Gov. Rick Snyder will be presenting his annual State of the State Address on Thursday, Jan. 16, at 7 p.m. The three major topics he plans to focus on are mental health, seniors, and ENERGY! The speech offers us an opportunity, given our interest in having a positive impact on state policy that supports the good work we are engaged with in northwest Michigan, to publicly acknowledge this landmark event and provide collective feedback both before and after the address.
The problem that supporters of the proposed 600-megawatt plant never recognized was this: Planet Earth is not a perfect place to build a coal plant. Coal is too dirty; it has become too expensive to mine, ship, and burn; and it is the number-one source of climate-changing carbon emissions. If the world hopes to escape the worst effects of airborne toxins and global warming, it must stop burning the stuff-the quicker the better. So Wolverine’s cancellation of its so-called “Clean Energy Venture” puts the firm in step with the rest of the country and the world.
Sparked by strong initial success, Traverse City’s residential efficiency program, TCSaves, is again offering city residents a path to a more comfortable home that uses less energy. The communitywide effort, dormant since last spring, has a new goal, a new partner, and special borrowing options.
State utility regulators are considering a historic case that could help determine how much clean energy Michigan’s second-largest electric utility develops over the next 25 years.
The Snyder administration’s latest-and last-draft report on Michigan’s energy future says what it should: The state’s five-year-old energy efficiency mandate, known as Energy Optimization, is not only working well, there’s plenty of room for utilities to do more to help their customers save electricity and natural gas. But we have only until Wednesday, Nov. 4, to submit comments on the draft and influence what that final version says.
There are lots of happy faces around our office since the Snyder administration released its draft report on renewable energy. Based on last winter’s energy forums, it says we can get to 30 percent renewable energy by 2035 without straining the power grid-or our wallets! But the report is subject to some revision before it’s finalized, which is why we’re reaching out: We’d like you to chime in!