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Trump’s Order to Keep Michigan Coal Plant Running Has Cost $80 Million So Far

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Original article by Marianne Lavelle republished from Inside Climate News under Creative Common License (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

A view of Consumers Energy’s J.H. Campbell coal-fired power plant in West Olive, Mich. Credit: Jim West/UCG/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

Midwestern electricity ratepayers will pay the still-mounting tab under a plan Consumers Energy reported to regulators and investors.

The Trump administration’s emergency order to keep the huge J.H. Campbell coal plant on Lake Michigan operating past its planned retirement date has cost at least $80 million since May, its operator, Consumers Energy, told regulators and investors this week.

The company said in its third-quarter earnings report Thursday that it would pursue the process laid out in the U.S. Department of Energy’s order for collecting those costs: It will seek payment from ratepayers across the Midwest.

Even though the peak summer electricity demand season has passed, executives at Consumers, Michigan’s largest energy provider, said that they see no sign of let-up in the emergency orders.

“We expect those to continue for the long-term,” said CEO Garrick Rochow in a conference call for investors. “And we’re prepared to continue to operate the plant and comply with those orders.”

He said the costs—$615,385 per day—should be shared beyond the 1.9 million electricity customers of Consumers Energy. The company plans to propose the tab be split among ratepayers (an estimated 42 million to 45 million electricity customers) in the nine states served by the regional electric grid operator, the Midcontinent Independent System Operator (MISO).

“The benefits go to MISO,” Rochow said. “Not just to our customers, they go to MISO.”

Rochow said the Trump administration envisioned this approach. “That order from the Department of Energy has laid out a clear path to cost recovery,” he said. Consumers Energy will have to apply to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission in order to pass the costs to the ratepayers, and states that oppose such a cost allocation could move to intervene in those proceedings.

U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright issued two consecutive 90-day orders—on May 23 and on Aug. 20—to keep the Campbell plant open under the emergency provisions of the Federal Power Act. In the past, such orders have been used to ensure energy delivery at times of natural disasters. But Wright used the act to execute Trump’s agenda to ramp up energy production, saying Campbell needed to stay open to minimize the risk of power outages and address critical grid security issues in the Midwest.

The Department of Energy did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the Campbell cost figures, nor did MISO. When he extended the Campbell order in August, Wright said that he was directing MISO “to take every step to minimize cost to the American people.”

“This order will help ensure millions of Americans can continue to access affordable, reliable, and secure baseload power,” he said in that statement.

But critics say the operation of the 63-year-old plant is generating unnecessary costs as well as pollution. In a September regulatory filing challenging the DOE’s order, a coalition of environmental groups pointed out that even on the day of highest peak demand this summer, MISO had an unused surplus of resources greater than 10 times the power provided by the Campbell plant.

And indeed, according to recent Environmental Protection Agency data, two of the three units at the Campbell plant were not operating at all for about 30 days of the 131 days from the start of the DOE order through Sept. 30. The third unit at the plant only ran for 18 days. Such stoppages could occur for maintenance or simply because the grid operator did not call on the plant to deliver energy to the grid.

“Forcing this unnecessary coal plant to keep operating is bilking consumers for the benefit of the coal industry,” said Michael Lenoff, senior attorney for Earthjustice, which is representing the environmental groups. 

Because DOE did not respond to their petition for reconsideration of the Campbell order within 30 days, the environmental groups and the states of Michigan, Minnesota and Illinois have asked the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals to review the case. The purpose of the litigation, Lenoff said, is “to stop the administration from harming consumers, trampling markets and unlawfully usurping the authority of states and regulators to make decisions in the public interest.”

Campbell is by far the largest of three fossil fuel electricity plants that are staying open beyond their planned retirements under Trump administration emergency orders. Campbell released 6.6 million metric tons of carbon in 2023, the most recent year for which data is available. Talen Energy’s Wagner plant near Baltimore and Constellation Energy’s Eddystone plant just south of Philadelphia, both run on oil and natural gas. Some detail on their costs for keeping open may emerge next week, when Talen and Constellation report their third-quarter earnings.

