Good morning and happy Friday,

In this week’s headlines — California is getting a boost from battery storage to the tune of 5,600 MWs, a University Lutheran Church in Lansing, Michigan is fighting restrictive solar ordinances, and Tucker Carlson is back telling a whale of a tale.

Read on for more. 

The 732-mile TransWest Express line broke ground last month, marking an important milestone in a project that’s been 18 years in the making. The line will transport 3,000 MW of wind from Carbon County, Wyoming to California, and represents a fundamental shift in the county and the state’s economy, one that many residents are embracing. Here are some points to ponder:

• Carbon County’s name says it all: WY has been an energy exporter for decades, thanks to rich coal and natural gas reserves. A 1962 report estimated the Cowboy State’s coal economy could last 800 years! Times have changed, however, although WY is still the top producer of coal nationwide, production has fallen by half.
• Many believe wind represents an opportunity to continue a proud tradition. “Wyoming has always provided energy for the whole United States and here’s another resource where we have a pretty good advantage.” Others, however, are not convinced: “(G)reen...has a downside. With wind, it’s visual. We don’t want to destroy one environment to save another.”
• While wind has the potential to create significant jobs during the construction phase, once built, the number of jobs diminishes, causing some to question whether the tradeoff is worth it. State Sen. Cale Case (R) thinks it is – the state should welcome the new energy export future and see it as a “50-year bonanza.”

Winning converts, slowly. The TransWest Express project has benefitted from “years of community outreach” as well as funding for the town of Rawlins. WY also collects a $1 per megawatt hour tax on wind energy production, which some see as a replacement for lost extraction taxes from fossil fuels. “If the people in California really understood what this meant for Wyoming and all the impacts, I’m sure they would be willing to pay a little more for our wind.”

When it comes to offshore wind, the U.S. has some catching up to do – with only 42 megawatts of offshore capacity currently installed, we lag far behind China and Europe, which have gigawatts of offshore wind power. Another large U.S. offshore project inched closer to getting approved this past week, although opponents claim this is putting whales at risk. Here’s what’s washing ashore:

• The 704-megawatt Revolution Wind project proposed by Orsted and Eversource for waters off the coast of Rhode Island received its Final Environmental Impact Statement from the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management this week; but Rhode Island Energy is saying ‘no’ to the PPA. 
• Meanwhile, wind-energy opponents – including individuals associated with the rightwing, anti-renewables Texas Public Policy Foundation – are stirring up fears that an increase in deaths among right whales is somehow attributable to offshore wind development, despite the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration stating unequivocally that it isn’t.
• Politico characterizes the developing antipathy toward offshore wind as a “politically potent, curious-bedfellows coalition,” one that initially brought renewable energy opponents together with commercial fisherman but has now expanded to include members of the public...and “is gaining traction.”

A whale of a tale. Public fears about offshore wind impacting whales got a boost earlier this year when a series of humpback whale deaths in New Jersey had former Fox News host Tucker Carlson convinced that offshore wind was to blame (a situation he dubbed “The Biden Whale Extinction”). In The Guardian, a Brown University professor expresses concern that well-meaning whale lovers “are becoming unwitting pawns of the fossil fuel industry.”

• Going Global:Wind and solar to produce over a third of global power by 2030
• Centennial Factory: Vestas invests in Colorado factories
• Energetic Debate: Forthcoming hydrogen policy stirs intense debate
• PPA Price Hike: U.S. wind power PPA prices up 13% in Q2 due to lack of projects

• RWE, Dominion sign 300MW of solar PPAs
• Massachusetts greenlights 800 MWh battery energy storage facilities
• Johnston, RI solar project back on Zoning Board agenda
• Is an Ordinance Holding Back Sustainable Energy in East Lansing, MI?

Against a shimmering backdrop of heatwaves across the country, the PBS Newshour tapped Washington Post columnist Catherine Rampell for a story on how a community in Kansas – already home to “4,000 wind turbines and counting” – is responding to additional wind farms, a vital source of the carbon-free electricity needed to combat the climate crisis. 

The clip focuses on rural Marion County, which hosts several wind projects. Many residents appreciate the benefits they’ve brought to the area. David Mueller is a county commissioner and farmer, and says he’s proud to be harvesting wind, noting that it’s “given struggling farmers a shot in the arm,” and likening the production of wind energy to raising wheat or cattle for export to other parts of the U.S.

However, not everyone is equally enthusiastic – Amy Stutzman is one such individual. She owns 20 acres surrounded by a wind project but does not have any turbines on her land, although she does have blackout shades on her windows to block sight of the turbines. Ms. Stutzman has been accused of harassing people and was convicted of three felony counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon after firing shots when wind company employees conducted a land survey nearby (she says she was target shooting, and is appealing the decision).

Some local governments in Kansas, like that of Franklin County, have enacted moratoria on further renewable energy development. It’s an issue that has, unfortunately, pitted neighbors and families against one another. As University of Michigan researcher Sarah Mills observes, different folks can have widely differing feelings about what’s appropriate for a given landscape, and therein lies the rub.