 Welcome to the Michigan Minds podcast, a quick and informative analysis of today's top issues from University of Michigan faculty. I am a senior research area specialist or program manager, both at the Ford School of Public Policy and at the Graham Sustainability Institute. The area where my research started out was looking at the impacts of renewable energy on rural communities. Most big wind and solar farms are put in rural communities and so I try to understand what impact positive and negative it has on those communities. The second kind of area of research is how state and local policies affect whether or not you can actually get renewable energy projects built. The third kind of area is really taking all of this information and getting it out to state and local policymakers as they're thinking about, you know, an energy transition. I've only been at Graham for about a year. So before that kind of my work across campus was based at the Ford School and it was just because energy transition is it doesn't fall neatly into any one school. And so I had been working with folks in communications or sees or an engineering to kind of understand, you know, how the sighting work that I do the like where power plants go fits with kind of some of their other work. And now my role at Graham is explicitly about trying to make connections across campus and then connect all of that information about renewable energy with outside the outside world and the users of that information. So some of that is done right now I'm helping to organize what we're calling clean energy conversations. So pulling together faculty and researchers across campus to talk to each other about what it is that they want to do and find and look at unique opportunities for interdisciplinary collaboration. I'm kind of the non energy space because my work is really on like rural the impacts of renewable energy in rural places. I'm also part of a rack of interdisciplinary workshop group. It's called the rural America Research Network where again people who are working in rural communities get together and share information because you know what some people are doing on land conservation is not all that different than what I'm doing on, you know, the impacts of renewable energy and so we can kind of share notes that a lot of this work is going to the places like physically going to the places where big renewable energy projects have been built and trying to understand what are the positives and what are the negatives you know what are the verifying kind of the the benefits that a lot of people talk about to rural communities but also trying to understand some unintended consequences. So my initial research like my my dissertation research my PhD my PhD research was traveling to you know 10 communities in Michigan with wind farms and understanding like what farmers with wind turbines on their property are doing with that income. I find that they're reinvesting it in their property and and that there's a second generation of farmers who think that farming isn't such a risky business because they've got this guaranteed income stream coming in from wind energy. But a project that we just found out was funded by the Department of Energy is taking that same approach and looking at big solar projects. So I'll be going and talking to landowners who are have solar panels, large, you know, large solar panel projects on their property to kind of understand how that changes. You know how they think about that land because it's difficult to farm underneath solar panels. Another part of that too is not just the individual landowners but I also look at the community wide impact so one of the big benefits of renewable energy to rural communities is that those wind and solar developers pay property taxes that go to local government services. And so I interview the local government officials to understand like what they're doing with that revenue and what impact it's made on on their community. I did not come back to grad school to study energy. Actually, my PhD is from University of Michigan in urban and regional planning. I came back to study farmland preservation. I grew up in a kind of a rural community and wanted to understand what tools there were to help ensure that farmland was, you know, preserved. I on a like whim literally driving up north to my in-laws cottage went through Michigan's biggest wind farm in Grashit County drove through Michigan's biggest wind farm. And the land use planners there were talking about wind energy as a farmland preservation technique. And so that's what my dissertation became understanding the link between energy development and farmland preservation. And subsequent to that I really got interested in understanding like, well, what are some of the other implications what are of energy development on these rural communities. And why do different communities respond differently and and kind of seeing how state and local policies don't always align to or sometimes working at cross purposes to help communities see the visible benefits of renewable energy. So, I think a lot of people pay attention to things like renewable portfolio standards. This is where many states this is the most common policy across states. Many states set renewable energy requirements that the utilities have to meet. So currently in the state of Michigan, utilities have to get 15% of their power from renewable energy by the year 2021. So coming up pretty pretty soon. So my work is really looking at how those policies that how there are other policies that either make that possible, or impossible, or how states even without a renewable portfolio standard are able to, you know, are able to facilitate renewable energy development. So a key one that has been coming up a lot recently is about property taxes. So that's a policy that you know how different land uses are taxed is something that said at the state level, but in most states those property taxes are like at the local government. And so you might think that if you want to facilitate renewable energy development you want to cut taxes, and you want to like, you know that that makes renewables cheaper, but if you cut property taxes, then you have a community wide economic benefit that stays in those communities. And so some of my work has been looking at whether those property tax benefits are visible to community members, because again, this can make a big difference in a particularly on the budget for a community. But also kind of like what's the sweet spot by not having too high of taxes that you can't, the developers can't afford to develop a winter solar project, but not so little taxes that there's nothing in it for the community because across the country. Communities largely are the ones that get to choose where renewable energy is cited and you know, oftentimes there's a, they're thinking about like, do we want this land use or do we not want another land use and while sometimes they're thinking about the benefits to the individual land owner. So often it's kind of community wide benefits and so that's where text policy comes in or you know who what the rules are on citing how much discretion do you give local communities. So the, a lot of my work at the Ford schools articulating that it's not just renewable portfolio standards or carbon taxes, but a suite of policies that can either work together to make it easier for communities to say yes, or that might be working at to, to renewable energy deployment. I think this is a really important area to focus on because if we're going to have an energy transition, we're going to need to build lots of stuff. I