Clean Energy Siting is Climate Action’s Front Line

I spent last Monday night in a packed meeting room at a nearby township hall, advocating for a proposed solar energy project. The process had been proceeding quietly and fruitfully for some months, until a anti clean energy politicians raised the profile on Facebook, resulting in a rush of MAGA style attendance, that was, as typical, rude, loud, and, they hope, intimidating.

Bottom line, it’s illegal for a Planning Commission, at this stage, when the developer, utility DTE, has met or exceeded every requirement of the local ordinance, to deny a permit. The only question is, will the local township issue that permit as required, or will they be buffaloed by the mob into withholding.
In that case, Michigan’s clean energy siting reform laws allow for DTE to take another path, through the State Public Service Commission, to obtain the permit.

Among the many public commenters at the meeting, Mark Gaff, the chair of nearby Jonesfield Township Planning Commission stood up to attest that warnings about decline in property values, which is a common thread in any clean energy project, were heard before the construction of the nearby Meridian Wind Farm. They proved to be groundless, and home values in fact have risen.

Ingersoll Township Hall, March 16, 2026
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War Brings Clean Energy “Paradigm Shift”

Financial Times:

China’s top battery makers have gained more than $70bn in market capitalization since the US and Israel attacked Iran, highlighting investor expectations of a long-term boost for clean energy.

Neil Beveridge, who leads Bernstein’s energy research, expects China, the world’s biggest oil importer, to double down on its plan to “electrify everything”. Other large Asian economies, including Japan, South Korea and Taiwan, may also seek out clean energy and fuels.

“This totally changes the whole energy paradigm,” he said, adding: “Even if the war ends next month . . . there is no going back.

Electricity grids need batteries for storage as they rely more on renewables, which produce power intermittently. Batteries are also essential to support energy-hungry data centres. The value of just the domestic Chinese market for grid-scale battery storage is forecast to surge to $199bn by 2032, from $48bn last year, according to Mobility Foresights, a research group.

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Trump is the Greatest EV Salesman Ever

Reuters:

History has shown that oil price shocks can lead to structural changes in consumer car-shopping habits. The 1970s ⁠energy crisis led U.S. car buyers to opt for smaller vehicles, which favored Japanese automakers and eroded their U.S. rivals’ market share.

Analysts say the recent sharp increases in fuel prices likely will not significantly alter shopping ​patterns for new cars right away. It often takes a sustained period of elevated prices, or for them to eclipse a psychological milestone before car buyers shift their focus to more fuel-efficient choices, industry watchers said.

“Consumers are ​highly reactive to gas prices, but it tends to be that it has to hit a certain round number,” said Kevin Roberts, director of economic and market intelligence at online marketplace CarGurus. “The $4 (per gallon) threshold may be the one to watch,” he said, noting that was a tipping point for EV interest during the last oil shock, in 2022, after Russia invaded Ukraine.

An uptick in EV interest is more likely in Europe, where fully electric cars accounted for 19.5% of sales last year, and where government tax breaks for electric purchases are being reintroduced.

In Germany, EV-related traffic for online car dealer MeinAuto has increased by 40% since the start of the Iran war. “Our consultations have also revealed that many people are currently focusing more intently on the running costs of their cars,” the company said in a statement.

In a survey of 1,164 people conducted on March 12 in Germany by online marketplace Carwow, ​48% of respondents said that spiking fuel prices “would influence ​their decision to consider an EV or hybrid.”

Between ⁠March 2 and March 12, up to 66% of shoppers were looking at EVs, up from 55% at the end of February, Carwow said.

Iran Releases Animated Pushback and Asymmetric Threats

Any linguists out there who can translate the little non-english thought balloons? (Farsi?)

What a world.

Below – in an interconnected world, the options for pushing back go way beyond even the oil weapon.

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In Asia, Gas is Now for Losers

Incredible to watch in real time as the carefully planned natural gas grift rolled out by Energy Secretary Chris Wright and his billionaire backers is being gutted by the impulsive war of distraction launched by their Champion, Donald Trump.

Bloomberg:

In Pakistan and India, once key customers for the Persian Gulf’s liquefied natural gas exports, energy-hungry industries have been rapidly shifting away from both gas and grid power to make use of cheap, abundant solar energy.

Bangladesh, for years South Asia’s economic success story, made the opposite bet. That was the wrong decision. With the world’s largest LNG terminal, Qatar’s Ras Laffan, shut down and suffering extensive damage from Iranian attacks this week, a fifth of global supplies are now offline.

Solar’s advantages are most apparent in the textile business. Since the Industrial Revolution spread through England’s cotton mills in the 18th century, garment factories have been many countries’ first step toward development. Clean energy is speeding the process.

India’s apparel plants now derive about 28% of their electricity from renewables, according to a recent study by Moody’s Corp. affiliate ICRA ESG Ratings. Large factory roofs make installation of solar arrays straightforward.

Plenty are already surging ahead of rich-world companies in their clean power ambitions. Pakistan’s Nishat Mills Ltd. and Interloop Ltd., which supply Gap Inc. and Hennes & Mauritz AB, respectively have 35 MW and 25 MW of photovoltaic panels, comfortably on a par with Tesla. Bengaluru-based Gokaldas Exports Ltd., whose customers include Adidas AG, derives 79% of its energy from solar, biomass and other clean sources. 

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Iran War Plays into China’s Hands, as EVs Cushion Oil Shocks

Above, Australian Broadcasting report summarizes impacts of the Iran war on China – “short term pain for long term gain.”

Below, Aljazeera report on penetration of EVs in Chinese markets, and how drivers there are insulated from the worst impacts of the Strait of Hormuz cutoff.

Michael Mann on US Heat Wave

Climate Scientist Michael Mann on this month’s extraordinary heat wave, a harbinger of things to come.
“We obviously have to preserve our democracy..” to deal with climate change.

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LNG: The Perishable, Vulnerable Resource

“Everyone wants a little bit of volatility to make some money.”

Natural gas is historically volatile in price, which has always been a natural advantage to wind and solar, which can readily sign 20 year contracts at predictable prices.
In keeping with the colossal record of incompetence and ignorance of the Trump administration, the utterly predictable damage to Persian Gulf infrastructure, as well as permanent uncertainty about reliabilty of supply from the region, add new uncertainty costs to renewable’s biggest competitor.

Fracking Grifter and Energy Secretary Chris Wright no doubt thought, when he bought his cabinet seat with huge donations to the Trump campaign, that his vision of locking the world into US LNG contracts and massive infrastructure investments was secure.
One wonders what he is thinking today.

Economist:

“This will bring down the economies of the world,” warned Saad al-Kaabi, Qatar’s energy minister, on March 6th. It was not hyperbole. Days earlier QatarEnergy, which makes a fifth of the world’s liquefied natural gas (lng), shut down its production and export facilities after some were hit by Iranian strikes. Unable to extract, process and, because the Strait of Hormuz is blocked by the fighting, ship its lng, the firm has declared force majeure on its contracts. The price of lng has ballooned on world markets. Customers around the globe, who use it to generate electricity, heat homes and make things like fertiliser, are scrambling to respond.

Rystad, a consultancy, reckons that if Qatari infrastructure suffered little damage and exports resumed after 15 days, annual global lng output would fall by 4.3% this year. If this stretches to a month, the loss would be over 14%.

Last year the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies, a think-tank, modelled a 12-month blockade and found that even accounting for extra production spurred in other places by high prices, annual output would fall by 15%. This at a time when lng demand was forecast to rise by nearly 8% in 2026.

chart: the economist
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Final Report: Renewables Not Cause of Spain’s Blackout


Financial Times:

Report into last year’s catastrophic outage says the problem did not lie with solar and wind power

ENTSO-E, a group of grid operators, said the “whole of Europe” needed to modernise parts of its power system to avoid a blackout similar to the one that struck Spain and Portugal. 

The European grid operators called the blackout on April 28 last year “the first of its kind”. It left nearly 60mn people without electricity and triggered probes into the weaknesses of a power system that has changed radically as wind and solar generation have grown. 

It also spurred a backlash against renewables and Spain’s decision to phase out nuclear power. 

Voltage fluctuations overwhelmed the Spanish grid on the day of the blackout as they triggered the disconnection of power plants and managers lost control of the system. 

These fluctuations were caused by unusual oscillations in the frequency at which the electrical current changes direction.

Euronews:

The findings confirm the conclusions of a preliminary report which the experts issued in October.

Last year’s paralysing power blackout in Spain and Portugal was caused by a “perfect storm of multiple factors,” according to a final report by an expert panel published on Friday.

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