Consumers Energy, which is continuing to work toward its previously stated goal of achieving net-zero carbon emissions by 2040, had projected that the retirement of the Campbell plant would save its customers $600 million over the next 20 years, or $30 million per year. Instead, running the plant for the past five months has cost close to three times that annual amount.

Original article by Marianne Lavelle republished from Inside Climate News under Creative Common License (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.
Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.
Donald Trump urges you to be a Climate Science denier like him. He says that he makes millions and millions for destroying the planet, Burn, Baby, Burn and Flood, Baby, Flood.
Donald Trump urges you to be a Climate Science denier like him. He says that he makes millions and millions for destroying the planet, Burn, Baby, Burn and Flood, Baby, Flood.
Nigel Farage urges you to ignore facts and reality and be a climate science denier like him and his Deputy Richard Tice. He says that Reform UK has received £Millions and £Millions from the fossil fuel industry to promote climate denial and destroy the planet.
Nigel Farage urges you to ignore facts and reality and be a climate science denier like him and his Deputy Richard Tice. He says that Reform UK has received £Millions and £Millions from the fossil fuel industry to promote climate denial and destroy the planet.
Continue ReadingTrump’s Order to Keep Michigan Coal Plant Running Has Cost $80 Million So Far

A New Unifying Issue: Just About Everyone Hates Data Centers

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Original article by Dan Gearino republished from Inside Climate News under Creative Common License (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

The construction site of an Amazon data center in Salem Township, Pa., on Oct. 10. Credit: Jason Ardan/Citizens’ Voice via Getty Images

It’s not a novel observation to say that supporters of President Donald Trump and supporters of U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders find common ground on many issues. They often share a skepticism of entrenched power and a desire to dismantle systems that they think have ceased to serve everyday people.

In Indiana, this agreement includes a distrust of data centers.

“The MAGA crowd and the Bernie bros have both figured out that they’ve been getting duped,” said Kerwin Olson, executive director of Citizens Action Coalition, an Indianapolis-based consumer and environmental advocacy nonprofit. “It was data centers that really brought it all together.”

Olson’s organization is running a campaign to persuade Indiana lawmakers to place a moratorium on new data centers and to redesign electricity rates to protect residential consumers from rate increases related to data center development.

He has received an emphatic response, with groups from the left, right and in-between booking him for speaking engagements and offering their assistance.

Election results last week confirm a similar dynamic in much of the country. Democrats won races for governor in New Jersey and Virginia and for two open seats on the Georgia Public Service Commission, campaigns in which data centers and rising electricity costs were issues. Media outlets noted this pattern, including in an insightful report from Jael Holzman of Heatmap and a look ahead to next year’s elections from Marc Levy and Jesse Bedayn of the Associated Press.

While much of the discussion is about data centers, the underlying issues are broader, touching on the power of tech companies. For people who live near proposed data centers, there is an additional sense of powerlessness, which Inside Climate News has documented across the country, including the backlash to a plan for a huge data center in Bessemer, Alabama.

“It’s about big tech,” Olson said. “To steal Bernie’s words, [it’s about] these big tech oligarchs that are calling all the shots at every single level of government right now.”

I also see some similarities with local opposition to large wind and solar projects, a subject I’ve written a lot about over the years. A common theme is that residents feel frustrated when powerful companies want to make changes that would alter local landscapes.

Olson said he agrees that there is some overlap between opposition to data centers and large renewable energy development, but he views the latter as more of a rural phenomenon, while concern about data centers is rising almost everywhere.

Google scrapped its plans for a large data center in Indianapolis in September amid local backlash. In northwest Indiana, residents in the small city of Hobart have organized to oppose two data centers, raising concerns about the projects’ electricity and water consumption.

