SMART METERS: Michigan and Illinois lead the Midwest’s growing number of smart-meter installations among utilities. (Midwest Energy News)
FRAC SAND: Residents in a Wisconsin county turn to the courts to block frac sand mining development there, claiming it is a nuisance. (LaCrosse Tribune)
***SPONSORED LINK: Join the Midwest Energy Research Consortium (M-WERC) at the Energy Storage Conference, February 15 in Milwaukee. This conference will explore recent advances in energy storage technologies, as well as the applications and in-field examples of the role of energy storage. ***
OIL AND GAS:
• Neighbors are concerned about seismic activity in northwest Ohio being exacerbated by the planned NEXUS gas pipeline. (Toledo Blade)
• The U.S. House votes to overturn Obama administration rules on natural gas flaring on public lands. (Associated Press)
PIPELINES:
• Standing Rock Sioux Tribe officials clarify that they do not want Dakota Access protesters removed by force after the Trump administration dispatched federal agents there. (Washington Post)
• The Dakota Access developer will have to show evidence that it did not willfully violate North Dakota rules when it failed to provide details of how it would avoid disturbing Native American artifacts along the route. (Associated Press)
• An American Indian activist faces up to five years in prison and felony charges of inciting a riot after a recent pipeline protest on private land. (Associated Press)
• Federal regulators approve the $4.2 billion Rover gas pipeline, which stretches from West Virginia to southeast Michigan. (Associated Press)
RENEWABLES: How Ohio’s clean energy standards compare with other states in the region. (Cleveland Plain Dealer)
NUCLEAR: A plan to close a nuclear plant in southwest Michigan is now largely in the hands of state regulators, who must consider concerns over economic and reliability impacts. (MiBiz)
WIND: A Kansas-based developer is still pushing forward with plans for a wind project in central Illinois. (Bloomington Pantagraph)
SOLAR:
• Construction of Nebraska’s largest solar project will start in about a month. (Grand Island Independent)
• A Wisconsin researcher is awarded a more than $500,000 federal grant to find more efficient materials for solar panels. (Milwaukee Business Journal)
ELECTRIC VEHICLES:
• Clean energy advocates are proposing a network of fast-charging stations on major highways to boost electric-vehicle adoption. (Forum News Service)
• Tesla co-founder JB Straubel will be the keynote speaker at a renewable energy fair in Wisconsin in June. (Milwaukee Business Journal)
RESEARCH: The technology community is concerned that the Trump administration will eliminate one of the Department of Energy’s main research programs, ARPA-E. (Greenwire)
UTILITIES:
• A planned $12.2 billion merger between Missouri and Kansas utilities would result in “lower and slower” rate increases, one executive says. (Topeka Capital-Journal)
• Dynegy subsidiary Illinois Power Generating Co. emerges from bankruptcy, eliminating $825 million of unsecured bonds. (Houston Business Journal)
COMMENTARY:
• An anthropology professor says a “more accurate reckoning of the economic benefits of pipelines” should include the negative impacts on other sectors of the economy. (The Conversation)
• The Minneapolis Star Tribune, which backs the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline, says President Trump’s decision to revive Dakota Access was premature.
• One analyst and clean energy advocate calls the Keystone XL project a “singularly poor investment” from a strictly financial standpoint. (Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis)