowboy State Daily)
OIL & GAS: Texas regulators announce they’ll investigate whether fracking is responsible for earthquakes in a county that recently experienced 61 seismic events in a week. (Houston Chronicle, Abilene Reporter-News)
ALSO:
TRANSITION: The Biden administration has ushered in billions in investment in West Virginia’s clean energy infrastructure while simultaneously opening the door for more fossil fuel growth, yet remains deeply unpopular with voters. (Charleston Gazette-Mail)
SOLAR: A federal board files a lawsuit challenging amendments to a law that extends Puerto Rico’s one-to-one net metering policy until at least 2031. (Associated Press)
WIND: Federal officials again gauge interest in offshore wind lease areas in the Gulf of Mexico after a company expresses interest in developing a commercial wind facility near Texas. (Louisiana Illuminator)
CARBON CAPTURE: The U.S. Forest Service is considering a draft rule to allow carbon storage under federal land after twice denying a company’s requests to do so under national forests in Louisiana and Mississippi. (Floodlight/Mississippi Today)
GRID:
BUILDINGS: A growing number of North Carolina officials call for a reversal of a state law that blocks building code updates until 2031, which Gov. Roy Cooper says will affect insurance and potentially cause the state to miss out on federal disaster recovery funding. (Port City Daily)
TRANSIT: Public transportation advocates launch a campaign to secure tens of millions of dollars to restore New Orleans’ bus transit service to levels of service not seen since Hurricane Katrina severely disrupted the system. (NOLA.com)
HYDROGEN: Researchers find elevated levels of hydrogen around geological features known as Carolina Bays, suggesting the possibility of “white” or “gold” hydrogen wells. (Sierra)
EMISSIONS: A federal appeals court declines to block the U.S. EPA’s new rules restricting emissions from coal and new gas-fired power plants, though it will still consider a case brought by West Virginia and other states. (West Virginia Public Broadcasting)
ELECTRIC VEHICLES: Philadelphians are increasingly buying electric vehicles, but many apartment dwellers and street parkers find it hard to install home charging and use limited chargers in the city. (Billy Penn)
SOLAR: Eversource says 11,600 of its Connecticut customers, most of them residential, installed solar panels in 2023 — up 60% from 2022’s total installations. (Hartford Courant)
CLIMATE:
CLEAN ENERGY: U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announces Maine will get $4.3 million from the Rural Energy for America Program to help farmers install clean energy and make efficient building improvements. (News Center Maine)
CARBON CAPTURE: Gas industry groups celebrate a new Pennsylvania law paving the way for a carbon capture and storage industry, though some environmental groups say it will prolong the gas industry’s life, and that carbon capture wells can be dangerous. (StateImpact)
BUILDINGS:
OIL & GAS:Pennsylvania advocates celebrate a court’s ruling earlier this month that will let them challenge permits issued for a gas pipeline expansion slated to cross Monroe and Luzerne counties. (Lehigh Valley News)
GRID: A Maryland transmission project meant to shore up power reliability in the face of growing power demand becomes a point of contention in the state’s U.S. Senate race. (Baltimore Banner, WBAL)
STORAGE:
NUCLEAR: Women in the nuclear power industry gather at a Pittsburgh conference. (WTAE)
COMMENTARY: Two New York state lawmakers call on Gov. Kathy Hochul to employ the state’s public power authority to build out 15 GW of new clean energy projects by 2030. (City & State)
Research underway at a Madison County solar farm promises to shed light on how well multi-use farming can work at a large scale. The answers will help shape best practices for future projects, while addressing some concerns raised in ongoing debates over siting large solar projects in rural farm areas.
Spread across more than 1,900 acres, the 180 MW Madison Fields project will be one of North America’s largest test grounds for research into agrivoltaics — essentially farming between the rows on photovoltaic solar projects.
As farmers seek to lease land for solar arrays to diversify their incomes, the practice could help them maximize their income and fend off opposition from critics concerned that solar development will take prime farmland out of production.
Some farmers have also said the revenue from clean energy can help keep their farms operating amid pressure from housing developers. A recent report from the American Farmland Trust says Ohio could lose more than 518,000 acres of farmland to urban sprawl by 2040.
That number dwarfs the roughly 95,000 acres for certified and other projects noted on the Ohio Power Siting Board’s most recent solar case status map.
Yet solar projects generally deal with big chunks of land at once, while urban sprawl happens bit by bit over time, said Dale Arnold, director of energy policy for the Ohio Farm Bureau. Helping people understand and appreciate that is “absolutely huge,” he said.
