SOLAR:
• Former Congressman Barry Goldwater, Jr.’s fight for utility customers looking to install their own solar power comes to the Midwest. (Midwest Energy News)
• Large energy users feel they’re being squeezed out by new restrictions in Minnesota’s community solar law. (Minneapolis Star Tribune)

NUCLEAR: A Wisconsin town is in a legal dispute with a utility over the value of a nuclear plant in the process of being dismantled. (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel)

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OIL BY RAIL:
• Minneapolis residents are surprised and angered to learn about BNSF’s plans to expand tracks closer to residents in one neighborhood. (Minneapolis Star Tribune)
• Advocates point out that nearly 15,000 schools across the country are located within the “blast zone” around railroad tracks. (Reuters)
• Low oil prices mean less crude is moving by rail and more is moving by pipeline. (Bismarck Tribune)
• More than 8,000 residents in La Crosse, Wisconsin would need to be evacuated in case of an emergency along a local railroad, a new emergency plan says. (La Crosse Tribune)

WASTE-TO-ENERGY: A Dubuque, Iowa agency has been a leader in capturing landfill methane for energy, but it is struggling with finding the best use for the gas. (Telegraph Herald)

OHIO: PUCO Chairman Andre Porter reflects on his first few months on the job. (Columbus Dispatch)

NATURAL GAS:
• Kansas regulators will decide how gas companies can finance the replacement of an aging pipeline network. (Topeka Capital-Journal)
• A fire on a northern Minnesota gas pipeline produced flames that could be seen for miles but was extinguished quickly. (Bemidji Pioneer)

COAL:
• As the mining industry declines, worker productivity increases. (West Virginia State Journal)
• Residents weigh in on what should be done on a Cleveland property where a coal plant once existed. (Cleveland Plain Dealer)

STORAGE: A Wisconsin company receives a $1.3 million federal grant to improve the safety and power of lithium-ion batteries. (Wisconsin Journal Sentinel)

OIL AND GAS:
• As oil and gas production has increased in the U.S., so, too, has the amount of salty wastewater from the fracking process. (Associated Press)
• States rarely punish companies for wastewater spills. (Associated Press)
• An Enbridge pipeline moving through Illinois should be operational by December, the company says. (Decatur Herald-Review)
• A new university initiative aims to keep oil workers in North Dakota. (Associated Press)

FRACKING:
• Attorneys defend Secretary of State Jon Husted’s decision to invalidate multiple local ballot initiatives to ban fracking. (Associated Press)
• Kansas officials say that despite fewer earthquakes, the state should not be complacent in regulating fracking. (Associated Press)
• A new report chronicles the latest in industry-backed efforts to produce favorable academic studies. (Desmog Blog)

BIOFUEL: A Colorado biofuel producer starts selling its gasoline blended with isobutanol to marinas in Missouri. (Denver Business Journal)

COMMENTARY:
• Former Republican Gov. John Engler can be credited with jumpstarting Michigan’s renewable energy industry in the early 2000s. (MLive)
• Compromises should be made between state regulators and oil and gas developers to reach flaring goals. (Bismarck Tribune)
• While regulations have decreased the number of fracking-related earthquakes in Kansas, the state needs a long-term solution. (Lawrence Journal-World)