It’s notable that the opposition tends to highlight concerns about high electricity bills, but doesn’t talk as much about data centers’ negative climate impacts. Indiana can see the ramifications as officials push to delay the retirement of coal-fired power plants so the state can meet an expected surge in electricity demand, driven, in part, by data centers.

Political candidates can harness this mounting opposition and data center companies will need to devote more resources to engaging with the public.

Vivek Shastry, a senior research associate at Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy, told me that it’s important for the AI and data center industries to find ways to provide local benefits to host communities and to minimize any negative effects on household electricity costs.

He touched on these subjects in a recent blog post, co-written with his colleague Diana Hernández. When I read this, my first thought was, “Wait, there are local benefits?”

He explained that there are opportunities in terms of energy and money. He pointed to examples in Denmark and Finland of data centers harnessing their waste heat to contribute to district heating systems for local communities.

Beyond that—which I think would be a challenge to do in the United States—he said AI and data center developers can make community benefits part of their proposals. This could mean working with local leaders to find ways to address local needs through philanthropy.

“To the extent that there is a partnership with communities, and there are these pathways to enable tangible co-benefits,” he said.

The opposite can also be true, with local communities feeling like they are bearing the burden of a data center with few, if any, benefits.

Shastry’s larger point is that government officials and corporate leaders need to make sure that development does not harm the most vulnerable consumers by driving up costs of water and electricity. To do otherwise would feed into consumer unrest.

“It’s important to get those processes and protections right early on, because the pace of this growth is such that once you lock into certain kinds of rates and other pathways, it then becomes harder to reverse,” Shastry said.

Voters are already getting upset about electricity rate increases that they blame on data centers, even though the AI industry is in its infancy. The negative effects, if left to fester, could get much worse.

Original article by Dan Gearino republished from Inside Climate News under Creative Common License (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.
Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.
Donald Trump urges you to be a Climate Science denier like him. He says that he makes millions and millions for destroying the planet, Burn, Baby, Burn and Flood, Baby, Flood.
Donald Trump urges you to be a Climate Science denier like him. He says that he makes millions and millions for destroying the planet, Burn, Baby, Burn and Flood, Baby, Flood.
Nigel Farage urges you to ignore facts and reality and be a climate science denier like him and his Deputy Richard Tice. He says that Reform UK has received £Millions and £Millions from the fossil fuel industry to promote climate denial and destroy the planet.
Nigel Farage urges you to ignore facts and reality and be a climate science denier like him and his Deputy Richard Tice. He says that Reform UK has received £Millions and £Millions from the fossil fuel industry to promote climate denial and destroy the planet.
Continue ReadingA New Unifying Issue: Just About Everyone Hates Data Centers

No time to recover: Hurricane Melissa and the Caribbean’s compounding disaster trap as the storms keep coming

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Hurricane Melissa tore off roofs and stripped trees of their leaves, including in many parts of Jamaica hit by Hurricane Beryl a year earlier. Ricardo Makyn/AFP via Getty Images

Farah Nibbs, University of Maryland, Baltimore County

Headlines have been filled with talk of the catastrophic power of Hurricane Melissa after the Category 5 storm devastated communities across Jamaica, Cuba and Haiti in October 2025. But to see this as a singular disaster misses the bigger picture: Melissa didn’t hit stable, resilient islands. It hit islands still rebuilding from the last hurricane.

Jamaica was still recovering from Hurricane Beryl, which sideswiped the island in July 2024 as a Category 4 storm. The parish of St. Elizabeth – known as Jamaica’s breadbasket – was devastated. The country’s Rural Agriculture Development Authority estimated that 45,000 farmers were affected by Beryl, with damage estimated at US$15.9 million.

An aerial view of a city damaged by the hurricane. Mud is in the streets and buildings have lost roofs and walls.
St. Elizabeth Parish, Jamaica, suffered intense damage from both Hurricane Melissa in October 2025 and Hurricane Beryl a year earlier. Ivan Shaw/AFP via Getty Images

In Cuba, the power grid collapsed during Hurricane Oscar in October 2024, leaving 10 million people in darkness. When Melissa arrived, it struck the same fragile infrastructure that Cubans had barely begun to rebuild.