Savion, a Shell subsidiary, developed the Madison County project, and it began commercial operation on July 11 with Amazon as the long-term buyer for its energy. Yet work began much earlier this year to set up the site for research by Ohio State University scientists, Savion’s Between the Rows subsidiary, and others.
“People have a lot of questions with regard to energy development going forward in this state,” particularly when it comes to taking land out of use for agricultural production, Arnold said.
Yet today’s industry continues to shift away from coal to a diversified portfolio of natural gas, nuclear, hydropower, wind energy, solar energy and other types of generation. Forecasts also show there will be growing demand for electricity by mid-century, he said.
“Finding a balance where you can do a number of things on the same ground — in this case energy production as well as agricultural production — is obviously huge,” Arnold said. If agrivoltaics is to become more than a buzzword, though, both farmers and solar project developers need to work out best practices.
One big issue is what crops can work well for large-scale utility projects. Compared to most solar farms projects in Eastern and Piedmont states, utility-scale solar projects in Ohio and other Midwestern states can spread across 1,000 acres or more, Arnold said.
“You hear a lot about produce and specialty crops,” for example, said Sarah Moser, Savion’s director of farm operations and agrivoltaics. But raising them is “hard to do on 1,000 acres.”
Moser and Ohio State University researchers think forage crops like alfalfa and hay hold promise. Operations can be scaled up for large areas, said Eric Romich, an Ohio State University Extension field specialist for energy development. And the crops wouldn’t grow too tall amid the panels.
“We also wanted something that we felt had the potential to be economical,” Romich said.
Two 2023 reports by Ohio State University Extension researchers found raising hay and alfalfa between rows of solar panels was feasible and that the harvest’s nutritive value was good. But that small-scale work at the Pigtail Farms site in Van Wert County used data from only a few test plots and controls, which is an important limitation, Romich said.
Work at Madison Fields will now test whether similar results can be achieved at large scale. Part of a $1.6 million grant from the Department of Energy will help pay for that work over the course of four years.
Other research will test how well plants do in sun versus shade, Romich said. That matters because some portion of the land among solar panels will always be shaded.
Researchers planted the crops on test fields and control areas this spring, with an eye toward starting to collect data next year. “Forages are quite temperamental in terms of trying to get them established,” said Braden Campbell, an animal scientist at Ohio State University who is also working on the project. The team has found compacted soil around the solar panels, “but we are relieved to see that the seeds that we put into the ground are growing,” he said.
Moser plans to work with other crops, too. Soybeans are one example. They were already used as a cover crop before alfalfa and hay were planted. Soybeans can also work into a crop rotation when forage crops need to be replanted every few years.
“The market is there for it, and it does well” as a hardy crop which can also loosen soil and restore nutrients to it, Moser said, adding that local communities have expressed interest in the crop as well.
Other work at Madison Fields will explore complementary grazing. The goal is to harvest the forage crops as efficiently as possible. But there will still be a need for vegetation control under and around panels and other infrastructure, said Campbell. So, after harvesting, sheep will go to work.
“To me, that’s three commodities that we can get off one unit of land,” Campbell said: Solar panels will produce electricity. Hay and alfalfa growing will provide a crop. And the land will help support sheep, which in turn can produce meat, milk and fiber.
Other solar farms already use or plan to use sheep for vegetation control. But “there is a big difference” between using sheep to keep plants under control and relying on that for their nutrition, Campbell said.
Studies will need to test the health of sheep that do complementary grazing, compared to other sheep. Other questions include finding optimal grazing rates of sheep per acre, as well as other logistics. But first, the forage needs to establish good roots so it can withstand the pressure of grazing.
A third bucket of research questions under the Department of Energy grant will focus on farm equipment. Tractors and other farm vehicles need to fit between the rows with their attachments. There’s been a trend in the agricultural sector toward wider equipment, which can cover more ground quickly but may not fit between rows of solar panels, Moser said.
“But a lot of farmers still have smaller equipment,” Moser continued, because some parcels aren’t appropriate for wider machinery. Maneuvering 15-foot-wide equipment works fairly well, and 17-foot and even 20-foot widths can still work.
“I could get my 20-foot drill in there,” Moser said. “I just have to be careful.”
Arnold speculated that some companies may develop special equipment whose attachments can fit under solar panel rows more easily. Other possibilities could include raising panels or even feathering them when agricultural equipment is in use, he suggested.
Farm equipment doesn’t just need to go down an alley between two rows of solar panels. It will also have to turn around at the end to go down another one, Arnold said. So, there needs to be an adequate turning radius, without cables blocking farm vehicles’ paths. Poles, stands, and other equipment also can’t block the path of the farm equipment, he said.
