Teanaway Forks Salmon and Steelhead Habitat Restoration

The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) received $3,805,400 to revitalize five miles of steelhead, Chinook, and coho salmon spawning and rearing habitat in the West and Middle Forks of the Teanaway River. The project will involve berm removal and the installation of up to 2,500 large wood structures, transforming the river corridors into diverse and productive habitats while enhancing groundwater storage.

WDFW will contribute $423,200 in matching funds to support this effort.

“The Teanaway River watershed has some of the best and coldest streams for steelhead, Chinook, and coho in the Yakima River Basin. This funding will help remove barriers to salmon migration and improve habitat to support fish spawning and rearing,” said Sen. Maria Cantwell.

Sen. Patty Murray added, “This project will be transformative for endangered salmon and steelhead in the Teanaway River—revitalizing miles of spawning habitat and helping to create a healthier and more robust ecosystem.”

Sanpoil River Redband Trout Habitat Restoration

The Colville Tribes Fish and Wildlife Department was awarded $3,486,400 for habitat restoration in the Upper Columbia and Sanpoil River areas. The project will restore redband trout and other native fish habitats through the use of large woody debris, engineered log jams, livestock fencing, and riparian plant restoration.

“Redband trout are culturally significant to the Colville Tribes, and restoring populations is important to meeting the Tribes’ subsistence needs,” said Sen. Cantwell. “This funding will support the Tribes’ efforts to revitalize Redband trout and other native fish species in the Upper Columbia River Basin.”

Sen. Murray emphasized the project’s cultural and ecological importance, stating, “This grant will make a big difference in restoring native trout populations and habitat in the Upper Columbia and Sanpoil River, which is absolutely critical for Colville Tribal Members who rely on redband trout as an essential part of their culture, diet, and way of life.”

Upper Wenatchee Forest Health and Habitat Improvements

The Chelan County Natural Resource Department (CCNRD) secured $1.5 million to address forest health and aquatic restoration in the Upper Wenatchee Landscape. Efforts will include forest health treatments on 5,000 acres, 30 miles of aquatic restoration, and nine aquatic-organism passage projects across 15,000 acres in the Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest.

“The Okanogan-Wenatchee Forest is a hotspot every wildfire season—improving the health of the forest makes the habitat more resilient,” noted Sen. Cantwell.

Sen. Murray highlighted the forest's importance, saying, “The Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest is one of Washington state’s natural treasures. I’m glad we’re able to deliver this funding to invest in the long-term health of the forest, sustain local species and habitat, and ensure that generations to come can continue to enjoy and rely on this majestic natural resource.”

Investing in Washington’s Natural Resources

These projects are part of a larger effort under the America the Beautiful Challenge, which aims to conserve 30 percent of U.S. lands and waters by 2030. The funding will not only protect critical ecosystems but also support local economies, Tribal communities, and collaborative conservation efforts across the state.

“They are shouldering all of the hopes of their species,” says Alison Greggor, an ecologist who led the reintroduction for the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance, to the New York Times’ Catrin Einhorn. “They are the future.”

In the past, attempts to reintroduce ‘alalā to Hawaii’s Big Island during the 1990s and late 2010s did not turn out as well as scientists hoped. The crows were preyed upon by the Hawaiian hawk, or ʻio, its natural predator. With only about 110 Hawaiian crows remaining on Earth, conservationists built upon the lessons of those past reintroductions to try to secure hope for the species once more. On Maui, there are no ʻio, so the crows’ chance of survival is better.

“Conservation doesn’t happen overnight,” says Hannah Bailey, conservation program manager for the Hawaiian Endangered Birds Program at San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance, to Scientific American’s Elizabeth Anne Brown. “We’re still learning, and so are the birds.”

Conservationists selected the Kīpahulu Forest Reserve for its semi-isolation and vegetation, an ideal space for the birds. Over the past several months, the five crows—three males and two females—have formed a close-knit group, a bond that scientists hope will enhance their chance of survival in the wild. The birds were also evaluated based on their foraging success and predator response.

ʻAlalā is a species of crow that is about the size of the carrion crow, though it is presently extinct in the wild. (The individuals in this photo are not among the five individuals involved in the pilot release on Maui.) San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance

With so few living individuals, ‘alalā is the most endangered species in the crow family. The threats to their survival range from habitat loss to predation and disease. Their population numbers have dwindled since the 1970s. Now, this collaboration between nonprofit, state and federal partners has brought the species back to its forest home.

In Hawaiian culture, ‘alalā are spirit guardians, or ