As increasingly obvious climate impacts awaken citizens, a climate “laggard” in the industrial Heartland might be awakening.
Utility firm DTE Energy (DTE.N) said on Wednesday that it plans to retire its coal plants in less than a decade and invest $11 billion over the next 10 years toward clean energy transition.
The power producer reached a settlement deal with nearly two dozen organizations about its “CleanVision Integrated Resource Plan” that aims to develop Michigan-made solar and wind energy.
DTE and its peers are shifting away from fossil fuels as the U.S. government proposes to crack down on greenhouse gas emissions from the sector. DTE aims to achieve net-zero carbon emission by 2050.
“Our CleanVision Integrated Resource Plan will end our use of coal in 2032 while developing enough Michigan-made renewables to power approximately 4 million homes,” Jerry Norcia, CEO of DTE, said in a statement.
As part of the plan, the Detroit-based company advanced the full retirement of its Monroe coal power plant by three years to 2032. Its other coal plant Belle River is to be repurposed to run on natural gas by 2026.
It also aims to develop more than 15,000 megawatts of renewable energy by 2042.
From toxic algal blooms in the Great Lakes to sewage pouring into Detroit basements to choking wildfire smoke that drifted south from Canada, Michigan has been contending with the fallout from climate change. Even the state’s famed cherry trees have been struggling against rising temperatures, forcing some farmers to abandon the crop.
But this state at the center of the American auto industry has also been a laggard when it comes to climate action, resistant to environmental regulations that could harm the manufacturing that has underpinned its economy for generations.
That may soon change.
Michigan is one of three states where Democrats won a “blue trifecta” last year, taking control of the governor’s office and both legislative chambers, and they are seizing that opportunity to propose some of the most ambitious climate laws in the world.
The centerpiece is based on a 58-page “MI Healthy Climate” plan offered by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. It would require Michigan to generate all of its electricity from solar, wind or other carbon-free sources by 2035, eliminating the state’s greenhouse pollution generated by coal- and gas-fired power plants. The package would also toughen energy efficiency requirements for electric utilities and require a phaseout of coal-fired plants in the state by 2030.
Coal — the dirtiest of the fossil fuels — provided the largest share of electricity in Michigan, followed by nuclear energy and natural gas, in 2021, the most recent year for which data was compiled by the Energy Information Administration. Solar and wind generated about 11 percent of the state’s electricity.
More than a dozen states and the District of Columbia are requiring utilities to switch to clean electricity, but almost none have the aggressive timeline that Michigan is considering, and there is no federal clean power mandate.
“For Michigan to do this would put it at the vanguard not just of state clean-energy policy but of global clean-energy policy,” said Dallas Burtraw, an analyst at Resources for the Future, a nonpartisan research organization. “Michigan is globally recognized as the industrial heart of America, and one doesn’t think of it as being a clean-energy leader. A lot of people will see this as a surprise.”
Lawmakers in control of Michigan’s House want the state to be completely done burning fossil fuels for energy by 2035 as the effects of climate change continue.
Democratic state representatives from across Michigan introduced their clean energy bill package this week, a plan to reduce both greenhouse gas emissions and energy costs for Michiganders. The proposed legislation would force utilities off fossil fuels faster than planned and require them to invest more heavily in energy efficiencies and reduced costs for lower-income households.
The House bill package closely resembles a similar bill package introduced in the state Senate in April.
During a press conference on Wednesday, June 14, 2023, state representatives who sponsored the bills did not balk at the challenge of accelerating the ongoing clean energy transition in Michigan.
“Yes, this is bold but we’re in dire times, so I think that calls for an aggressive set of plans to combat that,” said House Speaker Pro Tem Laurie Pohutsky, D-Livonia.
She said recent extreme weather that caused widespread and lengthy power outages, air quality degraded by wildfires, and record-high temperatures collectively make it clear now is the time to preserve the environment and update the energy grid.
“We have no other option,” Pohutsky said.