The research can help guide the design of future solar projects to be “hay-ready” sites, Romich suggested. At the same time, agricultural operations shouldn’t jeopardize the safe and efficient operation of a solar facility. “It’s an operating power plant,” Romich said.
Arnold has additional questions about infrastructure needs: What facilities will be necessary to dry, bale and store forage? What facilities will other crops need? And how will they be trucked out to markets?
Likewise, what equipment and facilities will be needed for any sheep kept on site? That includes paddock fencing, water, and so forth. And where will their caretaker live?
“You’re going to have to have people there full-time,” Arnold said.
The Ohio State researchers, Moser, and others also wonder how well precision agriculture can work with solar farms. The term refers to methods that rely on technology and data to guide farmers’ work. The range of technologies includes remote sensing of field conditions with drones, in-ground sensors, automated weeders and more.
The big question is which precision agriculture technologies can work well for crops planted between rows of solar panels as they generate electricity.
It’s unclear what any of the studies will show until data has been collected and analyzed, Romich said. By the end, he feels the work will provide a better understanding of what will or won’t work.
Economics questions about business models, contractual arrangements and more also must eventually be worked out, Arnold said. At the end of the day, farmers will need to make a profit if agriculture is to successfully blend with solar projects.
“The possibilities are limitless, really,” when it comes to business arrangements, Moser said. “My motto is always, ‘farmers figure it out.’ And if we work with them, we’ll figure…out how to do this with best practices.”
ELECTRIC VEHICLES: Researchers argue that the recyclability of electric vehicle battery minerals give them an environmental advantage over fossil fuels, despite the massive impact of mining for lithium and other components. (Canary Media)
ALSO:
POLITICS:
PERMITTING:
SOLAR: The Biden administration advances the proposed 5,350 MW Esmeralda 7 solar-plus-storage complex near Tonopah, Nevada, which would be one of the world’s largest such facilities. (news release; E&E News, subscription)
OIL & GAS: Georgia regulators consider Georgia Power’s request to build three new gas-powered “peaker” units totaling 1,300 MW, even as the utility keeps the cost that will be passed onto ratepayers under wraps as a “trade secret.” (Atlanta Journal-Constitution)
WIND: A federal safety agency says it intends to complete a “comprehensive and independent investigation” into the blade that snapped off a Vineyard Wind turbine and into the ocean last week. (State House News Service)
COAL: Michigan’s two largest utilities operated coal plants at a $20 million loss between 2021 and 2023 when lower cost gas and renewables could have been deployed, according to a recent Natural Resources Defense Council report. (Michigan Public)
EMISSIONS:
SOLAR: The Biden administration advances the proposed 5,350 MW Esmeralda 7 solar-plus-storage complex near Tonopah, Nevada, which would be one of the world’s largest such facilities. (news release; E&E News, subscription)
ALSO:
UTILITIES: An analysis finds Nevada’s largest utility isn’t taking full advantage of virtual power plants to reduce the need for natural gas generation. (RTO Insider, subscription)
TRANSITION: Arizona utilities award economic development grants to four communities affected by coal mining and power production. (news release)
TRANSPORTATION: A western Colorado county considers reducing its airport’s carbon footprint by constructing a sustainable aviation fuels production facility. (Aspen Times)
BIOFUELS: Advocates push back on proposals to manufacture wood pellets in the Northwest and export them for power generation, saying they don’t substantially reduce carbon emissions. (Volts)
HYDROGEN: Oregon researchers say they have developed a material that can efficiently split water into hydrogen fuel. (news release)
COAL: Arch Resources continues to shrink its operational footprint in the Powder River Basin with the ultimate goal of closing all of its coal mines in the region. (Cowboy State Daily)
NUCLEAR: California lawmakers call on the federal government to remove spent reactor fuel from the shuttered San Onofre nuclear plant near San Diego, saying it is unsafe to keep it onsite. (KPBS)
MINING:
OIL & GAS:
Environmental justice advocates are pushing back on proposals to include trash incinerators and wood biomass plants as carbon-free energy sources under a new state law that aims to make Minnesota power 100% carbon-free by 2040.
The Minnesota Public Utilities Commission (PUC), a governor-appointed board that regulates utility providers, is collecting input on what should count as carbon-free energy and has received comments from utility companies, the forestry industry and state agencies suggesting that greenhouse gas emitting sources like waste-to-energy incinerators and wood biomass burning plants should be included.
For several environmental groups and lawmakers, those suggestions are alarming and go against the intent of the law. The law defines carbon-free sources as those that generate electricity “without emitting carbon dioxide,” which would include sources like wind, solar, hydroelectric and nuclear power.