Haiti’s fragile situation before Hurricane Melissa cannot be overstated. The island nation was still reeling from years of cascading disasters – deadly hurricanes, political instability, gang violence, an ongoing cholera crisis and widespread hunger – with over half the population already in need of humanitarian assistance even before this storm hit.

This is the new reality of the climate crisis: Disasters hitting the Caribbean are compounding and can trigger infrastructure collapse, social erosion and economic debt spirals.

The compounding disaster trap

I study disasters, with a focus on how Caribbean island systems absorb, adapt to and recover from recurring shocks, like the nations hit by Melissa are now experiencing.

It’s not just that hurricanes are more frequent; it’s that the time between major storms is now shorter than the time required for a full recovery. This pulls islands into a trap that works through three self-reinforcing loops:

Infrastructure collapse: When a major hurricane hits an already weakened system, it causes simultaneous infrastructure collapses. The failure of one system – such as power – cascades, taking down water pumps, communications and hospitals all at once. We saw this in Grenada after Hurricane Beryl and in Dominica after Hurricane Maria. This kind of cascading damage is now the baseline expectation for the Caribbean.

Economic debt spiral: When countries exhaust their economic reserves on one recovery, borrow to rebuild and are then hit again while still paying off that debt, it becomes a vicious cycle.

Hurricane Ivan, which struck the region in 2004, cost Grenada over 200% of its gross domestic product; Maria, in 2017, cost Dominica 224% of its GDP; and Dorian, in 2019, cost the Bahamas 25% of GDP. With each storm, debt balloons, credit ratings drop and borrowing for the next disaster becomes more expensive.

Social erosion: Each cycle weakens the human infrastructure, too. More than 200,000 people left Puerto Rico for the U.S. mainland in Maria’s aftermath, and nearly one-quarter of Dominica’s population left after the same storm. Community networks fragment as people leave, and psychological trauma becomes layered as each new storm reopens the wounds of the last. The very social fabric needed to manage recovery is itself being torn.

The interior of a school that has been torn apart by hurricane winds. Desks and debris are scattered and light shines through the rafters
When schools are heavily damaged by storms, like this one in Jamaica that lost its roof during Hurricane Melissa, it’s harder for families to remain. Ricardo Makyn/AFP via Getty Images

The trap is that all three of these loops reinforce each other. A country can’t rebuild infrastructure without money. It can’t generate economic activity without infrastructure. And it can’t retain the skilled workforce needed for either when people are fleeing to safer places.

Rebuilding a system of overlapping recoveries

The Caribbean is not merely recovering from disasters – it is living within a system of overlapping recoveries, meaning that its communities must begin rebuilding again before fully recovering from the last crisis.

Each new attempt at rebuilding happens on the unstable physical, social and institutional foundations left by the last disaster.

The question isn’t whether Jamaica will attempt to rebuild following Melissa. It will, somehow. The question is, what happens when the next major storm arrives before that recovery is complete? And the one after that?

Without fundamentally restructuring how we think about recovery – moving from crisis response to continuous adaptation – island nations will remain trapped in this loop.

The way forward

The compounding disaster trap persists because recovery models are broken. They apply one-size-fits-all solutions to crises unfolding across multiple layers of society.

Breaking free requires adaptive recovery at all levels, from household to global.

A line of people pass bags of food items one to another.
Residents formed a human chain among the hurricane debris to pass food supplies from a truck to a distribution center in the Whitehouse community in Westmoreland, an area of Jamaica hit hard by Hurricane Melissa in October 2025. Ricardo Makyn/AFP via Getty Images

At the household level: Helping amid trauma

Recovery isn’t just about repairing a damaged roof. When families experience back-to-back disasters, trauma compounds. Direct cash assistance and long-term, community-based mental health services can help restore dignity.

Cash transfers allow families to address their own needs, stimulate local economies and restore control to people whose lives have been repeatedly upended.

