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Good morning and happy Friday,
We’re in week three of the shutdown standoff, and some 4,000 federal employees have been RIFfed, although on Wednesday a federal judge blocked further layoffs. The firings included 187 employees at DOE (so far); the agency blamed the “war on American energy” for the cuts.
Meanwhile, soaring electricity prices continue to make headlines – could they be the sleeper campaign issue of 2025? The issue is certainly getting a lot of attention at the state level. In Illinois, lawmakers are clashing over legislation designed to insulate consumers from “an energy affordability crisis.”
GHG levels are rising too – the latest UN report says global carbon pollution hit record highs in 2024; in advance of COP30 in Brazil next month, The Well-Oiled Plan, a “darkly satirical and provocative short animated film” that denounces fossil fuel industry disinformation was released.
In happier news, Arkansas has joined the cool kids club – The Land of Opportunity now boasts its first utility-scale wind farm, and more are in the works.
And we saved the best for last – Bantam Communications has a new website, check it out!
Read on for more.
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Did They or Didn’t They?
China may have the world’s largest solar project (see The Last Byte, below), but the U.S. was on track to have some bragging rights – until last week when Heatmap News discovered that Esmerelda 7, a planned 6.2 GW project in Nevada that would have powered 2 million homes, was listed as cancelled on the BLM site. The news sent supporters into a frenzy of denunciation, prompting an Interior spokesman to say the project isn’t cancelled. So what gives?
Esmeralda 7 – so named because it comprised seven distinct solar-and-storage projects on adjacent parcels of land overseen by the BLM – was to be sited on 62,300 acres of Nevada desert (about 185 square miles of land), a footprint close to the size of Las Vegas.
The project had been “moving forward at a relatively smooth pace,” and draft EIS was completed last year, but the project’s NEPA process has been
stalled under the Trump administration.
- Canary Media notes that it’s not yet clear who pulled the plug – it could have been the BLM or Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, but it’s also possible the Esmeralda 7 developers pulled out, “perhaps based on conversations with the government.”
⚡️ The Takeaway
Sliced and diced. The Interior Department says the project developers – NextEra Energy Resources, Leeward Renewable Energy, Arevia Power and Invenergy – could still seek permits for each individual project. At least one, NextEra, has said it remains “committed” to its portion of the project, but given the heightened scrutiny of wind and solar projects proposed for federal land
announced by Secretary Burgum in July, it could be tough sledding ahead.
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Buckeye Brownfields
Ohio’s new House Bill 15 went into effect in August and seeks to address growing electricity demand and spiking power prices by fast-tracking energy development on underutilized industrial land. If well-implemented, the law could accelerate clean energy, reduce emissions, and revitalize industrial areas – but local politics and regulatory clarity present some challenges. Here’s what’s happening:
The law enables the Department of Development to designate former coal mines and brownfields as “priority investment areas” upon local government request, granting them benefits like five-year tax exemptions, up to $10 million in grants, and accelerated permitting.
These sites, which total more than 617,000 acres, offer a promising opportunity for clean energy projects while avoiding conflicts over farmland use. As such, a key goal is to attract renewable energy developers to polluted or idle sites that are often overlooked.
However, major concerns remain about how the law will be implemented. Though HB 15 is technology-neutral, its ability to override local bans on wind and solar projects (enacted under Senate Bill 52) is unclear – and “roughly one-third of Ohio’s 88 counties ban wind, solar, or both in all or a significant part of their
jurisdiction.”
⚡️ The Takeaway
Clarity is critical. As Ohio's Department of Development and Power Siting Board work to finalize the rules, The Nature Conservancy is urging rulemakers to clarify that clean energy can proceed regardless of local restrictions. HB15 does specify that “its terms for permitting energy projects in priority investment areas apply ‘notwithstanding’ some other parts of Ohio law,” but clean energy advocates warn that because site
designations must be initiated by local governments, areas in counties with renewable bans may be excluded if officials refuse to act. To address this flaw, TNC has asked the Power Siting Board to add language clarifying that renewable energy projects can be built on any land marked a priority investment area – even if a solar and wind ban otherwise exists in a county.
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Clean Energy on the Roof of the World
A solar project seven times the size of Manhattan? That equates to 162 square miles, in case you were wondering – and it sits at nearly 10,000 feet above sea level, where the thin, cold air gives its panels a production boost.
The nearly 17 GW Talatan Solar Park is part of a massive, sprawling clean energy complex sited atop the Tibetan Plateau in western China. It’s complemented by 7,380 MW of hydroelectric dams and 4,700 MW of wind, which in contrast to solar, underperforms at altitude for the same reason (the plateau has high wind speeds, but the thin air is less effective at moving turbine blades).
For perspective, it’s important to keep in mind that “China still burns as much coal as the rest of the world combined.” But President Xi has pledged to reduce the country’s GHG emissions, and increase its use of renewables sixfold.
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The projects on the Tibetan Plateau are certainly a start. Talatan alone could power the entire city of Chicago, and its electricity costs 40% less than coal-fired power. A huge network of high-voltage power lines transmit the electricity to users more than 1,000 miles away.
The plateau is also attractive to data centers, which “consume 40% less electricity, their main operating cost, than similar ones at sea level” thanks to the colder temperatures. But interestingly, one type of data won’t be processed there any time soon: communications for self-driving cars. The distance between the Tibetan Plateau and eastern China, where most of the population lives, is too great, and distance-related delays in the vehicles’ communications could cause accidents.
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Thanks for diving into the Developer Dispatch with us.
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Building American power requires a powerful team.
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