focus a lot on wind and solar farms, but we also need to build transmission if we're really going to decarbonize our electricity sector. And I think the why focus on this area like, there's a lot of attention paid to energy policy but so much of it is at the federal level, because you know with what like changes at that level of government you expect that it's going to trickle down. Even if there is a big federal push at the end of the day, this has these this infrastructure is going to need to be cited in communities. And in both states, it is the very local community that gets to decide, as I mentioned before whether or not like what the rules are for citing and that community. And so it's really important to understand like, whether the policies in place that the financial benefits that they're going to receive how much discretion they have, you know, just even how the people in these rural, often conservative communities feel about these higher level policies that are, do they see them as you know, foisting renewable energy on them, or is this is this an opportunity for them. There are myths on both the negative side right when turbines cause cancer that's a myth. But also on the positive side that you know that solar energy is an inherent good and so like, we don't need to think about impacts on ecosystems right like, there are, it's like renewable energy is neither all bad, nor all good. Like, I spend a lot of my time, like making everybody upset, because I highlight that that that every energy source has impacts, and both positive and negative and that that it's really important to understand those and like go into it with your eyes wide open about, you know what the perhaps unintended consequences could be. I think one of the, the maybe hidden facts that is that are that's not talked about very often is about the economic opportunity that renewable energies provide particularly for rural communities that have the land area to host wind and solar projects. One of the people that you know, are most gung ho about an energy transition or verbally gung ho about an energy transition talk about it from the climate and environmental benefits, and those are there. But the communities that are, you know, that are being asked to host this infrastructure and say yes are really doing so for economic reasons, like both, as I mentioned before, the, the money that landowners receive for hosting a wind and solar panels on their property, but also those community why benefits. And so, I think that's one of the things that I think people don't realize. I think the other thing that's really important to is that it is an economic development opportunity. But even if you think about like there are some landscapes where we just don't want to see energy infrastructure. So wind turbines, whether you believe they're beautiful, or you think they're ugly, and my survey data says that it's about half of the population thinks that they're beautiful and half thinks they're ugly. They're changed to the landscape. And so, and solar panels similarly like you can't see them from quite as far away but they are changed to the landscape. So it's important to for for I think all of us to think about like, where, where do they fit in the landscape. And for communities that are being asked to host this infrastructure to kind of, you know, they're, they need to weigh the benefits of like the huge economic benefits this is. I think the, the biggest economic development opportunity that rural communities have seen in decades. But like I said, it may not fit with, you know, with what your economic development trajectory is in your community and so those are things that you need to kind of weigh together. I think one of the reasons is that the, the improvements in technology, and that just the deployment of wind and solar has brought the price down so quickly that really the market is moving towards wind and solar and we're going to see a lot of it. And so it's marvelous of kind of state and federal policy like it's shifting and I think that people don't realize that. And so it's really helpful. Again, my background is in planning, and in planning you try to be proactive, right. And so rather than be reactive, what I'm trying to do is get ahead of the curve and encourage communities to proactively think about whether renewable energy, wind or solar at different scales are an opportunity or a conflict for their community so that they can effectively be prepared and feel like they're in the driver's seat. Right, rather than it having somebody else pushing it on them that they decide that this is something that they want. The other reason that I think it's helpful that people like me or others at universities are out talking about this is that it's really easy to find people who are either like I said before think that wind or solar is the greatest thing since sliced bread, or think that it's terrible and brings no good. And the reality is that it's both right like there are there are there are pros and cons positives and negatives at the local level for all energy sources. And so I think it's really helpful to communities who are trying to decide like how does this relatively new land use because for most communities this is a relatively new land use and you know kind of all things considered. What does it fit for them they need to they need to understand both like the benefits that it's going to bring but also like what are common concerns associated with it. Every energy source has local impacts. A lot of times we talk about like the global and you know, really the global impacts of different energy sources and renewable energy sources definitely provide global environmental benefits. Even so, there are local impacts, if nothing else, they change the scenery. If nothing else during construction, they have impacts on, you know, the local habitat like they're going to scare away I what I say in rural communities is they're going to scare away the critters right. And it's during while you know while they're being constructed. And so, I think it's really, really important that we recognize that and be truthful in talking to communities about what are the pro like what are the local benefits and what are the local impacts that this is going to have. Again, they can feel empowered that they're choosing to be part of an energy transition rather than having it foisted upon them. I think that that's, I think that's really important. Also, the idea that every energy source has local impacts should also bolster any of us who are, you know, interested in minimizing those impacts to conserve energy like you don't have to build the power plant if you're if you're cutting back on your energy use so like there's something in it for individuals to I think in your individual actions that can help minimize some of these, you know, conversations. I think the University of Michigan is really at has is well poised to kind of take on these interconnected interdisciplinary issues surrounding energy transition. We have world class technologists. We have policy and business folks who are looking at the, the economic and policy ramifications of how we're going to get there and how we're going to deploy this technology we have great folks in the liberal arts who are thinking about how communities respond. So I think it's great to be at a place that, you know, has all of the expertise to tackle what is going to be, you know, a massive, a massive transition. Thank you for listening to the Michigan Minds podcast, a production of the University of Michigan. Join the conversation on social media with hashtag you Mish impact.