I spent time last week talking to Clyde Taylor, who has been a farmer for decades in Rosebush, Michigan, in the next county over to the west.
I documented the construction of Isabella wind in 2020, and those turbines now surround Clyde’s farm, although he does not have one on his land.
I did ask him how the process of building that facility played out in the community.
Clyde does has a piece of a new c0-located solar farm though, and he knows quite a bit about that, because Clyde worked for years at Dow Corning, parent company of nearby Hemlock Semiconductor, the largest US producer of Polysilicon, which is the raw material for microchips as well as solar panels.
Hemlock is currently undergoing a billion dollar plus expansion to feed growing demand for solar components.
I followed up on Clyde’s suggestion and talked to the dairy farmer he mentioned today – and I’ll follow up with those, and more from Clyde, soon.