by jboullion | Jul 18, 2011 | Uncategorized
From an article by in the Eau Claire Leader Telegram:
Three years ago, when Patricia Popple first became concerned about sand mines, convincing others to get worked up about the topic was anything but easy.
These days the 71-year-old retired elementary school principal-turned-anti-sand mine crusader has plenty of company.
As sand mines and proposals for mines have popped up across west-central Wisconsin in the past couple of years, so too have people concerned about the impact of those mines.
Mining companies have targeted this part of Wisconsin because the qualities of much of the sand here make it usable for extracting natural gas and oil in other parts of the U.S. The facilities are called “frac” sand mines, named for the hydraulic fracturing process used to extract the fuel.
Popple, of Chippewa Falls, helped organize the group Concerned Chippewa Citizens, which worked unsuccessfully to stop a sand-processing plant being built in Chippewa Falls.
However, the group has been successful in getting out the word about the potential quality-of-life and environmental issues that could come with industrial-scale sand mining.
In recent months Popple has been contacted by people in Lake City, Minn., Winona, Minn., Red Wing, Minn., Maiden Rock, Prairie Farm, Arkansaw, Arcadia, Whitehall, Monroe, and, most recently, Tunnel City near Tomah, sites of existing or proposed sand mines.
But fracing has been a contentious issue in many areas of the country.
by jboullion | Jul 15, 2011 | Uncategorized
While Wisconsin’s hostility toward wind generation kills projects in the state, wind generation projects continue to create jobs and energy independence in surrounding states, according to this article in The News Gazzette, Champaign, IL:
DANVILLE — The Vermilion County Board authorized construction of the first wind turbine farm in the county Tuesday night despite objections from several local residents and incomplete information in the developer’s application.
The 27-member board voted 21-1, with four members absent and one seat vacant, to grant Chicago-based Invenergy a building permit to construct 104 wind turbines in west central Vermilion County.
Invenergy also submitted on July 1 its application to the Champaign County zoning board for a special-use permit to build 30 wind turbines as part of the same project in east central Champaign County. Invenergy officials said they hope construction in Vermilion County can start by the end of the year.
The lone no vote at Tuesday’s Vermilion County Board meeting came from member Terry Stal, D-District 4, who said after the meeting that he voted that way because the county should have all its agreements with Invenergy in place before the permit is issued. He said his vote reflected a procedural objection.
by jboullion | Jul 15, 2011 | Uncategorized
From an article by Tom Daykin in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:
The state Department of Transportation will study the feasibility of creating a lane for biking and walking across Milwaukee’s Hoan Bridge as part of the department’s overall work on rebuilding the span.
That study is to be completed this fall, said DeWayne Johnson, the department’s regional director for southeastern Wisconsin.
Johnson made his comments at a meeting of the Long-Range Lakefront Planning Committee.
The County Board created the committee to advise it on the future of O’Donnell Park, the Downtown Transit Center and nearby areas.
The board created the group after philanthropist and retired business executive Michael Cudahy floated a plan to demolish O’Donnell Park and the transit center and replace them with a hotel and office buildings. Cudahy is founder of Discovery World and co-owner of the lakefront Harbor House restaurant.
Among other things, committee members are working with DOT officials on possibly reconfiguring ramps tied to the eastern portion of downtown’s I-794 and the Hoan Bridge.
That would open up more land near Lake Michigan for development.
by jboullion | Jul 14, 2011 | Uncategorized
From an article by Kathleen Foody in Central Wisconsin Business:
ROTHSCHILD — The long public debate over a proposed biomass power plant in Rothschild came to an end Monday [June 20] when Domtar announced plans to move forward with the $255 million project.
The 50-megawatt power plant, a joint effort of Milwaukee utility We Energies and Domtar paper, is expected to burn 500,000 tons of the tops and limbs of trees left behind by traditional logging operations each year.
“(The final decision) puts … everything behind us,” Rothschild Village Board President George Peterson said. “We can move forward, We Energies and Domtar can move forward.”
We Energies spokesman Brian Manthey said crews will begin working this week at the site adjacent to the existing Domtar mill on Business Highway 51 in Rothschild.