At community level: Mending the social fabric

Repairing the “social fabric” means investing in farmer cooperatives, neighborhood associations and faith groups – networks that can lead recovery from the ground up.

Local networks are often the only ones capable of rebuilding trust and participation.

At the infrastructure level: Breaking the cycle

The pattern of rebuilding the same vulnerable roads or power lines only to see them wash away in the next storm fails the community and the nation. There are better, proven solutions that prepare communities to weather the next storm:

A man looks into an open drainage area that has been torn up out by the storm
Hurricanes can damage infrastructure, including water and drainage systems. Hurricane Beryl left Jamaican communities rebuilding not just homes but also streets, power lines and basic infrastructure. Ricardo Makyn/AFP via Getty Images

At the global level: Fixing the debt trap

None of this is possible if recovery remains tied to high-interest loans. There are ways for internal financial institutions and global development lenders to allow for breathing room between disasters:

The current international disaster finance system, controlled by global lenders and donors, requires countries to prove their losses after a disaster in order to access assistance, often resulting in months of delay. “Proof” is established by formal evaluations or inspections, such as by the United Nations, and aid is released only after meeting certain requirements. This process can stall recovery at the moment when aid is needed the most.

The bottom line

The Caribbean needs a system that provides support before disasters strike, with agreed-upon funding commitments and regional risk-pooling mechanisms that can avoid the delays and bureaucratic burden that slow recovery.

What’s happening in Jamaica, Cuba and Haiti today is a glimpse of what’s coming for coastal and island communities worldwide as climate change accelerates. In my view, we can either learn from the Caribbean’s experiences and redesign disaster recovery now or wait until the trap closes around everyone.

Farah Nibbs, Assistant Professor of Emergency and Disaster Health Systems, University of Maryland, Baltimore County

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.
Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.
Donald Trump urges you to be a Climate Science denier like him. He says that he makes millions and millions for destroying the planet, Burn, Baby, Burn and Flood, Baby, Flood.
Donald Trump urges you to be a Climate Science denier like him. He says that he makes millions and millions for destroying the planet, Burn, Baby, Burn and Flood, Baby, Flood.
Nigel Farage urges you to ignore facts and reality and be a climate science denier like him and his Deputy Richard Tice. He says that Reform UK has received £Millions and £Millions from the fossil fuel industry to promote climate denial and destroy the planet.
Nigel Farage urges you to ignore facts and reality and be a climate science denier like him and his Deputy Richard Tice. He says that Reform UK has received £Millions and £Millions from the fossil fuel industry to promote climate denial and destroy the planet.

Continue ReadingNo time to recover: Hurricane Melissa and the Caribbean’s compounding disaster trap as the storms keep coming

COP30: Ode to the Amazon

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https://www.vaticannews.va/en/world/news/2025-11/ode-to-the-amazon-cop-30-brazil-belem-indigenoous-climate-change.html

The Rio Guajará (Guajará River), part of the vast Amazon River delta 

As COP30 kicks off in Belém, Brazil, we look at the significance of hosting this year’s UN climate conference in the heart of the Amazon rainforest.

The world’s largest rainforest – home to more species of plants and animals than anywhere else on Earth – is opening its doors, giving humanity a chance to do right by the planet that hosts it. As we walk through the rainforest, we are humbled, as it reminds us that it is the heartbeat and the lungs of our planet.

Here in Belém, “the gateway to the Amazon”, life moves in time with nature. The air is thick with humidity, sudden tropical showers fall, followed by the hum of insects and the call of birds. Vultures circle above, herons perch on the riverbanks, and capybaras wander through the green patches that break the city’s skyline. Coconut water stalls line the streets, purple açaí leaves a natural liner around the lips of the men, women and children who eat it – with their fish or in their milkshakes. Even amongst the hustle and bustle, as the streets fill up, Belém is very clearly inseparable from the forest that cradles it.

