FRAC SAND: While the frac sand industry is seeing a downturn in Minnesota and Wisconsin, advocates there are fighting harder to shut it down for good. (Inside Climate News)

EFFICIENCY: Xcel Energy announces it will replace all 100,000 of its streetlights in Minnesota with LEDs. (Minneapolis Star Tribune)

***SPONSORED LINK: Want a green energy job with a good salary? Acquire specialized training in economics and statistics through the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s unique, 10-month, professional master’s program in Resource and Energy Demand Analysis.  Starting summer 2016.***

COAL:
• Members of the Sierra Club in Minnesota spent the summer helping to collect 11,000 petition signatures in support of shutting down the state’s largest coal plant. (Midwest Energy News)
The Canadian tar sands industry and electric operator NRG are sponsoring a $20 million competition seeking useful ways to reuse carbon emissions. (Climate Central)

CLEAN POWER PLAN: Kansas Republicans accuse the federal rules of directly leading to job losses in their state. (Lawrence Journal-World)

WIND: 72 new wind turbines being delivered to Michigan pushes the manufacturer Vestas over the 6,000-megawatt milestone for this year. (Denver Business Journal)

RATES: Wisconsin regulators agree to allow a printing company and potentially other manufacturers to buy electricity at wholesale rates in order to attract their business to the state. (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel)

POLITICS: Ohio Governor and GOP presidential candidate John Kasich’s national energy plan would repeal federal carbon rules and remove limits to oil and gas production. (The Hill)

PRIVATIZATION: Ohio State University takes further steps to privatize its campus energy system. (Columbus Business First)

OIL AND GAS:
• A new federal study says grassland birds are losing habitat due to drilling in western North Dakota and more needs to be done to prevent further displacement. (Associated Press)
In addition to low prices, cost-cutting measures being taken by companies suggest a dire outlook for tar sands oil. (MinnPost)

DEMAND RESPONSE: A former FERC chairman and champion of the commission’s demand-response rule is not encouraged by oral arguments made before the Supreme Court. (Greenwire)

PIPELINES:
• Advocates deliver more than 1,000 written objections to Iowa regulators in opposition to Dakota Access. (Quad-City Times)
An Ohio State University researcher wants to know whether natural-gas pipelines negatively affect crop production on farmers’ property. (Columbus Business First)

***SPONSORED LINK: Hear top executives from the area’s RTOs, utilities, transmission developers, and state regulatory agencies discuss and debate critical issues at EUCI’s Transmission Expansion in the Midwest conference November 9-10 in Indianapolis.***

POLLUTION: An Xcel Energy subsidiary asks a federal appeals court to review a decision letting a Wisconsin city off the hook for clean up at a Superfund site the company owns on Lake Superior. (Associated Press)

COMMENTARY:
• In Ohio, “AEP’s executives are unwilling … to take the risk but are perfectly happy to push it onto customers.” (Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis)
In a “quid pro coal,” members of the Ohio Energy Mandates Study Committee accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from the fossil fuels industry. (Huffington Post)

Andy compiles the Midwest Energy News digest and was a journalism fellow for Midwest Energy News from 2014-2020. He is managing editor of MiBiz in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and was formerly a reporter and editor at City Pulse, Lansing’s alternative newsweekly.

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