Manthey said We Energies still hopes to have the plant completed by the end of 2013, the eligibility deadline for federal tax credits. The facility also is part of We Energies’ plan to comply with state regulations requiring at least 8 percent of utilities’ sales to come from renewable energy by 2015.
by jboullion | Jul 13, 2011 | Uncategorized
From an interview by Lee B. Roberts in the Racine Journal Times:
The spiritual aspects of climate change, rather than the technical ones, are the essence of our task as we face this complex conservation challenge, says Eric Hansen, a Milwaukee-based writer, conservationist and public radio essayist. And, conservation work —forging wide agreements on vital landscape issues, is work Wisconsinites know well and excel at, Hansen said in his public radio essay, “Copenhagen, Climate Change and Common Sense Conservation in Wisconsin,” which won him a first place commentary/editorial award from the Wisconsin Broadcasters Association last year. “We’ve done it before and we can do it again.”
Hansen will share his thoughts on climate change — and our role in facing it — in a free program at Olympia Brown Unitarian Universalist Church, 625 College Ave., during the July 24 morning service. His talk, titled “Our Ferocious Love of Life vs. Catastrophic Climate Change,” is open to the public.
As part of his conservation work, Hansen has authored books about his treks through the Upper Great Lakes, including “Hiking Wisconsin” and “Hiking Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.” His name may be familiar to Racinians from his visit to the Racine Public Library in 2009, where he gave a presentation about the beauty and magnetism of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.
Here’s what Hansen had to say when we asked him a few questions in advance of his upcoming presentation.
The subject of catastrophic climate change can seem overwhelming. How can we, as individuals, make sense of such a complex, global issue and our role in dealing with it?
First, all conservation, whether we are discussing the relatively complex notion of catastrophic global climate change or the familiar concepts of contour plowing and catch-and-release fishing boils down to the common sense goodness of one simple concept: what we have today we also want to be here for tomorrow.
Second, 350 is the most important number in the world. 350 is the carbon dioxide parts per million in the atmosphere that we have to get back to — to maintain the good life on earth, as we know it. We are at 390 now. Isn’t the concept of 350 the same thing as when we list five bass as the daily bag limit? Didn’t we adapt, and fine tune, fish and game regulations because they were necessary to protect a threatened resource? Now, we see the urgent wisdom of a planetwide agreement to protect an even greater resource. 350 is what we need, the level for sustainability, what we must push for.
by jboullion | Jul 13, 2011 | Uncategorized
From an article in the Eau Claire Leader Telegram:
The city of Eau Claire is going to be impacted by a 10 percent cut in state transit aid in 2012, but officials have yet to determine if that is going to mean less bus service or higher fares, transit manager Mike Branco said.
“We will feel the impact of this cut,” said Branco, who is working on the transit budget for next year. “We have yet to determine what we’re going to do, but it’s very much on our minds.”
In the 2011-13 state budget, Gov. Scott Walker proposed the 10 percent cut in state transit aid, which will slice it by $9.6 million a year, starting in 2012.
Eau Claire could lose more than $200,000, according to Branco’s preliminary estimate.
by jboullion | Jul 12, 2011 | Uncategorized
From a commentary by Jeff Anthony, American Wind Energy Association, on BizTimes.com:
The Wisconsin Assembly recently passed a bill that would enable hydroelectric power from Manitoba, Canada, to be shipped to Wisconsin to meet the state’s 2006 renewable energy law requiring 10 percent of the state’s electricity to come from renewable energy by the year 2015.
If enacted into law, the effect of the Manitoba Hydro Bill will be to ship jobs to Canada and reduce Wisconsin’s ability to meet its clean energy requirement by building more homegrown Wisconsin energy projects.
One of the bill’s sponsors, State Sen. Frank Lasee (R-De Pere), was quoted saying, “This new law will keep electric bills from going up by making it more affordable for utilities to meet green energy mandates.”
Unfortunately, he was mistaken in assuming that other forms of “green energy” will raise electricity rates in the state. If he had gotten his facts straight, he would have found that wind energy costs are at near-record lows, and many utilities in the U.S. are reaping the benefits of lower electricity rates as wind energy expands on their systems. But the facts about wind energy costs, like many other facts, apparently weren’t relevant in the rush to pass this ill-conceived bill.
What Sen. Lasee failed to mention is that his bill will also have a significant impact on Wisconsin by sending good-paying jobs that would otherwise have been created in Wisconsin – to Canada instead.
