LANSING - Farmers, producers and processors would be able to choose alternative energy suppliers without counting toward the 10 percent cap on electric choice under a bill discussed Tuesday in the House Energy Policy Committee. The panel took no action on HB 5387, sponsored by Rep. Gary Glenn (R-Williams Township), the committee chair. Supporters of the proposal included
LANSING - Environmental Quality Director Heidi Grether told both subcommittees overseeing her budget that finding a replacement for the Clean Michigan Initiative bonds was her top priority for the year, and heard concerns from members of both panels over the proposed increase in tipping fees. As part of the department's $494.59 million budget ($46.95 million General Fund), Governor
HOUGHTON - Millions of metric tons of legacy mine wastes threaten a key Lake Superior fish spawning ground and Grand Traverse Bay beaches and homes. Michigan Tech researchers and partners seek long-term solutions. Off the coast of Gay, a small northern Michigan hamlet in the Keweenaw Peninsula, a potential environmental catastrophe lurks beneath the surface.
LANSING - Total utility customers participating in electric choice programs in 2017 were down from the previous year, as were the number of cable subscribers in the state, according to a pair of annual reports released Thursday. The Public Service Commission released its yearly Status of Electric Competition in Michigan and Status of Competition for
LANSING - After first inquiring with the utilities it regulates, the Michigan Public Service Commission urged the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to tell its interstate natural gas pipeline operators to adjust their rates in response to the lowered corporate tax rates under the new federal tax law. The MPSC said the FERC should "take immediate
ANN ARBOR - Global surface temperatures surged by a record amount from 2014 to 2016, boosting the total amount of warming since the start of the last century by more than 25 percent in just three years, according to a University of Arizona-led team that includes a University of Michigan scientist. "Our paper is the
ANN ARBOR - Waves lapping against the shoreline is always a pretty scene, but it may also be a way for toxins from harmful algal blooms to become airborne. Harmful algal blooms—blooms composed of blue-green algae—crop up throughout the Great Lakes region during hot summers. Algae reproduces, unchecked, producing toxins and sapping oxygen from water.
HOUGHTON - Michigan Technological University will lead a team of experts in evaluating the economic and environmental impacts of a “worst case scenario” spill or release from the Line 5 Straits Pipelines. The State of Michigan announced Friday that it reached a contract agreement with Michigan Tech to have Guy Meadows lead an independent risk analysis of
LANSING - Underused spaces within and around Eastern Market in Detroit will become activated with artful wind turbines through the help of a new crowdfunding campaign. The campaign, offered through the Michigan-based platform Patronicity is sponsored by the Michigan Economic Development Corporation, CAN Art Handworks, and Eastern Market Corporation. If the campaign reaches its crowdfunding
HOUSTON - High-performance electrodes for lithium-ion batteries can be improved by paying closer attention to their defects -- and capitalizing on them, according to Rice University scientists. Rice materials scientist Ming Tang and chemists Song Jin at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Linsen Li at Wisconsin and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology led a study