“This should be a very easy question to answer,” said Andrea Lovoll of the Minnesota Environmental Justice Table.
Some state agencies and utility companies disagree.
Two top Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) officials submitted a letter arguing that the PUC should allow waste-to-energy trash incinerators and wood biomass to count as carbon-free because they produce energy with waste that could create more greenhouse gas in the form of methane, a potent pollutant, if sent to a landfill.
Assistant commissioners Frank Kohlasch and Kirk Koudelka said the PUC should take a big-picture view of overall emissions, rather than just looking at the “point of generation” to determine if an energy source is carbon-free.
And they said the agency has flexibility within the law to determine “partial compliance with the standard for such fuels.”
That is not what DFL lawmakers had in mind when they passed the bill, a group of legislators and environmentalists said Wednesday.
“Carbon-free means carbon-free,” said Representative Frank Hornstein, DFL-Minneapolis.
Lawmakers expect the state government to implement laws, Hornstein said, not muddy the waters. The 100% carbon-free energy bill is a good goal, he said, but there are no guarantees the 2040 deadline will be met. He pointed out that the Legislature approved a 2014 mandate that metro counties recycle 75% of their waste by 2030, but recycling rates have stagnated and the goal looks out of reach.
“I see a parallel,” he said.
Cecilia Calvo, director of advocacy and inclusion at Minnesota Environmental Partnership, said she is disappointed that polluting sources are being considered. It shows that passing legislation is only the first step, and that people need to follow the implementation process closely.
“Ultimately, I think there will be industry and others that will find a way to push and protect their interests,” Calvo said.
Trash incinerators are considered renewable energy sources in most Minnesota jurisdictions, but that has long been a contentious point with environmental justice advocates who point to the substantial pollution created by those facilities and their locations near diverse, low-income areas. Minnesota lawmakers stripped the Hennepin Energy Recovery Center (HERC) in Minneapolis of its renewable energy status when they passed the 100% clean energy bill in 2023. Six of the seven incinerators in Minnesota are still considered renewable energy sources, which is a lesser standard than being “carbon-free.”
Wood biomass, the burning of wood chips to produce electricity, has controversially been considered carbon-neutral for years. The technology is popular in the European Union, which often sources its wood from the United States and Canada.
Minnesota Power operates a large wood biomass facility in Duluth, the Hibbard Renewable Energy Center, and submitted comments to the PUC arguing that the technology should be considered carbon-free. But that facility produces a large amount of greenhouse gas pollution, according to a 2021 study examining Minnesota Power’s operations. The study was commissioned by Fresh Energy, the Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy and the Sierra Club.
A coalition of environmental groups led by rural advocacy organization CURE submitted a comment letter Friday arguing that including trash incineration and wood biomass as renewable energy sources would allow further greenhouse gas pollution near diverse and low-income areas.
“Our pathway to carbon-free electricity should be grounded in the dual goals of achieving real emissions reductions while also assuring that already overburdened communities don’t bear undue costs,” the group wrote.
The PUC received dozens of comments on their query and plans to hold a hearing to decide what counts as carbon-free sources in late September, but doesn’t have a set date for the hearing or a decision, according to a commission spokeswoman.
This story comes to you from Sahan Journal, a nonprofit digital newsroom covering Minnesota’s immigrants and communities of color.
The UN chief on Thursday issued an urgent call to action to better protect billions around the world exposed to crippling effects of extreme heat, as global temperature rise continues unabated.
The appeal comes against the backdrop of record temperatures and deadly heatwaves – from the United States to Africa’s Sahel and Europe to the Middle East – that have killed several hundred people this summer.
During the Hajj, for instance, scorching heat claimed over 1,300 pilgrim lives.
“Billions of people are facing an extreme heat epidemic – wilting under increasingly deadly heatwaves, with temperatures topping 50 degrees Celsius around the world. That is 122 degrees Fahrenheit – halfway to boiling,” Secretary-General António Guterres said at a press conference at UN Headquarters in New York.
“The message is clear: the heat is on. Extreme heat is having an extreme impact on people and planet. The world must rise to the challenge of rising temperatures.”
The UN chief highlighted that while “crippling heat is everywhere”, it does not affect everyone equally.
Those most at risk include the urban poor, pregnant women, children, older persons, those with disabilities, the sick, and the displaced, who often live in substandard housing without access to cooling.
According to UN estimates, heat-related deaths for people over 65 years of age increased by about 85 per cent over the past two decades, while 25 per cent of all children today are exposed to frequent heatwaves and by 2050, that could rise to almost 100 per cent.