Sen. Lasee and the other state legislators who voted for the bill would have the state import electricity from Canadian energy projects that use Canadian workers. Today, Wisconsin supports 2,000-3,000 workers in the wind energy industry alone, and the Manitoba Hydro Bill now threatens many of those jobs in Wisconsin.
This is just the latest example of legislative activities that are exporting good-paying, clean energy jobs out of Wisconsin. Why?
At the beginning of the year, another onerous bill was proposed to impose extreme requirements on where Wisconsin wind projects can be located. A few weeks, later a joint committee of the legislature voted to suspend Wind Siting Rules that had been developed through a collaborative, open, and fair process. This rule was suspended by the joint legislative committee on the very day that these far better new rules would have taken effect.
Combined, these actions have jeopardized approximately 700 megawatts of wind projects that were proposed in the state, resulting in the potential loss of $1.8 billion investments and 2 million construction job-hours. And guess what – those 2 million job-hours will not show up in Wisconsin, and will likely move to neighboring states.
So what will be the next step in the “Wisconsin Jobs Export Agenda”?
Well, another piece of anti-clean energy job legislation has emerged, Assembly Bill 146, which would significantly reduce the growth of renewable energy in the state. The Wisconsin clean energy law was originally created to incentivize new renewable energy development and increase fuel diversity. AB 146 would effectively remove that incentive.
by jboullion | Jul 12, 2011 | Uncategorized
From an article by Gregg Hoffman on WisBusiness.com:
Tom Lukens has been to a lot of places over his long career in horticulture and business. Now, the president emeritus of Golden State Bulb Growers is creating “a beautiful place to simply be” along the West Fork in the Kickapoo Valley.
“I believe human beings are motivated by sharing experiences,” said Lukens, who continues to serve as a senior sales rep and technical consultant for the Moss Landing, California, Golden State Bulbs company, and has started Nature Nooks Retreat.
“That motivates me here. I believe this place gives you a sense of belonging which is good for us. We’ve built the buildings to not only be energy efficient as possible, but to bring the outside to you when you are inside. . . .”
Driftless Area Project head Jeff Hastings, Trout Unlimited, UW-Madison researchers and others have helped Lukens in his development of Nature Nooks and have embraced his bio-diversity approach to stream restoration.
The green construction starts with Lukens’ home, a 1,440 sq. ft. structure that resembles Frank Lloyd Wright designs and is intended to make as small a carbon footprint as possible.
Through the use of passive and active solar, hydronic heat in the floors, energy efficient windows and materials and a little bit of wood, Lukens was able to operate the home without “a drop of petroleum” last winter.
He estimates the solar part of his system cost about $34,000 more than conventional heat systems would, but he received an $18,000 tax credit and will recover any additional costs through energy efficiency.
Lukens also has worked with local contractors and has used local materials whenever possible.
“It starts by not building a home with more space than you need,” Lukens said. “This space is plenty for our purposes. By using local materials and labor, you also save costs, contribute to the community economically and leave less of a footprint because of transportation.”
by jboullion | Jul 12, 2011 | Uncategorized
From The Political Environment, a blog by James Rowen:
Milwaukee’s Common Council will decide this week whether to move the downtown streetcar plan forward, so let’s get involved and help make it happen.
Check out www.themilwaukeestreetcar.org . . . .
Make sure you email support to mayor@milwaukee.gov with copies to Council Pres. Willie Hines at whines@milwaukee.gov and Alderman Michael Murphy at mmurph@milwaukee.gov.
Here are major benefits to the long-delayed system:
Transportation:
· Improves transit mobility to and between key residential, employment and activity centers.
· Maximizes transit accessibility and choices for residents, employees, and visitors. Accessible, low floors for level boarding for disabled, elderly, strollers, bikes. Service every 10-15 minutes.
· Has increased transit use in general in cities where it has been added to complement the existing bus system.
· Provides a downtown core starter system that can be expanded in the future to provide a larger more effective transit network (NW to 30th Street Industrial corridor; NE to Columbia St Mary’s UWM; West to Marquette, Miller Park, Research Park; S through Walkers Point, Bay View to airport; SW to Jackson Park.)
