Local Energy Rules

Less than 700 yards is all that separates Prairie Island Indian Community homes from the Prairie Island Nuclear Generating Plant and its growing stockpile of nuclear waste. For this episode of the Local Energy Rules Podcast, host John Farrell speaks with community members and experts to learn more about the history of Prairie Island Indian Community and the construction of the nuclear plant next door. This is part one in a special three-part series, Seven Hundred Yards: How a Native Nation Resisted the Nuclear Plant Next Door. The series examines how powerful players sited the nuclear plant, and its waste, next to Prairie Island Indian Community, and how Tribal members and their allies have stood up for their rights — in the process, growing a clean energy future for the community and Minnesota as a whole. Listen to the full episode and explore more resources here — including a transcript and summary of the conversation. Also check out the accompanying StoryMap as part of ILSR’s 50th-Anniversary Racial Justice Storytelling Project. Note: This episode discusses events related to the United States’ genocide and killing of Indigenous peoples. Listen with care.

Advocating for a distributed, democratized clean energy transition involves a never-ending series of legal and regulatory battles. For this episode of the Local Energy Rules Podcast, host John Farrell is joined by Mariel Nanasi, executive director of New Energy Economy. They discuss New Energy Economy’s efforts before lawmakers, regulators, and courts to protect consumers from the nefarious plans of New Mexico’s investor-owned utilities. Listen to the full episode and explore more resources below — including a transcript and summary of the conversation. Episode Transcript Mariel Nanasi: It’s a sad situation because that’s what we see. It’s not only that they’re the single greatest cause of climate disruption, and it’s not only that there’s so much income inequality as a result of the energy domination of these fossil fuel interests, but they also undermine democracy. And they have so much money that they can literally buy legislators. John Farrell: Trying to defend the public interest in an electricity system run by for-profit monopoly companies can be like a game of whack-a-mole. No one knows this metaphor better than Marielle Nanasi, executive director of New Energy Economy. When we spoke in March of 2024, we discussed the numerous ways she has had to intervene to protect New Mexicans from the predatory actions of its largest electric company PNM, including from a merger with multinational company Avangrid, and in the utility’s own words, was to establish a beachhead in the state. I’m John Farrell, director of the Energy Democracy Initiative at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance. And this is Local Energy Rules, a podcast about monopoly power, energy democracy, and how communities can take charge to transform the energy system. Mariel, welcome back to Local Energy Rules. Mariel Nanasi: Thank you so much for having me. John Farrell: I wanted to start off just by asking you, because I’ve been asking this of all my guests and didn’t get a chance to the first time you were on, about how did you get into this work? How did you become this leader of New Energy Economy and investing so much of yourself and your life in fighting monopoly utility power? Mariel Nanasi: Well, it was sort of organic, I will say. First I thought, well, all we have to do is tell the utility, hey, you got to switch to solar. And they would because it makes sense because we have the sun Zia on our flag in New Mexico and it’s cheaper and why wouldn’t they want that? And that led me down the rabbit hole of what has been my life for the last 15 years and realized that in fact the monopolies, the monopoly utilities, they don’t hate solar because of any ideological reasons. They hate solar because it works and it’s contrary to the capitalist model. And in the monopoly model, as you and your listeners probably know, the way they make money is by spending more money and getting what’s called an ROE – return on equity when they spend more money. So when they spend more money, they get an average of 10% guarantee on top of that. So we did a deposition of the general manager of the San Juan coal plant, one of the dirtiest coal plants that was operational for so long until we finally closed it in 2022. And he said, look, we had two budgets. There was an operations and maintenance budget where they don’t make that ROE and there’s another budget. It’s a capital budget. And for that they make this essentially a 10% ROE. At the time it was 9.575% for PNM. So we were encouraged by senior management to move as many things from our O&M operations and maintenance budget to the capital budget. In fact, there’s a person whose job, whose sole job at the utility is to do that, is to figure out ways to move projects, move any kinds of things that they’re trying to fix. And so he says, let me just give you an example. He says, you have a car and you have to put in oil twice a year and that costs you 30 bucks each time, but if you don’t do it, your engine dies in five...

