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A recent article examines how solar projects are being derailed by local opposition rooted in unfounded health concerns that nonetheless carry real regulatory weight.
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Good morning and happy Friday,

OK, let’s see…in the past week we’ve had a presidential assassination attempt, the UAE left OPEC, King Charles III addressed Congress, oil shot to $126 a barrel as gasoline prices hit highs not seen since 2022, and the House voted to reopen most of the Department of Homeland Security, ending the longest U.S. agency shutdown in history. Phew!

Axios noted that “the UAE may be a small country, but its decision to quit OPEC is a BFD with all kinds of market and geopolitical crosscurrents.” It’s a win for President Trump, a blow to Saudi Arabia, and could cause an oil price war for “years to come.”

In remarks before a joint session of Congress Tuesday, the King emphasized the importance of unity between the U.S. and the UK in addition to calling for environmental stewardship and “fram[ing] conservation as a national security imperative.”

And while oil prices came down to around $105 a barrel by the end of the day Thursday, on Wednesday AAA said the national average for a gallon of gas was $4.23, a new high since the start of the Iran war, which is now entering its third month—likely a contributing factor in Americans’ declining confidence in the nation’s economy. 

Of course, not everyone is suffering as a result of skyrocketing fuel costs. A recent analysis finds that “big oil is reaping a huge war windfall from consumers,” to the tune of $30 million an hour. As CNN put it, that means fossil fuel companies made about $12,000 in the time it took you to read this sentence.

Read on for more.

Myths vs. Megawatts


A recent article from ProPublica highlights a growing constraint on U.S. solar deployment: projects are being derailed by local opposition rooted in unfounded health concerns that nonetheless carry real regulatory weight. The impact is measurable—U.S. solar installations fell 14% last year—suggesting that misinformation is feeding social resistance that’s being weaponized through the permitting process. Here’s an overview:

  • In states like Michigan, claims about electromagnetic radiation, groundwater contamination, and noise are shaping local decisions despite a lack of credible evidence. This “fear vs. science” dynamic is amplified by misinformation, and local officials often do not rigorously evaluate these claims or compare them to accepted agricultural risks, such as groundwater depletion or runoff from herbicides and pesticides.

  • The consequences are concrete. Projects that meet all regulatory requirements are still being denied due to “substantial opposition,” as seen in Ohio and Missouri. This has led to a proliferation of restrictive ordinances and moratoria, stalling development pipelines in otherwise attractive markets.

  • Michigan exemplifies the challenge: while the state has strong solar growth potential, it also has some of the highest levels of local resistance, including novel health-based regulations and widespread legal challenges to state siting authority. Nearly 80 local governments are contesting efforts to centralize permitting, creating a fragmented and unpredictable approval landscape.

  • In Ohio, the state siting board rejected Open Road Renewables’ fully compliant solar project, citing “substantial opposition.” Local governments referenced unfounded health concerns—such as noise and electromagnetic exposure—in their objections, despite noise modeling showing that inverters would be effectively inaudible. The company has since paused new project development in the state.


⚡️ The Takeaway


The fear factor. For developers, these cases represent another piece of evidence that the parameters of permitting have shifted: project viability now often hinges on navigating local, non-technical opposition and managing social and regulatory risk. Early, evidence-based outreach, proactive misinformation management, and recruiting trusted messengers are essential. As local dynamics are increasingly curtailing the deployment of solar, early investments in community engagement are key to heading off misguided opposition.

Investment Peaks, Manufacturing Slows


Several new reports released this week paint a two-speed picture of the U.S. clean energy market: record deployment and investment on the project side, paired with emerging headwinds in manufacturing and policy certainty. For developers, the message is clear—near-term opportunity is strong, but timing and execution are becoming more critical. Here are some fast facts:

  • ACP reports that 2025 was a banner year: $79 billion invested and over 90% of new U.S. power capacity coming from solar, wind, and storage. Clean energy now supports 1.4 million jobs and contributes $150 billion annually to the economy. Notably, 79% of installed capacity sits in Republican-held districts, reinforcing the sector’s broad political and geographic footprint—especially in rural markets benefiting from tax revenue and land leases.

  • Federal data from the U.S. EIA shows momentum accelerating. Developers plan to add 86 GW of new capacity in 2026, led by 43 GW of solar and a record 24 GW of storage. Solar and batteries will account for nearly 80% of additions, with Texas dominating deployment. This underscores a grid increasingly built around renewables paired with storage for reliability.

  • At the same time, the Clean Investment Monitor highlights a sharp slowdown in manufacturing investment, which dropped to $8 billion in Q1 2026, the lowest in nearly three years. Declines in battery and solar manufacturing—and rising project cancellations—signal uncertainty in domestic supply chains, even as investment pivots toward energy storage.

  • Analysis from ACORE points to strong capital markets and rising M&A activity, but warns that policy instability—especially around tax credits—could dampen investment after 2026.

⚡️ The Takeaway


Jack be nimble. Developers face a narrowing window as they seek to capitalize on near-term demand and federal incentives while navigating policy and supply-side volatility moving forward. Hedging against shifting federal support and potential supply chain disruptions will be critical to managing timelines and costs. Those who can move quickly while staying flexible in sourcing and structuring will be best positioned to capture outsized value in an uncertain landscape.


 A Planetary-Scale Carbon Vacuum Cleaner


Frontier, the coalition of heavyweight corporate buyers trying to drag carbon removal out of PowerPoint slides and into the real world, is launching a new R&D hub in Quebec aimed at one of the more promising (and still oddly underexplored) climate ideas: turning certain rocks into permanent CO₂ storage machines.

The focus is surficial mineralization—a process that speeds up what nature already does when reactive rocks slowly absorb CO₂ and lock it away as stable minerals. Grind the rock, expose it to air, and you compress thousands of years of geology into something that might actually matter on decadal climate timelines. Frontier’s bet is that serpentinite, a reactive rock commonly found in giant mine tailings piles, could be the breakout star: abundant, cheap, and just reactive enough to matter at scale.


The hook isn’t just the chemistry—it’s the infrastructure already sitting around. The hub, built with Carbon Removal Canada at Thetford Mines, taps into 10,000 tons of serpentinite tailings from old asbestos mining operations, along with pre-approved permitting and lab access. In other words: someone already dug the rock up decades ago, so now teams can skip straight to figuring out how to turn it into a carbon sink instead of reinventing the mining permit process from scratch.





Frontier’s thesis is big—potentially hundreds of gigatons of removal at sub-$80/ton costs—but the reality check is that almost nobody is working on it today. And the few who are face classic climate startup pain: expensive feedstock access, permitting friction. 


While this may prove to be a way to turn old mining waste into a planetary-scale carbon vacuum cleaner, the first step is to figure out how not to suffocate the rocks doing the work: as CO₂ reacts with crushed serpentinite, it can form a carbonate crust that coats the surface and slows further absorption; meanwhile, densely packed rock piles can also restrict airflow and reduce reaction efficiency. Both are core engineering hurdles the field is now working to solve to keep the process fast, scalable, and cost-effective at industrial scale. 
Thanks for diving into the Developer Dispatch with us.
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