Complete post here.
by jboullion | Jul 11, 2011 | Uncategorized
Dramatic Slowdown in Market Activity Anticipated
By Michael Vickerman
July 11, 2011
What started out as an opening salvo from the Walker Administration to shackle large-scale wind projects has in six months turned into a systematic campaign to dismantle the state policies that support renewable energy development. Joining the executive and legislative branches in pursuing policy rollbacks and/or funding cutbacks against renewables are various utilities and, surprisingly, Focus on Energy, Wisconsin’s ratepayer-funded energy efficiency and renewable programs.
Since January 1st, Wisconsin has seen a series of assaults against utility-scale projects and smaller renewable systems serving both residences and businesses. These include the following actions:
- The Legislature suspended PSC 128, the statewide rule developed by the Public Service Commission last year in response to a law passed by the Legislature in 2009 ordering the agency to establish uniform standards for permitting wind energy systems. Since the March 1 suspension vote, wind development in Wisconsin has slowed to a standstill.
- The Legislature adopted SB 81, a bill that RENEW Wisconsin describes as the “Outsource Renewable Energy to Canada Act.” SB 81 allows Wisconsin utilities to meet their renewable energy requirements beginning in 2015 with electricity generated from large hydropower plants in other states and Canada. By allowing Wisconsin utilities to become even more dependent on energy imports than they are today, SB 81 turns Wisconsin’s Renewable Energy Standard on its head. Importing large-scale hydropower exports the very dollars that could have been used to harness Wisconsin’s renewable energy resources.
- We Energies, the state’s largest electric utility, abruptly decided in May to walk away from an agreement with RENEW to dedicate $60 million over a 10-year period in support of renewable energy development in its territory. The decision came in the sixth year of this program. We Energies plans to reallocate the unspent dollars (totaling about $27 million) to general operations.
- Green Bay-based Wisconsin Public Service (WPS) instituted in April a new net energy policy designed to discourage new customer-sited renewable energy systems. Until recently WPS had been paying its customers the full retail rate for electricity that flows back on the wires, which is now about 12 cents/kWh. But under the new rate, WPS only pays three cents/kWh for electricity exported to the grid. Moreover, the utility calculates the net each month, which penalizes customers whose loads vary significantly depending on seasonal factors. Right now, the new policy only covers systems installed after March 2011, but WPS has said that it plans to apply that rate to older systems effective January 2013.
- In its deliberations on the biennial state budget passed in June, the Legislature appended a rider to tie Focus on Energy’s annual budget to a percentage (1.2% of gross utility revenues). This action will mean a cut of $20 million in the program’s 2012 budget relative to this year’s allocation of $120 million. The Focus on Energy program provides grants and cash-back awards supporting customer investments in solar electric, solar thermal systems, small wind, biogas and biomass energy systems.
- Last, but certainly not least, as of July 1, Focus on Energy stopped accepting applications for business program incentives to help customers install renewable energy systems. These incentives, which average about $7 million per year, had been available since 2002 to businesses, farms, schools, local governments and other nonprofit customers. It is not clear when these incentives will be resumed and in what quantity.
This one-two punch of policy rollbacks and funding cutbacks has cast a pall over the state’s renewable energy marketplace. At this year’s Energy Fair in Custer, Wisconsin, the prevailing mood of contractors and exhibitors was one of bewilderment tinged with anger. It is dawning on these companies that their state, which once took pride in its efforts to nurture a thriving renewable energy market, is becoming an inhospitable place to do business. The transformation is occurring with stunning speed; no business is likely to be spared from this abrupt reversal of fortune, which will hit home soon and continue for several months, if not years.
At this moment, however, the Wisconsin renewable energy landscape is humming with installation activity. New wind turbines are soaring above cornfields in Columbia County, where construction crews and operating engineers from Appleton-based Boldt Construction and Brownsville-based Michels Wind Energy assemble what will become Wisconsin’s largest wind generation facility. The towers for the Glacier Hills wind energy project are being fabricated at Tower Tech in Manitowoc. Solar hot water systems now crown the rooftops of new apartment and university buildings, while solar PV panels mounted on 14-foot-tall poles rise above a farm field in Dane County to power Epic Systems’ ground source heat pump system. A cranberry company in Monroe County is about to become the second of its kind to rely on a pair of small wind turbines for its electrical needs. Meanwhile, all across Wisconsin one can find contractors building this year’s crop of bioenergy systems that convert the effluent from dairy farms, cheese producers and wastewater treatment plants into a baseload source of electricity.