“We must respond by massively increasing access to low-carbon cooling, expanding passive cooling – such as natural solutions and urban design and cleaning up cooling technologies while boosting their efficiency,” Mr. Guterres said, calling for scaling up of finances to protect communities from “climate chaos”.
Mr. Guterres also underscored the need to step up protections for workers.
Over 70 per cent of the global workforce, or 2.4 billion people, are at substantial risk of extreme heat, according to new report from the UN International Labour Organization (ILO).
The situation is particularly dire in the Africa and Arab regions, where more than 90 per cent and 80 per cent of workers are exposed, respectively. In Asia and the Pacific – the world’s most populous region – that figure is three in four workers (75 per cent).
In addition, heat stress at work is projected to cost the global economy $2.4 trillion by 2030, up from $280 billion in the mid-1990s.
“We need measures to protect workers, grounded in human rights,” Mr. Guterres stressed.
“And we must ensure that laws and regulations reflect the reality of extreme heat today – and are enforced.”
He also underscored the need to strengthen resilience of economies and societies, citing impacts such as infrastructure damage, crop failures, and increased pressure on water supplies, health systems, and electricity grids.
Cities are particularly vulnerable, experiencing heating at twice the global average rate.
To address these challenges, Mr. Guterres called for comprehensive and tailored action plans based on scientific data are essential for countries, cities and sectors.
“We need a concerted effort to heatproof economies, critical sectors and the built environment.”
The UN chief reiterated that it is crucial to recognize the myriad symptoms beyond extreme heat, such as hurricanes, floods, droughts, wildfires and rising sea levels.
The core issue is the reliance on fossil fuels and climate inaction, he stated, stressing that governments, especially G20 nations, the private sector, cities and regions, must urgently adopt climate action plans to limit global temperature rise to 1.5°C.
Alongside, countries must urgently phase-out fossil fuels and end new coal projects.
“They must act as though our future depends on it – because it does.”
Watch: Extreme Heat: UN Secretary-General's Call to Action | United Nations by United Nations.
OIL & GAS: As the U.S. shifts toward renewables, the Tennessee Valley Authority doubles down on gas generation with eight newly proposed gas-fired plants since 2020, including a planned 500 MW natural gas-fired power plant in Mississippi. (WPLN)
ALSO:
WIND:
ELECTRIC VEHICLES: An all-Republican school board in North Carolina votes to cancel a contract with Duke Energy for three electric school buses. (Port City Daily)
PIPELINES: Virginia regulators fine the Mountain Valley Pipeline $30,500 for nearly two dozen erosion and sediment control violations during a three-month period before it began operations. (Cardinal News)
NUCLEAR: The founder of a failed Appalachian indoor farming company has re-emerged as the cofounder and CEO of a startup that wants to deploy a 6 GW nuclear-fission reactor fleet by the mid-2030s. (Canary Media)
EFFICIENCY: A study finds nearly half of families in Memphis, Tennessee, face high energy burdens, paying at least 6% of their income toward energy bills due to low income, inefficient housing and outdated appliances. (Citizen Tribune)
COAL: Alabama receives a $20 million federal grant to rehabilitate abandoned coal mines. (WIAT)
GRID: Texas officials launch an investigation of CenterPoint Energy over poor communication and its slow pace of response to power outages caused by Hurricane Beryl. (Texas Tribune)
OVERSIGHT:
CLIMATE:
POLITICS:
NUCLEAR: The nation’s top nuclear regulator says a decommissioned Michigan nuclear plant could reopen by August 2025 if an environmental review remains on schedule and is approved. (MLive)
WIND: Wind development continues to divide residents in Midwest states, as misinformation leads to restrictive local regulations and local economic benefits can take years to materialize. (Associated Press)
ELECTRIC VEHICLES: Businesses in popular northern Michigan tourist towns are helping to fill gaps in electric vehicle charging infrastructure by hosting onsite chargers. (Bridge)
GRID: Utility regulators in Michigan, Indiana, Minnesota and Illinois sign a letter supporting a recent federal transmission order that they say will give states a larger role in transmission planning and cost allocation. (Utility Dive)
UTILITIES: A recent event in Detroit featured a panel of DTE Energy customers who discussed the emotional toll that power outages have had in an effort to promote community-owned power. (Planet Detroit)
PIPELINES: The Summit carbon pipeline developer says the delay in its plan to re-apply for a permit in South Dakota is unrelated to an upcoming referendum on a state law that critics say benefits pipeline companies. (South Dakota News Watch)
SOLAR:
EFFICIENCY: Northern Michigan utilities invest hundreds of thousands of dollars in residential and commercial energy efficiency rebates to reduce customer costs and power demand. (Record-Eagle)
COMMENTARY:
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