EnviroPolitics Blog

A backlash to new renewables is mounting across the nation

Across the country — from suburban Virginia, rural Michigan, southern Tennessee, and the sugar cane fields of Louisiana to the coasts of Maine and New Jersey and the deserts of Nevada — new renewable energy development has drawn heated opposition that has birthed, in many cases, bans, moratoriums, and other restrictions.

*Wind turbines in Hardin County, Ohio, on Feb. 3, 2023. (Robert Zullo/ States Newsroom)*

By ROBERT ZULLO, Florida Phoenix

BUCYRUS, Ohio — In four terms as a county elected official in northern Ohio, it was the most contentious issue Doug Weisenauer had ever seen.

The state legislature had newly empowered county governments to drastically restrict wind and solar power development, a process formerly overseen by the Ohio Power Siting Board, and the meetings of the three-member governing body for Crawford County (population 41,754) suddenly started becoming a lot more animated.

“As soon as Senate Bill 52 passed, the anti-wind people, they started converging on our weekly commissioners’ meetings and demanding that we do something,” said Weisenauer, a Republican, like the other two members of Crawford County Commission.

Apex Clean Energy, a Virginia company, had been signing leases with locals for a proposed 300-megawatt wind farm, called Honey Creek, but Weisenauer was skeptical it would ever get built, saying in an interview he’d seen more than half a dozen would-be wind projects come and go.

Ultimately, the commissioners voted 2-1 last year, with Weisenauer the lone no vote, for a 10-year ban on wind development. The commission’s decision was overwhelmingly upheld by county voters in a referendum last fall.

“I said all along I am not telling people what they can and can’t do on their property,” Weisenauer said. “It got ugly. Our families have been split, and friendships broken. It was bad for our community.”

Crawford County, of course, is far from an isolated case. Across the country — from suburban Virginia, rural Michigan, southern Tennessee, and the sugar cane fields of Louisiana to the coasts of Maine and New Jersey and the deserts of Nevada — new renewable energy development has drawn heated opposition that has birthed, in many cases, bans, moratoriums, and other restrictions.

With states, corporations, utilities, and the federal government setting aggressive renewable energy goals, as well as big tax incentives such as in last year’s Inflation Reduction Act, wind and solar developers have been pushing projects that are igniting fierce battles over property rights, loss of farmland, climate change, aesthetics, the merits of renewable power and a host of other concerns.

And those debates are often happening in a miasma of misinformation and skewed by political polarization. However, some who have seen the backlash to renewable development up close and personal also say developers need to do a better job of being upfront with communities and convincing them of the benefits of their projects.

Read the full story here

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After Hurricanes Ian and Nicole hit Central Florida with devastating floods, some residents wonder if it’s time to move

A man tows a canoe through a flooded street of his neighborhood as a truck passes in New Smyrna Beach, Florida, on Sept. 30, 2022, after Hurricane Ian slammed the area. Credit: Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images

By Amy Green, WMFE, Inside Climate News

ORLANDO, Fla.—Like many homes in central Florida, Janét Buford-Johnson’s is situated on a pond that in better times would be considered picturesque. During Hurricane Ian in September the pond swelled into a horrific torrent, nearly swallowing her and her daughter alive.

Suddenly and violently in the night, powered by Ian’s unrelenting rains, the water rose inside Buford-Johnson’s tidy sand- and cream-colored home to at least three feet deep. As the water rushed in she and her 15-year-old daughter were rescued before dawn by boat.

“It’s traumatizing,” she said. “The water was high enough where, if I fell and I hit my head, I would not be alive and nor would my daughter.”

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Janet Buford-Johnson in her flood-damaged home in Orlando’s Orlo Vista neighborhood. Credit: Amy Green.

For Buford-Johnson and other residents of Orlo Vista, a diverse low-income neighborhood west of downtown Orlando, it was the latest flood. The neighborhood also was inundated during Hurricane Irma in 2017, although less severely. Now as residents face the difficult dilemma of what to do about their dilapidated houses, county commissioners have agreed to a $23.6 million project to deepen the pond and two others and also install a new pump station.

The commissioners say when the work is finished in February 2024 the ponds will be able to hold another 90 million gallons of water, providing more flood control for Orlo Vista while also protecting neighborhoods downstream along Shingle Creek, where all the water here ultimately flows on its way south to the Everglades and out to sea. But Buford-Johnson is unconvinced. She especially worries that the work will not be done in time for the next hurricane season.

