Michigan's DNR agrees to pause 420 acre solar lease
They haven't stopped it, they've just paused it
I have been busy talking to radio shows about the plans to allow a 420-acre section of state forests to be logged to clear room for a major solar development. I’ve posted several updates on this issue to this Substack page.
Here’s one more radio show I did with Tom Jordan on Tom Jordan Live on Wayne Radio. This show was published on Tom’s page this past Monday (1/13)
It’s clear that the information that I and many others like Ian Murphy of the Iron Pig Smokehouse in Gaylord and Dave Bondy are getting out there is having an impact. MLive now reports that
Michigan officials paused all future land leases for solar energy on state land after an outburst of criticism followed news of 420 acres of state forestland near Gaylord being considered for renewable energy.
But I wouldn’t be too quick to celebrate, as the same article quotes DNR’s director of the public lands office, Scott Whitcomb, as saying,
We just pushed the pause button to any other further considerations until we ... bring this one to some sort of conclusion.
So, as soon as they believe they have reached “some sort of conclusion,” they will need to start leasing land again as the state has a legal requirement to supply 60% of our total electricity demand with wind and solar by 2035.
The chair of the Michigan Public Service Commission, Dan Scripps, has testified before legislative committees that meeting that requirement will take over 209,000 acres of land across the state as we attempt to 4X our current 15% supply of wind and solar over the next 10 years.
I’ll keep an eye on this issue as there are several other major solar developments planned in the state, representing thousands of acres of land that could soon be covered by solar installations.
It was a pause so that they can quietly release it once the outcry has subsided.
A start. Informing the people and legislators that 50% solar/wind is unacceptable. It cannot provide the required electricity needed to operate a grid. Just show them Germany, Great Britain and Australia. A single small city has never been operated with 50% solar/wind, how could an entire regional grid do it? It can’t. Vote out these climicons and change the laws to protect the future of Michigan!