…

Representing the Holy See just prior to the opening of COP30, at the leaders’ summit on 7 November, Vatican Secretary of State, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, reminded delegates of Pope Leo XIV’s message: “If you want to cultivate peace, care for creation.” Cardinal Parolin reminded world leaders that the climate crisis is not only a question of technology or finance, but of justice and solidarity – pointing out that ‘those in the most vulnerable situations are the first to suffer,’ and he called for COP30 to become ‘a sign of hope’ in a world already ‘in flames’ from both environmental and human conflict. 

His words echoed those of Pope Francis in Laudato si’, who wrote that “we have no such right” to destroy creation, reminding us that humanity’s vocation is not to dominate the earth but to till and keep it – to care for the world and for every creature that shares it with us. 

The message is clear: caring for the planet is inseparable from caring for one another.

As delegates gather in Belém over the next two weeks, the world will watch for commitments that can bring together words and action, pray for funding that reaches the communities protecting the world’s organs, and hope for agreements that honour both people and planet.

https://www.vaticannews.va/en/world/news/2025-11/ode-to-the-amazon-cop-30-brazil-belem-indigenoous-climate-change.html

Orcas comment on killer apes destroying the planet by continuing to burn fossil fuels.
Orcas comment on killer apes destroying the planet by continuing to burn fossil fuels.
Donald Trump urges you to be a Climate Science denier like him. He says that he makes millions and millions for destroying the planet, Burn, Baby, Burn and Flood, Baby, Flood.
Donald Trump urges you to be a Climate Science denier like him. He says that he makes millions and millions for destroying the planet, Burn, Baby, Burn and Flood, Baby, Flood.
Nigel Farage urges you to ignore facts and reality and be a climate science denier like him. He says that Reform UK has received millions and millions from the fossil fuel industry to promote climate denial and destroy the planet.
Nigel Farage urges you to ignore facts and reality and be a climate science denier like him. He says that Reform UK has received millions and millions from the fossil fuel industry to promote climate denial and destroy the planet.
Continue ReadingCOP30: Ode to the Amazon

Cop30 talks begin in Brazil with calls for faster action

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/cop30-talks-begin-brazil-calls-faster-action

 A pumpjack operates in the foreground while a wind turbine at the Buckeye Wind Energy wind farm rises in the distance, September 30, 2024, near Hays, Kansas, US

THE United Nations climate negotiations got under way today in the Brazilian city of Belem, known as the gateway to the Amazon River.

The negotiations follow the leaders’ summit which was held last Friday where leaders pushed for greater urgency and co-operation in the fight to curb global warming by drastically reducing the carbon pollution that causes it.

Andre Correa do Lago, president of this year’s Cop30, emphasised that negotiators engage in “mutirao,” a Brazilian word derived from an indigenous word that refers to a group uniting to work on a shared task.

“Either we decide to change by choice, together, or we will be imposed change by tragedy,” do Lago wrote in his letter to negotiators Sunday. “We can change. But we must do it together.”

Complicating the calls for togetherness is the United States. The Trump administration did not send high-level negotiators to the talks and is withdrawing for the second time from the 10-year-old Paris Agreement.

…

Article continues at https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/cop30-talks-begin-brazil-calls-faster-action

Donald Trump urges you to be a Climate Science denier like him. He says that he makes millions and millions for destroying the planet, Burn, Baby, Burn and Flood, Baby, Flood.
Donald Trump urges you to be a Climate Science denier like him. He says that he makes millions and millions for destroying the planet, Burn, Baby, Burn and Flood, Baby, Flood.
Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.
Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.
Nigel Farage urges you to ignore facts and reality and be a climate science denier like him and his Deputy Richard Tice. He says that Reform UK has received £Millions and £Millions from the fossil fuel industry to promote climate denial and destroy the planet.
Nigel Farage urges you to ignore facts and reality and be a climate science denier like him and his Deputy Richard Tice. He says that Reform UK has received £Millions and £Millions from the fossil fuel industry to promote climate denial and destroy the planet.
Continue ReadingCop30 talks begin in Brazil with calls for faster action