Read the full story here

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Political reaction to John Fetterman’s depression today is a far cry from Tom Eagleton’s in 1972

The news that the freshman Pennsylvania senator checked himself into Walter Reed Medical Center prompted a torrent of supportive messages from other elected officials.

By MIKE WERESCHAGIN, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Fifty years after a mental health diagnosis sank the national political hopes of one of the country’s most prominent politicians, U.S. Sen. John Fetterman’s announcement that he has hospitalized himself for clinical depression unleashed a starkly different reaction.

The news Thursday that the freshman Pennsylvania Democrat checked himself into Walter Reed Medical Center on Wednesday — a week after being hospitalized for feeling lightheaded and 10 months after a nearly fatal stroke — prompted a torrent of supportive messages from other elected officials. Some spoke publicly about their own struggles with mental health.

“Like millions of Pennsylvanians, I’ve struggled with major depression, anxiety and suicidal ideation my entire life,” state Rep. Mike Schlossberg, D-Lehigh, wrote Thursday on Twitter.

U.S. Rep. Susan Wild, a fellow Lehigh County Democrat, referred to her own partner’s 2019 suicide in a statement supporting Mr. Fetterman.

Across state lines in New York, U.S. Rep. Ritchie Torres tweeted his admiration for Mr. Fetterman’s decision to seek treatment and added: “Back in 2010, I was hospitalized for depression. I would not be alive, let alone in Congress, were it not for mental health care.”

The outpouring of support from Democrats — and mostly silence from Mr. Fetterman’s political opponents — contrasts sharply with the attacks aimed at the late U.S. Sen. Thomas Eagleton, who dropped off the 1972 Democratic presidential ticket as George McGovern’s running mate after his own depression diagnosis became public.

Sens. Thomas Eagleton (left) and George McGovern celebrate their candidacy for vice president and president, respectively, at the Democratic National Convention in 1972. AP photo

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Unlike Mr. Fetterman, Mr. Eagleton had tried to keep his hospitalizations a secret, hoping to avoid the stigma that mental health advocates say can still haunt those battling depression, trauma, and other psychological problems.

“A lot of us look at that story as something from the dark ages,” said Kristin Kanthak, a political science professor at the University of Pittsburgh whose research has focused on the ways groups of people are represented in government.

She pointed to Jason Kander, an Afghanistan war veteran and once-rising political star who dropped out of the Kansas City mayor’s race in 2018 to seek treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder and depression. Seeing people who project a traditional image of strength — a military record for Mr. Kander, a towering stature, tattooed arms and workaday wardrobe for Mr. Fetterman — is helping shift attitudes about mental health in the public arena, she said.

Read the full story here

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New law lets Orsted’s offshore wind energy project bypass New Jersey local government approval

By Wayne Perry, Associated Press

OCEAN CITY — New Jersey utility regulators used a controversial law Friday enabling them to bypass local authorities and grant approvals needed for an offshore wind project to proceed.

The state Board of Public Utilities granted Orsted, the Danish wind energy developer, approvals toward several easements and permits that authorities in Cape May County had refused to grant the company.

They used an amendment to New Jersey’s offshore wind law passed in 2021 and signed into law by Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy removing most local control over where offshore wind projects come ashore. The law enables an offshore wind developer to apply to the utilities board for an order superseding local control over such projects.

“I just want to assure the public that we don’t take these kinds of actions lightly,” said Joseph Fiordaliso, the board’s president. “There has to be a definite public need for the board to even consider this kind of action. This is something that the majority of us believe will benefit the citizens of New Jersey.”

Read the full story here

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DOE makes progress on concentrating-solar

A pilot project demonstrates high-temperature technology that can be used for energy storage, power production, industrial process heat, and fuel production

From the U.S. Department of Energy

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) celebrated the groundbreaking of its Generation 3 concentrating solar-thermal pilot facility at Sandia National Laboratories. This demonstration is the culmination of a $100 million research effort to develop next-generation concentrating solar-thermal power (CSP) plants and showcase storage technology that could provide one gigawatt of storage for one hour at a single plant.

The technology is an important part of achieving the Biden-Administration goal of a 100% clean energy economy by 2050. “Next-generation CSP has the potential to be a game-changer,” said Alejandro Moreno, Acting Assistant Secretary for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy.

