Michigan
Michigan's ambitious clean energy laws face a peninsula-sized hurdle
![Michigan's ambitious clean energy laws face a peninsula-sized hurdle Michigan's ambitious clean energy laws face a peninsula-sized hurdle](https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/michigan-power-plant.jpg?quality=75&strip=all)
This coverage is made possible through a partnership with Grist and Interlochen Public Radio in Northern Michigan.
Last year, Michigan became one of the latest states to adopt a clean energy standard, passing sweeping legislation that calls for utilities there to use 100 percent clean electricity by 2040 and sets targets for renewable energy development, among other requirements.
Now, it’s rolling out those laws. And the Michigan Public Service Commission, the energy regulators responsible for that rollout, must pay special attention to the Upper Peninsula. The commission has until December 1 to recommend whether — and how — the legislation should be adjusted to accommodate its people, businesses, and utilities.
They’ve got their work cut out for them: The Upper Peninsula, known colloquially as the U.P., is a huge, sparsely populated region in the north, separated from the rest of the state by the Straits of Mackinac and wedged between lakes Superior, Michigan, and Huron. The U.P. has a lot of utilities for its small population of just over 300,000, requiring a higher level of cooperation among them. Plus, the grid was built with power-hogging industries like mining and paper mills in mind, and fluctuating industrial demand has meant people who live in the region have faced high costs over the years. Some utilities have charged residents rates that are among the highest in Michigan and the country.
And the Public Service Commission has to ensure that the natural gas plants it approved in 2017 as a cleaner alternative to coal don’t prevent Michigan from achieving its clean energy goals.
Those natural gas plants are powered by reciprocating internal combustion engines, called RICE units, that went online just five years ago and were built to last for decades — that is, beyond the state’s 2040 goal for clean energy. While the mining company Cleveland-Cliffs agreed to pay half of the $277 million price tag, the rest of the cost was passed on to more than 42,000 utility customers.
Michigan’s new energy laws specifically mention the U.P.’s expensive new natural gas engines as a hurdle and ask the Public Service Commission to figure out what to do.
The laws don’t require shutting down the engines outright. But they do consider only natural gas paired with carbon capture “clean,” so the utility running the engines would have to deploy a lot of renewables instead or find some other way to comply with the new rules. What all that means for the future of the five-year-old engines is uncertain.
Dan Scripps, the commission’s chair, said the state could tweak its approach to the RICE units by reducing or offsetting emissions. Another option, he said, would be to think about the region’s energy goals holistically: “How do you effectively get to net-zero carbon emissions by 2040, but maybe with more flexibility around carbon capture and that sort of thing?”
The commission is juggling a lot of opinions.
Mining officials and employees spoke in favor of continuing to run the RICE units at a public hearing held by the commission this summer.
Ryan Korpela, the general manager for Cleveland-Cliffs’ Tilden Mine, asked commissioners to allow the natural gas engines to operate without requiring renewable energy credits or new power generation, calling them “the perfect solution to a difficult problem,” and noting that ratepayers already foot the bill.
Officials with Cleveland-Cliffs say that the engines are cleaner and more efficient than coal, saving customers money on transmission costs. But organizations like the Sierra Club have spoken out against installing them in places like neighboring Wisconsin, arguing that burning methane — the main component of natural gas — harms both the climate and the people living next to the plants. The climate think tank RMI says many comparisons of coal and gas only consider end-use emissions, and don’t account for methane leaks during production and transportation. According to an RMI analysis published last year, those leaks can put the climate impacts of natural gas on par with coal (when emitted into the atmosphere, methane is about 80 times as potent as carbon dioxide).
The utility that operates the RICE units, Upper Michigan Energy Resources Corporation, is working to deploy renewables, said spokesperson Brendan Conway in an email, but they’re balancing that with an immediate need for reliable energy: “These units serve that critical function in a part of the state with limited transmission access.”
Others, including environmental and energy groups, have pushed to implement the state’s laws as written, including the clean energy mandate.
Abby Wallace, a member of the Michigan Environmental Council, wants to find a compromise on the natural gas engines. “There are ways that the RICE units could be made more efficient themselves. And I think it’s premature to say that the U.P. in no way could meet the goals that the rest of the state are being held to in the legislation,” she said during the hearing.
Across the country, four states have 100 percent renewable portfolio standards, while 16 states have adopted broader 100 percent clean electricity standards, according to Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory’s August report. (Clean energy includes a wider array of technologies than renewables, so that number doesn’t include states like Vermont, which put a renewable energy standard into law earlier this year.)
Galen Barbose, a staff scientist who authored the report, said Michigan’s goals are pretty ambitious.
“Most other 100 percent states have targets that are further out in time,” he said. “By setting that 100 percent target for 2040, Michigan is one of the more aggressive states in terms of the timeline.” It is also approaching the transition more incrementally than some other states, Barbose said, aiming to get 80 percent of its energy from clean sources by 2035.
