The Renewable Energy Project Trump Might Kill on Day 1

1. Magic Valley, Idaho – Sen. Jim Risch, one of the state’s loudest opponents of the Lava Ridge wind farm, said he believes Donald Trump will stop the project on Day 1.

• In a newly-aired interview with TV outlet KTVB, Risch said the matter has been presented to the incoming president and that the proposal from LS Energy would be targeted by an order similar to Biden’s stopping the Keystone XL oil pipeline.
• “When Biden took office, he walked in there [and] signed an executive order and that was the end of the Keystone pipeline. When Donald Trump walks into that president’s room, waiting for him is going to be a keystone pipeline-like executive order that says Lava Ridge ain’t no more.”
• Lava Ridge has faced fierce backlash for a long time, for cultural and environmental reasons. That’s why we at Heatmap put it at the very top of our list of 10 at-risk projects to watch in the energy transition.
• The Bureau of Land Management released a federal environmental review for Lava Ridge in June and it sliced the project’s scope in half, from 400 turbines to a little north of 200. The next and final step would be a record of decision formally approving it but it’s unclear when – or if – the record of decision for the wind project may be released before Trump leaves office.
• Keep an eye out for more reporting on this potential move.

2. Hardin County, Kentucky – Lightsource, a subsidiary of bp, is going to the mat against a chapter of prominent anti-renewables network Citizens for Responsible Solar over a project in the small Kentucky city of Elizabethtown.

• Lightsource is vying to build the 128-megawatt Telesto solar farm in Hardin despite a planning commission that is hostile to solar. Their apparent solution? Build it entirely on private land owned by individuals requesting annexations from their city government.
• Telesto’s backers have tried a charm offensive that’s included local media interviews and selected local donations.
• But right now I’m skeptical of the project’s odds in the short term for two reasons: city administrative staff have recommended against the annexation and Citizens for Responsible Solar is mobilizing its members.
• “URGENT PLEA! We need to fill the room,” Hardin County Citizens for Responsible Solar posted to Facebook this week.
• A decision on annexation by the city council is expected as soon as next week.

3. Allegany County, New York – I’m keeping close tabs on a new solar-farmland fight in upstate New York between a plant nursery and a 3.7 megawatt SolAmerica solar farm.

• The small town of Amity has approved the project. And until now, Allegany County has been receiving new solar farms with little backlash.
• But its location offers a sympathetic picture. It’s close to a small business – and overlapping with prime farmland. So it is drawing attention from columnists and its county legislator, Gretchen Hanchett, who weighed in yesterday asking local politicians to “balance the interests of property owners on both sides.”
• This is the kind of political momentum that has led to new county-level restrictions in the past, so now Allegany’s on ordinance watch. Hanchett told a farmer in a county legislature meeting in August that they “have the support of this legislature in trying to find solutions” to solar and farmland conflicts.
• “There’s a lot to learn in protecting our food supply and our small farmers,” Hanchett said, per meeting minutes from the gathering.

Here’s what else I’m keeping tabs on…

In Indiana, a Cobia Solar project that would use 7,000 acres seems to face an uphill battle to local permits.

In Maryland, the county of Dorchester is enacting new restrictions on solar development after facing initial opposition from the Solar Energy Industries Association and RWE Clean Energy.

In Virginia, planners in South Boston have recommended rejecting a 10 megawatt solar and storage project proposed by Cenergy Power.

In Missouri, an Evergy solar farm proposed at a Kansas City airport is taking much longer than initially anticipated per press reports.

In New Jersey, anti-wind activists are adopting a new strategy to kill the Atlantic Shores offshore wind farm: forcing the state bureaucracy into a new cost-benefit analysis.