Indeed, this wave of projects, fueled principally by funding commitments made in previous years and the early part of this year, should keep contractors and installers busy through the end of 2011. Though an observer unfamiliar with this year’s travails might be deceived by this show of vitality, both installers and advocates know that this activity can’t be sustained for long without a fresh supply of oxygen in the form of policy and funding initiatives. But until state government recognizes the folly of its war against renewable energy and changes course on energy policy, the rollbacks of 2011 will suck much of the oxygen out of next year’s renewable energy marketplace, setting it up for significant contraction in the years that follow.
How Wisconsin benefits from shrinking its renewable energy business community and becoming even more dependent on finite supplies of fossil energy imported from afar is a question worth posing to our political leaders. In our view, that approach is guaranteed to turn Wisconsin into an economic backwater. Is this what they hope to achieve? Probably not. But the toll on the state goes beyond the jobs that weren’t created, the investments from overseas that went to other states, and the tax revenues that failed to materialize as projected.
An even bigger casualty of these rollbacks is Wisconsin’s ability to project itself as a center of consistency and stability, a place where policy changes affecting businesses occur gradually and over time. Not long ago, Wisconsin political leaders were capable of working on complex legislative matters in a low-key and bipartisan manner. An example of that is the Energy Efficiency and Renewables Law (2005 Act 141) signed into law in March 2006, which increased Wisconsin’s Renewable Energy Standard to 10% by 2015 and protected Focus on Energy from future budget raids. That law created what seemed at the time to be a durable framework for enabling renewable energy resources to play an expanded role in the state’s energy future.
However, it is now painfully evident that the political consensus that created the five-year-old law has evaporated. The resulting vacuum has emboldened incoming legislators to fix their crosshairs on the policy mechanisms supporting investment in renewable energy. With the active assistance of politically powerful interests like the Wisconsin Industrial Energy Group, these legislators are now attacking Wisconsin’s pro-renewable energy policies in a manner resembling a wave of Formosan termites going through a house.
What has happened to Wisconsin’s energy policy here is a microcosm of the radically polarized political dynamic that has, unfortunately, become “the new normal” in this state. In this environment, confrontation is celebrated and compromise is shunned. Politics in Wisconsin has become a roller-coaster ride that is heavy on the sharp turns and violent dives, and light on the straightaways and gentle grades. And, with the Senate recall elections this summer and the virtual certainty of a gubernatorial recall election in the offing, this dynamic is not going away any time soon.
Needless to say, this volatility makes long-range financial commitments to upgrading the state’s energy infrastructure a challenge if not an impossibility. The suspension of the state’s wind siting rule, for example, upended a deliberate and multiyear effort to build predictability and certainty into the permitting process. With the rule in abeyance, what wind developers now face amounts to a random walk through a minefield. Small wonder that many of the developers who were active here three years ago have migrated to less explosive pastures. Indeed, high-profile rollbacks like these give the state an unwelcome reputation as being famously difficult to do business in.
Amazingly enough, despite the onslaught from political leaders and certain utilities, public support for renewable energy has held strong, according to a St. Norbert College poll conducted between April 11 and April 18 for Wisconsin Public Radio. More than three-quarters of the respondents favored additional investments in windpower, even if such expenditures would increase monthly electric bills. The rankings for each resource surveyed were: wind (77%), hydropower (60%), biomass (54%), natural gas (39%), nuclear (27%), and coal (19%). The results suggest that the hostility that the Walker Administration and the Legislature have shown to the renewable energy business community is completely out of step with the public.
Along with many other organizations and individuals, RENEW Wisconsin helped build public awareness on the value of renewable energy for jobs and energy self-sufficiency. Now in its 20th year, RENEW Wisconsin finds itself vigorously defending the many policies and practices that made Wisconsin a regional leader in the use of its native renewable energy resources. Though the future is fraught with challenges and uncertainties, about one thing we can be certain: the assaults and policy swings that come our way will not change either the citizen consensus or RENEW Wisconsin’s commitment to a future based on clean, local and sustainable energy.
