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Culture

Welcome to Heatmap

We hope to do climate coverage a little differently.

Climate change and clean energy.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

Let us tell you a story about a force that’s reshaping everything you care about. It’s a story of parched earth and rising tides, great power rivalries and massive infrastructure projects, the food we eat and the homes we build, ultra-fast cars and the richest man in the world. It’s the story of climate change, and it’s what we’re focused on here at Heatmap.

I started Heatmap because I wanted to read it. I was hungry to discover the details, nuances, and hard choices of climate change, because that’s where the most interesting and important parts of any story lie. I wanted stories that go beyond the basics and approach the topic as the all-encompassing epic it is.

After all, think of how many important stories had climate change or energy at their center over the past year. There’s President Biden’s climate legislation, his biggest accomplishment to date. There’s the war in Ukraine, which is being waged by a petro-state and has sent the world hurtling towards decarbonization. There’s inflation, driven by fossil fuels and energy shortages. In Silicon Valley, venture funding is pouring into climate tech at a record clip and the world’s digital public square was recently acquired by an erratic electric vehicle mogul. Meanwhile on Apple TV next week, a climate show premieres starring Edward Norton, Meryl Streep, Kit Harington, and Diane Lane.

There’s a lot to cover.

Heatmap is made up of an incredible group of journalists and media veterans who are interested in telling the same stories and diving into the same details as I am. Some of us come to Heatmap with deep climate expertise. Others come fresh to the topic from relevant backgrounds, like politics or economics or culture. (I come from The Week, where I dabbled in a bit of everything.)

All of us are grateful for you reading us today as we get started. If you enjoy what you read, I hope you’ll consider supporting our work with a subscription so we can continue to pursue this fascinating, vital story in all its detail.

Thank you,

Nico Lauricella
Founder and editor in chief

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Spotlight

How the Tax Bill Is Empowering Anti-Renewables Activists

A war of attrition is now turning in opponents’ favor.

Massachusetts and solar panels.
Heatmap Illustration/Library of Congress, Getty Images

A solar developer’s defeat in Massachusetts last week reveals just how much stronger project opponents are on the battlefield after the de facto repeal of the Inflation Reduction Act.

Last week, solar developer PureSky pulled five projects under development around the western Massachusetts town of Shutesbury. PureSky’s facilities had been in the works for years and would together represent what the developer has claimed would be one of the state’s largest solar projects thus far. In a statement, the company laid blame on “broader policy and regulatory headwinds,” including the state’s existing renewables incentives not keeping pace with rising costs and “federal policy updates,” which PureSky said were “making it harder to finance projects like those proposed near Shutesbury.”

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Hotspots

The Midwest Is Becoming Even Tougher for Solar Projects

And more on the week’s most important conflicts around renewables.

The United States.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

1. Wells County, Indiana – One of the nation’s most at-risk solar projects may now be prompting a full on moratorium.

  • Late last week, this county was teed up to potentially advance a new restrictive solar ordinance that would’ve cut off zoning access for large-scale facilities. That’s obviously bad for developers. But it would’ve still allowed solar facilities up to 50 acres and grandfathered in projects that had previously signed agreements with local officials.
  • However, solar opponents swamped the county Area Planning Commission meeting to decide on the ordinance, turning it into an over four-hour display in which many requested in public comments to outright ban solar projects entirely without a grandfathering clause.
  • It’s clear part of the opposition is inflamed over the EDF Paddlefish Solar project, which we ranked last year as one of the nation’s top imperiled renewables facilities in progress. The project has already resulted in a moratorium in another county, Huntington.
  • Although the Paddlefish project is not unique in its risks, it is what we view as a bellwether for the future of solar development in farming communities, as the Fort Wayne-adjacent county is a picturesque display of many areas across the United States. Pro-renewables advocates have sought to tamp down opposition with tactics such as a direct text messaging campaign, which I previously scooped last week.
  • Yet despite the counter-communications, momentum is heading in the other direction. At the meeting, officials ultimately decided to punt a decision to next month so they could edit their draft ordinance to assuage aggrieved residents.
  • Also worth noting: anyone could see from Heatmap Pro data that this county would be an incredibly difficult fight for a solar developer. Despite a slim majority of local support for renewable energy, the county has a nearly 100% opposition risk rating, due in no small part to its large agricultural workforce and MAGA leanings.

2. Clark County, Ohio – Another Ohio county has significantly restricted renewable energy development, this time with big political implications.

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Q&A

How a Heatmap Reader Beat a Battery Storage Ban

A conversation with Jeff Seidman, a professor at Vassar College.

Jeffrey Seidman.
Heatmap Illustration

This week’s conversation is with Jeff Seidman, a professor at Vassar College and an avid Heatmap News reader. Last week Seidman claimed a personal victory: he successfully led an effort to overturn a moratorium on battery storage development in the town of Poughkeepsie in Hudson Valley, New York. After reading a thread about the effort he posted to BlueSky, I reached out to chat about what my readers might learn from his endeavors – and how they could replicate them, should they want to.

The following conversation was lightly edited for clarity.

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