Looming in the background of Michigan’s energy transition is the instability of the electrical grid, which can have serious consequences for the people living in the U.P.
“A squirrel sneezes and the power goes out,” said Tori McGeshick, describing how some locals see reliability there. McGeshick is a member of the Lac Vieux Desert Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians who now lives across the border in northern Wisconsin. She works as the tribe’s climate resilience coordinator.
Utilities often take longer to respond to power outages in more remote areas, she said, and unreliable power has had a profound effect on her community, especially elders and people with specific medical needs.
“It’s also affecting our harvesting rights,” McGeshick told Grist. “A lot of people harvest or hunt or fish during the different seasons, and when a power outage occurs, all of that — supplies — also is lost.” She added that the Public Service Commission should solicit more tribal input as it weighs the new legislation against the infrastructure, cost, and reliability of the grid.
Not everyone agrees that natural gas is a long-term solution to reliable, affordable energy. Roman Sidortsov, an associate professor of energy policy at Michigan Technological University, said gas prices are variable and hard to predict. “People tend to forget that fossil fuels, and oil and gas in particular — it’s incredibly volatile business,” he said. “There’s very little stability in the prices.”
Sidortsov, who was a member of the state’s U.P. Energy Task Force several years ago, said the U.P. deals with different environmental factors and customers than the rest of the state; the grid was built to serve industries that aren’t as robust as they once were.
He thinks a lot of the region’s demand can be met with distributed generation — getting power through smaller, more localized sources of energy, something energy experts have discussed for years. Sidortsov said the right way forward is to develop the grid’s capacity for energy storage and smaller, spread-out renewable energy sources.
“So when we are talking about achieving the goals set by the Legislature, it probably will require rethinking the grid in the U.P., updating the grid in the U.P., making sure that it can accommodate local solutions and distributed solutions.”
Michigan has become a leader among the states working toward an all-clean energy standard, said Douglas Jester, a managing partner at the policy consulting firm 5 Lakes Energy who helped develop the state’s laws.
And while the clean energy standard still allows utilities to sell some amount of fossil fuel power back to the grid, it might not make financial sense come 2040, Jester said, as nearby states increasingly turn to renewables.
This reporting was supported by the Institute for Journalism and Natural Resources.
Editor’s note: Sierra Club is an advertiser with Grist. Advertisers have no role in Grist’s editorial decisions.
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Michigan
Three keys for Michigan football against Arkansas State
![Three keys for Michigan football against Arkansas State Three keys for Michigan football against Arkansas State](https://images2.minutemediacdn.com/image/upload/c_crop,w_2400,h_1350,x_0,y_16/c_fill,w_1440,ar_16:9,f_auto,q_auto,g_auto/images/ImagnImages/mmsport/wolverine_digest/01j7gxsnk2sr1xkdbt5h.jpg)
We are going to do the three keys a little differently heading into Week 3. Typically, I think about what Michigan needs to do in order to win its game, but if the Wolverines struggle — or dare say lose — to Arkansas State, there is a much bigger issue at hand.
Instead, I’m going to write three things fans should want to see on Saturday against the Red Wolves to give them some faith heading into a Week 4 showdown with USC.
Entering Week 3, Michigan has the 120th-ranked total offense in the nation. The Wolverines average just 276.5 yards per game. Michigan also owns the 113th-ranked passing offense (162.5 yards/game) and the 101st-ranked rushing offense (114 yards/game).
Much blame is being put on first-year starter Davis Warren and while he does own some of the failure of the offense through two weeks, I look toward the unit that has been super strong since 2021: the offensive.
Pro Football Focus isn’t the be-all and end-all, but the advanced analytics are something to ponder. According to PFF, Michigan has the 117th-best pass protection (55.0 grade), but does have the 45th-best run-blocking grade (67.1).
The offensive line has been inconsistent at best, but the one-time feared O-line is back to looking like the 2010’s Michigan offensive line. Granted the Wolverines have five new linemen trying to jell and work together, but two weeks in, it’s less to be desired.
Again, looking at PFF, when Warren is pressured it’s 83.3% of the time due to the offensive line. To get specific, the RG (Gio El-Hadi) has allowed pressure 16.7% of the time, and the RT (Evan Link) has allowed pressure 66.7% of the time — not good.
Michigan says it wants to be a run-first team, which is great, but the offensive line needs to open up holes and then also be established in pass pro. Fans are going to want to see a huge change from the offensive line against an under matched Arkansas State team.
It sounds silly to harp on the two best interior defensive linemen in college football, but the fact is that neither has played well in two games. Mason Graham is ranked as the No. 359 DT by PFF. Graham has a 65.1 defensive grade and a 69.2 run stop grade.
