The Sierra Club's Utah chapter said electric utility PacifiCorp's long-term plan to embrace renewable energy has changed and is now placing more reliance on fossil fuels such as coal, which they argued poses a threat to the state's resiliency.

A new report commissioned by the Sierra Club aims to highlight the economic impacts of renewable energy in Utah. Put simply, the study found the deployment of renewable energy projects, such as wind, solar and storage facilities, would generate significant economic benefits for the Beehive State.

Luis Miranda, senior campaign organizer for the Sierra Club, acknowledged families in coal country are facing economic uncertainty.

"I can't help but feel so proud for the legacy of generations of Utahns and coal miners and coal plant workers who have sacrificed so much to ensure the lights stay on in this country," Miranda noted. "And yet the question I hear again and again isn't just about jobs, it's about long-term stability."

Miranda explained people want to know if there will be careers allowing them to stay in their communities and plan for the future. He emphasized the answer lies within "greener" forms of energy. But conservatives disagree and argued energy must remain cheap, reliable and dispatchable. Advocates countered they realize the grid cannot solely run on renewables but want to see utilities like PacifiCorp make more of an effort and not stall on progress.

Utah's electricity-generation profile is currently made up of about 47% coal, 36% natural gas and 17% renewables.

Rosa Monahan, staff attorney for the Sierra Club, said PacifiCorp's latest integrated resource plan extends rather than shortens the life of coal operations in Utah and Wyoming. She called it a mistake.

"That is the wrong direction to go," Monahan contended. "To make no progress until after 2030 is really just going to continue to put us behind the 8-ball, and so we want to see progress continuing to move forward as more resources are developed like the long-duration storage, more geothermal, particularly in Utah."

The report authors said the data used in the analysis was developed and came directly from PacifiCorp, when company published a report in 2023 with a "high renewable outlook" portfolio and believed it would be able to meet demand as well as utilize renewable energy in a cost-effective and reliable manner.

Minnesota is becoming less reliant on energy imports to power up homes and businesses. That's a key finding in the latest summary of contributions from renewable sources.

The 2025 fact sheet from Clean Energy Economy Minnesota shows the state imported just 11% of the total electricity it used last year.

At the same time, carbon-free sources like wind and solar accounted for a majority of electricity generated in the state for a fifth straight year.

The group's Senior Manager of Marketing and Communications Peter Ingraham said that indicates renewables are proving their reliability - and they're not just complementary pieces of the energy puzzle.

"The people that have been operating these power grids, there's a reason that they allow these to keep going online," said Ingraham. "It's a great way for us to power our cities, to power our economies."

He said it's especially timely given the escalating trade war.

Industry experts note uncertainty about federal policy does still complicate Minnesota's clean energy sector in other ways.

That includes a desire among congressional Republicans and the Trump administration to repeal tax credits for adopting renewable energy that were approved in 2022.

Some other speedbumps have surfaced, including a slowdown in wind energy expansion. However, solar growth in Minnesota continues to take off.

Derrick Flakoll, senior policy associate at the research firm Bloomberg NEF, said both sources are becoming inexpensive to produce - but solar is in the driver's seat right now, as wind energy shakes off recent market forces.

"Wind projects are huge, and that means that it's a lot of money up front - meaning it's particularly sensitive to inflation and to interest rates," said Flakoll. "And we saw a sort of slowdown in wind build in a lot of parts of the United States as a ripple effect of some of that 2022 and 2023 era."

As for solar, new capacity grew by 35% in Minnesota last year.

In measuring electric vehicle adoption, Minnesota now has more than 65,000 EVs on the road - however, new registrations fell last year after a record high the previous year.

A new report outlines some of the barriers Illinois residents face that can make adopting solar energy more difficult and expensive than necessary.

The findings are based on feedback from residential solar installers across the state about their experiences with permitting offices and the challenges they face.

Study coauthor Theo Rosen, a campaign associate with the Environment Illinois Research & Education Center, said requirements like in-person application drop-offs and long and tedious review processes can prolong the approval time and add unnecessary costs.

"All that extra work that installers have to do, the cost of that gets passed on to consumers," said Rosen. "And the result is that it is harder and more expensive to 'go solar' in Illinois than it needs to be."

Rosen added that about 20% of Illinois residents cancel their applications for permits, because of delays in the permitting process. The report suggests standardizing permitting across the state.

The report also highlights inconsistencies in the permitting requirements across towns and cities.

It says some installers avoid certain areas altogether or charge a premium to do business there because they find the process so cumbersome.

Rosen said this lack of consistency also means it can be hard for new installers to work in the state.

"A lot of installers," said Rosen, "something that they spoke about was having to have someone's full time job be dedicated to maintaining these sort of databases of the varying code requirements, and the varying permitting processes in every municipality that they work in."

Rosen added that the report recommends the state use "instant permitting" software to streamline the process and eliminate barriers, both for installers and residents.

"Essentially, it is able to perform hundreds of code compliance checks and flag errors immediately," said Rosen, "and if a permit application is complete and it meets the requirements, approval is immediate."

The Residential Automated Solar Permitting Act is currently in the Illinois Legislature. It would require the state to implement automated solar permits, similar to what the report recommends.





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Minnesota is cited in a new research brief outlining the obstacles America would face in trying to reopen coal plants, an idea prioritized by the Trump administration.

President Donald Trump has signed an executive order aiming to boost coal production, despite coal's shrinking presence in the energy sector.

The administration said the move can help meet growing electricity demand with the emergence of data centers but the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis predicts giving coal-fired power plants new life would be costly.

Dennis Wamsted, energy analyst at the institute, said it does not make sense.

"It's not an 'evil conspiracy' to push coal out of the market," Wamsted pointed out. "The reality is that coal is the most expensive resource, and so it is rightfully used the least, or used last."

He points to Xcel Energy's Sherco facility near the Twin Cities, a coal plant being phased out and replaced with a massive solar operation. Wamsted noted utilities are planning for other sources because they have proved to be reliable and less costly. The analysis found 24 of the 102 recently closed U.S. coal plants are already torn down and restarting others would require big investments due to their age.

Wamsted added time is another problem because of the maintenance backlog in getting coal plants back online or in some cases rebuilt. He argued investors would not be interested in waiting to get an older plant reopened only to shut it down again because of the declining appetite for coal.

"In 20 years or 30 years, that plant, which would still be relatively new, would probably be what we call a stranded asset," Wamsted stressed.

Like clean energy infrastructure, Wamsted said ratepayers would be asked by utilities to cover the construction costs for increasing coal production. The difference, he explained, is sources like wind and solar are poised to stick around much longer and they do not have the price volatility linked with fossil fuels.