A community-owned clean energy project has a lot more to offer than just electricity. For this episode of the Local Energy Rules Podcast, host John Farrell is joined by Christina Hollenback, CEO of Justice Capital, and Joseph McNeil, CEO of SAGE Development Authority. They discuss how SAGE Development Authority has created a model for community-led wind development and why community ownership is so important to the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. Listen to the full episode and explore more resources below — including a transcript and summary of the conversation. Episode Transcript Joseph McNeil: We’re willing to work with anybody else about what we’ve done, how we’ve done it, because it’s not something that we’re trying to sell. This is a gift and more frontline communities need to be moving into this space so that we can change the outlook and at least what we expect from energy systems that are developer centric, business centric, profit driven, back getting to a place where communities are standing first in that space instead of investors. John Farrell: Smack in the middle of the Dakotas on the border between north and south, the SAGE Development Authority of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe is working on Anpetu Wi wind project, whose name means first rays of the morning sun. Unlike most large renewable energy projects on tribal lands, this project will purposefully align tribal values of sovereignty, no harm to the environment or areas of cultural significance, and it will provide financial resources to support long-term development for the tribe. The key is ownership, and in November, 2023, my two guests, Joseph McNeil, CEO of SAGE Development Authority for the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, and Christina Hollenbeck, CEO of Justice Capital, explained how they’ve structured the project to maximize the benefits and control for the Standing Rock Tribe. I’m John Farrell, director of the Energy Democracy Initiative at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, and this is Local Energy Rules, a podcast about monopoly power, energy democracy, and how communities can take charge to transform the energy system. Joseph and Christina, welcome to Local Energy Rules. Christina Hollenback: Thanks. Joseph McNeil: Thank you. Great to be here. John Farrell: So I love to start off my podcast just kind of asking how people got into the work that they’re doing now. So maybe if I could start with you, Christina, and just ask kind of what motivated you to get into doing clean energy development? Why work on the capital stack, as some people like to call it, for clean energy? Christina Hollenback: I started out in a really, I guess I reverse engineered my position, which was as a water protector, as someone who believed deeply in community sovereignty and community ownership and really trusted and believed in frontline communities all over the world to lead the just transition, I realized there’s a huge gap and the gap was actually structuring those deals, both the social capital as well as the very legalese economic structures that extractive industries have really perfected, right? But there wasn’t an entity to be a stop gap and support frontline communities to structure those deals, structure the capital stack in a way that would honor their vision, their values, the equity that they have in those projects and ensure that community governance and community benefit were core to those structures. And so that’s where Justice Capital founded and now as we both convene investors to be able to operate and partner with community partners like SAGE, it’s always an honor and then working with folks like SAGE to help them structure and raise the capital that they need to be able to win. John Farrell: Wonderful, thank you, Christina. And Joseph, what motivated you to get into clean energy development? Why are you helping develop a 235 megawatt wind project? Joseph McNeil: It goes back for myself looking at turbines, going up all around the reservation in North...

Gregory Woodring discusses the ways that investor-owned utility DTE Energy has failed Ann Arbor customers and how the city could take over and provide better service.… Read More

Dorrie Bruggemann and Bill Powers discuss how a publicly-owned San Diego electric utility would be more supportive of distributed solar, offer lower rates thanks to that solar, and what it will take to bring the municipalization decision to voters.… Read More

Charlie Fisher discusses the upcoming Salt River Project election and how clean energy advocates could flip the public utility's board and reverse anti-solar and anti-democratic policies.… Read More

Michael Murray explains the many capabilities of smart meters, his critique of a Rhode Island utility proposal to expand advanced metering, and how state and federal regulators can establish best practices for fairness and data access.… Read More

Chris Rauscher explains the benefits of coordinating distributed energy resources, how residential solar and storage customers have saved their neighbors from blackouts, and why every utility could be offering a virtual power plant program.… Read More

Pouya Najmaie discusses the strengths and weaknesses of Minnesota’s community solar program, its many regulatory and legislative changes over the years, and how utility Xcel Energy has found a new way to try to suppress distributed generation.… Read More

In this episode from the archive, Howard Crystal and Liz Veazey discuss a petition to the Federal Trade Commission and why electric utility practices require federal investigation. ILSR first published this interview in June of 2022.… Read More

For this milestone 200th episode, John Farrell reflects on 10 years of making the Local Energy Rules podcast, shares what he has learned from over 200 guests, and answers some listener questions.… Read More

Matt Flaherty discusses the barriers to home energy upgrades, how inclusive utility investment is a scalable solution that addresses many of these barriers, and what it will take to get utilities on board with on-bill financing.… Read More

Ben Kuebrich discusses New York’s Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act, what to expect when gas utilities do their own decarbonization planning, and how states and clean energy advocates can actually address methane gas use in the buildings sector.… Read More

Lucy Hochschartner explains how public power would have been an improvement over Maine’s investor-owned utilities, yet didn’t receive the support of Maine voters on November 7th.… Read More

Frances Sawyer and Maria McCoy discuss ILSR’s new report on rural electric co-ops and how federal dollars can meet the growing momentum of co-op member-owners organizing around affordability, clean energy, and local control.… Read More

Lynne Kiesling explains why allowing incumbent monopolies into new markets is too big of a risk for innovation and the public interest, particularly in the context of Xcel Energy’s major electric vehicle charging proposal.… Read More

Steve Fenberg discusses Colorado’s Senate Bill 291, which changed incentives in the investor-owned utility business model to protect Colorado consumers from high fossil fuel costs and protects captive customers from paying for the utility to lobby against their own interests.… Read More

Ben Inskeep discusses Indiana’s backward solar policy, why local solar is a threat to utilities, and how to go up against the powerful entrenched interests of monopolies.… Read More

Sachu Constantine explains the obstacles and opportunities arising for the electric grid as customers become generators and what California got wrong in its 2022 net metering decision.… Read More

Seth Handy explains how utilities have, through loopholes in federal guidance and friends on public regulatory bodies, protected their own interests at the expense of clean energy projects.… Read More