Category: INDIANA_MN

Indiana once won national acclaim for its interactive website that displays the flood risk of almost every location across the state.

Burns, a 75-year-old woman who lives on a Hatton farm that’s been in her family for more than 100 years, leads what she estimates to be approximately 300 Callaway County residents in organizing against proposed renewable energy expansions they fear are taking advantage of high quality farmland without contributing enough to county tax streams.

In spring 2022, the Indiana General Assembly passed Senate Bill 411, creating voluntary commercial solar and wind regulation standards. Indiana communities planning to qualify as a solar or wind energy ready community will need to examine their county ordinances in comparison with the Indiana state voluntary standards.

The greening of red-state America, well underway in the Sun Belt, is now accelerating in the Midwest. Ohio and Indiana — two Republican-led US states long dependent on coal power — are on the verge of solar-farm booms so staggering that their respective buildouts between now and 2027 may vie with Nevada’s and trail only those of California and Texas.

In Indiana and the Midwest, snow is nothing new. We all know the drill after a snowfall: Roads get plowed, cars windows are scraped, sidewalks get shoveled.

This industrial city an hour north of Indianapolis isn’t as famous as Detroit, but it has become an unlikely battleground in the war over electric cars.
Almost everyone you meet here either works in a factory, is retired from one or has a relative in a plant that makes parts for gasoline-powered cars — which have ruled Kokomo for nearly 130 years, since a brash inventor named Elwood Haynes chugged down Pumpkinvine Pike at 7 mph in one of America’s first horseless carriages.

In one of the most fossil fuel-dependent states in the country, Indiana utility customers’ energy bills are continuing to rise as global price shocks and coal and gas plant unreliability drive up prices, the Indianapolis Star reports. Fossil fuel prices have increased everywhere, but Indiana’s unusually high reliance on coal (58%) and methane gas (30%) to power its electricity grid, exposes customers to electricity bills nearly double what they were just two decades ago. Utilities are also forcing customers to pay extra because coal and methane gas plants are breaking down. The $600 million Eagle Valley gas plant broke just three years after opening and sat idle for almost a year, and another gas plant was shut down most of this year. A CenterPoint coal plant also broke in June and it’s unknown when it will come back online, how much it will cost to fix, or even exactly what broke. In the meantime, what is known is who will be paying the bill. “The utilities have zero risk related to fuel costs, or wholesale power prices for that matter,” Ben Inskeep of the Citizens Action Coalition told the Star. “All of the risk is absorbed by ratepayers as the utilities are allowed to pass on 100% of those costs to customers.” (Indianapolis Star)

Diesel buses release carbon pollution into the atmosphere. And their exhaust also contains other pollutants that can worsen asthma, chronic bronchitis, and other health problems.
“So our goal is to reduce our fleet to zero emissions as quickly as possible,” says Carrie Black of Indygo, Indianapolis’ public transportation provider.

Indianapolis in one of six “front-runner cities” from around the world being profiled for their plans on mitigating and adapting to climate change. The World Health Organization worked with the city’s Office of Sustainability and the county health department to put together a document detailing the hazards and risks Indy residents face, as well as what actions the city has taken to adapt to the changing climate.

By almost any measure, the past year brought a remarkable expansion of renewable energy interest and projects in the Hoosier state. Renewable energy projects sprouted quickly, with more than a third of our state’s current solar and wind developments starting in 2021.