Michigan House Majority Floor Leader Abraham Aiyash, D-Hamtramck, said voters last November elected a “common sense climate majority,” and now lawmakers are now pressing forward climate action goals to “meet the moment” with this bill package.
“Frankly, it’s a real opportunity for us to build a strong, robust economy for decades to come. I’m not talking about one-off jobs, but established careers for folks that can finally look at ways as we come out of this pandemic, to build strong paying jobs for their communities and also protecting the planet,” Aiyash said.
“As part of the plan, the Detroit-based company advanced the full retirement of its Monroe coal power plant by three years to 2032. Its other coal plant Belle River is to be repurposed to run on natural gas by 2026.”
Oh joy.
Michigan could start by getting Palidades nuclear plant back on line. In 2021 nuclear provided 30% of the state’s power, versus 32% from coal and 11% from wind and solar. in that year, Palidades had a 99.2 capacity factor, and it was licenced till 2031. (Relicencing could almost certainly have been done.)
Holtec, the company that bought Palisades to decommission it, has applied to restart it instead – a first in the US. Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmarsh supported the move, which failed, but Holtec are trying again.
Michigan is part of the Midcontinent Independent Transmission System Operator’s bailiwick. The MISO has 30 gigawatts of wind power on tap, which are currently producing just over 3 GW, an 11% capacity factor. It also has 12.3 GW of nuclear, which are just now producing 11.6 GW, a 95% cf. Plenty of room for Palisades’ power – coal and gas are at over 75% of MISO’s output. https://app.electricitymaps.com/zone/US-MIDW-MISO
Often enough, large electric companies can restrict independent use of solar panels, especially when long-established energy-production companies’ large profits are threatened.
Still, every structure should try independently harvesting solar energy, at least as an emergency power storage system.
Interviewed by the online National Observer (posted February 12, 2019), Noam Chomsky emphasized humankind’s immense immediate need to revert to renewable energies, notably that offered by our sun.
In Tucson, Arizona, for example, “the sun is shining … most of the year, [but] take a look and see how many solar panels you see. Our house in the suburbs is the only one that has them [in the vicinity].
“People are complaining that they have a thousand-dollar electric bill per month over the summer for air conditioning but won’t put up a solar panel; and in fact the Tucson electric company makes it hard to do. For example, our solar panel has some of the panels missing because you’re not allowed to produce too much electricity …
“People have to come to understand that they’ve just got to [reform their habitual non-renewable energy consumption], and fast; and it doesn’t harm them, it improves their lives. …
“But just the psychological barrier that says I … have to keep to the common beliefs [favouring fossil fuels] and that [doing otherwise] is somehow a radical thing that we have to be scared of, is a block that has to be overcome by constant educational organizational activity.”
Basic commonsense dictates that it is no longer prudent to have so much of society, including our primary modes of transportation, reliant on traditional sources of energy.
Yet, if the universal availability of green-energy alternatives will come at the profit-margin expense of traditional ‘energy’ production companies, one can expect formidable obstacles, including the political and regulatory sort.
As bone-dry-vegetation regions uncontrollably burn, if something notably conflicts with corporate-crude-energy big-bottom-line interests, even very progressive motions are greatly resisted, often enough successfully.
Big Fossil Fuel undoubtedly is well aware of the intensity of our collective mass addiction to the industry’s products — the same dependence that helps keep the average consumer quiet about the planet’s greatest polluter, lest he/she feels and/or be publicly deemed hypocritical.
Also, relatively trivial politics diverts attention away from some of the planet’s greatest polluters, where it should and needs to be sharply focused.
Industry and fossil-fuel friendly governments can tell when a very large portion of the populace has been too tired and worried about feeding/housing themselves and/or their family while on insufficient income to criticize the industry for environmental damage their policies cause(d), particularly when not immediately observable.
The dinosaur electorate who’ve been voting into high office consecutive mass-pollution promoting or complicit/complacent governments for decades need to die off and make way for young voters who fully support a healthy Earth thus populace. [That is, the young voters not too busy smiling at their cellphones.]