“This pilot facility will demonstrate how CSP systems can meet the challenges of providing long-duration energy storage while reducing costs and complexity for solar thermal technology. At the same time, it also provides a pathway to commercialization for industrial process heat.”

Concentrating Solar Basics

DOE launched its Generation 3 (Gen3) CSP research effort in 2017, challenging the industry to develop and test new technologies to achieve high-temperature plants. The best commercially available technologies, which use mirrors to concentrate sunlight and heat molten salt on top of a tower, can only reach 565°C. DOE’s Gen3 CSP research initiative evaluated all viable pathways to operate a plant that could reach 720°C.

Based on research findings, DOE then selected Sandia to develop its technology, which uses sand-like ceramic particles instead of molten salt and can withstand temperatures greater than 800°C. These particles can be used to transfer and store heat or power a supercritical carbon dioxide (sCO2) turbine. If successful, this type of solar power plant could provide 100 megawatts of power continuously, around the clock, at a low cost.

Sandia received $25 million to build, test, and operate this facility at the National Solar Thermal Test Facility in Albuquerque, NM. To accelerate deployment and commercialization, Sandia is working with international researchers in Saudi Arabia and Australia to test variants of key system components.

The pilot is expected to be completed in 2024 and will prove that a particle-based plant could achieve DOE’s goal of making electricity-plus-storage from CSP even more affordable at 5¢/kWh. Learn more about DOE’s CSP research.

If you like this post you’ll love our daily environmental newsletter, EnviroPolitics. It’s packed with the latest news, commentary, and legislative updates from New Jersey, Pennsylvania, New York, Delaware…and beyond. Don’t take our word for it, try it free for an entire month. No obligation.

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EPA sets Mid-Atlantic PFAS ‘listening session’

PHILADELPHIA (February 16, 2023) – The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is holding a virtual listening session on EPA’s PFAS Strategic Roadmap for residents living in EPA’s Mid-Atlantic Region Thursday, March 2 from 6-8 p.m.

This Zoom meeting will provide information about EPA’s ongoing work under the PFAS Strategic Roadmap and what it means for the mid-Atlantic region, which includes Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia, West Virginia and Washington, D.C.

The session will provide opportunities for communities to share feedback directly with EPA representatives about the actions described in the Roadmap. Residents interested in participating can register online at: https://pfascommunityengagement.org/register .

Background

In October 2021, EPA Administrator Michael S. Regan announced the Agency’s PFAS Strategic Roadmap—laying out a whole-of-agency approach to addressing per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS. The Roadmap sets timelines by which EPA plans to take specific actions and commits to bolder new policies to safeguard public health, protect the environment, and hold polluters accountable. The actions described in the PFAS Roadmap each represent important and meaningful steps to safeguard communities from PFAS contamination. Cumulatively, these actions will build upon one another and lead to more enduring and protective solutions.

In November 2022, EPA released “A Year of Progress Under EPA’s PFAS Strategic Roadmap,” which underscores key actions taken by the agency during the first year of implementing the PFAS Roadmap. EPA continues to implement a whole-of-agency approach, advancing science, and following the law to safeguard public health, protect the environment, and hold polluters accountable. Concurrently with this one-year progress report, EPA announced that it will hold virtual community engagement events in each EPA Region in 2023, which EPA’s Mid-Atlantic Region is announcing today.

These engagements align with recommendations from the National Environmental Justice Advisory Council and EPA’s Roadmap commitment to engage directly with stakeholders. Recognizing the unique and pervasive impacts of PFAS on Tribal communities, EPA is also planning to hold a session specifically designed to hear from our Tribal partners.

More information on EPA’s efforts on PFAS is available at www.epa.gov/pfas

EPA sets Mid-Atlantic PFAS ‘listening session’ Read More »

A backlash to new renewables is mounting across the nation

After Hurricanes Ian and Nicole hit Central Florida with devastating floods, some residents wonder if it’s time to move

Political reaction to John Fetterman’s depression today is a far cry from Tom Eagleton’s in 1972

Sens. Thomas Eagleton (left) and George McGovern celebrate their candidacy for vice president and president, respectively, at the Democratic National Convention in 1972. AP photo

New law lets Orsted’s offshore wind energy project bypass New Jersey local government approval

DOE makes progress on concentrating-solar

EPA sets Mid-Atlantic PFAS ‘listening session’

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