Northwest Indiana at risk by avoiding green steel

This roundup of energy news headlines comes from our Midwest Energy News newsletter. Sign up to get it in your inbox every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday morning.

GREEN STEEL

• A Northwest Indiana advocacy group warns that the region’s once-prolific steel industry could further deteriorate unless companies adopt cleaner operations that save jobs, create new opportunities, and avoid massive healthcare costs. (Canary Media)

COAL

• We Energies again delays the planned closure of a Wisconsin coal plant, this time to 2027, approximately four years after its initial retirement date. (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel)

• The Trump administration’s top-down approach for ordering large polluting coal plants to stay open is disrupting energy markets and raising costs for consumers. (Circle of Blue)

CORRUPTION TRIAL

• The mistrial of two former FirstEnergy executives this week defied a pattern of legal and financial consequences for others involved in the major corruption scheme. (Signal Ohio)

PIPELINES

• Greenpeace seeks a new trial after receiving a $345 million judgement for its alleged role in Dakota Access protests, claiming jury instructions and verdict forms contained errors and that unfair evidence was presented to jurors. (North Dakota Monitor)

• Enbridge submits a report to Michigan permitting agencies outlining the risks with the company’s plan to tunnel Line 5 in the Straits of Mackinac, which opponents say highlights the danger of the proposal. (Interlochen Public Radio)

DATA CENTERS

• Dozens of Wisconsin residents gather to raise concerns about data centers’ growing electricity demand, and how that will affect residential bills and increase reliance on fossil fuels. (Wisconsin Examiner)

• The cost of a power line and substation to serve a data center near Fargo, North Dakota, increases from $75 million to $110 million, though the company pledges to pay the full cost. (North Dakota Monitor)

• The developer of a planned $5 billion, 430 MW data center in eastern South Dakota says it is considering locating the project in another state after lawmakers rejected a data center sales tax exemption. (South Dakota Searchlight)

• Indianapolis-area officials approve plans for a $500 million data center despite neighborhood concerns over energy use and providing tax breaks for a project that creates relatively few jobs. (Mirror Indy)

CLEAN ENERGY

• A group of former U.S. Department of Energy officials release a report saying the hundreds of recipients of $12.5 billion in federal clean energy grants have been left in the dark about whether they’ll ever receive the money. (E&E News)

GRID

• The Public Utilities Commission of Ohio is applying for up to $150 million in federal funding to improve the state’s transmission system. (Scioto Post)

UTILITIES

• Ohio regulators will allow AEP Ohio to increase its distribution revenue by $11 million and also set a monthly customer charge for new data centers. (WYSO)

• A Kansas nonprofit that helps residents pay utility bills and weatherize their homes to cut energy use has been forced to cut staff and scale back as federal funding disappeared. (Kansas Reflector)

• Rising utility prices are pushing some Missouri lawmakers to propose breaking up the state’s utility monopoly structure in favor of a competitive market. (St. Louis Public Radio)

NEW FROM CANARY

• Nation’s largest urban battery to take center stage near San Francisco — Julian Spector

• Iran war could spur Europe to double down on renewables — again — Dan McCarthy

• Used EVs are a bargain right now — and buyers are noticing — Jeff St. John