Grant is listed as the No. 536 DT in the country with a 60.7 defensive grade and a 69.1 run stop grade.
Through two games, Graham has seven tackles with two TFLs, while Grant has one tackle to his name, along with a PBU.
As the top two interior linemen, Michigan needs the big-time players to play as such. Heading into Arkansas State, the Wolverines are going to want their stars to tear up the Red Wolves’ O-line. Graham and Grant, while they may not rack up the stats, need to come off the ball strong and just destroy the competition. After a poor Texas game, USC is up in two weeks and that will be another key game that could dictate the season. Graham and Grant are going to want to be primed for the Trojans.
Michigan is currently ranked 110th in the country converting just seven of 23 (30.4%) third-down chances in two games. Some might point to the struggles against a good Texas’ defense, but the Wolverines weren’t good in this area against Fresno State either. In Week 1, Michigan went 4-for-11 on third downs.
Not getting behind the chains on first down would help here, but either way, Michigan has to give its defense a break and stay on the field to sustain drives. If the Wolverines want that run-first identity, getting Donovan Edwards and Kalel Mullings rolling would help tremendously.
On the other side of the ball, the Michigan defense is ranked 109th allowing opponents to convert on 12-of-27 (44.4%) thid-down tries. That has to improve as well. Going up against a less talented Arkansas State team, the Wolverine defense will want to wreak havoc and force some three-and-outs to gain confidence on Saturday.
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Michigan
Michigan man sentenced for stealing deposits from several businesses
![Michigan man sentenced for stealing deposits from several businesses Michigan man sentenced for stealing deposits from several businesses](https://assets3.cbsnewsstatic.com/hub/i/r/2023/03/08/d02059a2-a975-465b-93b9-2f02b522d567/thumbnail/1200x630/baed451abdb49662027d092f5cfce30a/gettyimages-1280273369.jpg?v=631cf5f2b4e8db7f9bc428589402864d)
(CBS DETROIT) – A Michigan man is sentenced to five to 20 years in prison for stealing $26,000 from several businesses, the Michigan Attorney General’s office announced on Tuesday.
Denny DiCapo, 64, of Rochester Hills, pleaded guilty to one count of conducting a criminal enterprise and six counts of larceny by conversion, $1,000 to $20,000. He received credit for 72 days in jail.
DiCapo paid $5,000 in restitution and agreed to pay $21,000 during a delayed sentence. He was also sentenced on all charges as a fourth habitual felony offender after he failed to pay the full restitution to the victims.
State officials said DiCapo used his businesses, Biz Capital Brokerage Inc. and Energy Acquisition Specialist Inc., to convince seven businesses to pay him “refundable good-faith” deposits to purchase their businesses, but he instead kept the money when the deals fell through.
Officials said he identified himself as a business broker and listing agent for restaurants, a gas station, an automobile service center and a jewelry store.
“Michigan’s small businesses are its lifeline,” Nessel said. “Those who prey on their entrepreneurial spirit will face the full weight of the law. My office will continue to relentlessly prosecute these criminals and recover as many funds for victims as possible.”
Michigan
81-year-old from Germany assaulted while visiting Michigan
![81-year-old from Germany assaulted while visiting Michigan 81-year-old from Germany assaulted while visiting Michigan](https://www.mlive.com/resizer/v2/KGCCHJTLCZGFFBWZUSGMCPMUDA.jpg?auth=2b1c2c679efac66beb97edbf5d12ecd15d007f7cda0ad055c3d61601895dc9b7&width=1280&quality=90)
DETROIT – A 81-year-old from Germany was assaulted over the weekend while visiting Michigan, officials announced.
Around 10:14 a.m. Saturday, Dieter Kirschmust, 81, of Bremen, Germany, was attacked while downtown Detroit, according to a news release from the Wayne County Prosecutor’s Office.
Detroit Police officers responded to a building in the 1000 block of Woodward Avenue. Upon arrival, they found the victim on the ground, suffering from a head injury. Medics transported the victim to a local hospital for treatment.
Lawrence Deonte Gilchrist, 30, of Detroit, is accused in the assault. He allegedly approached the victim and hit him, causing him to fall and injure his head.
“A lot of work has gone into making our city a welcoming beacon to all, only to have the alleged horrific actions of this defendant deeply tarnish these efforts,” Worthy said. “But much more importantly, 81-year-old Dieter Kirschmust pay the undeserved price of what the defendant decided to do. This is heartbreaking on so many levels.”
Gilchrist is charged with assault with intent to do great bodily harm and aggravated assault.
He was arraigned today in 36th District Court before Magistrate Jeffrey Kleparek and given a $50,000 cash/surety bond with a GPS tether. A bond re-determination hearing is scheduled for Thursday before Judge William McConico.
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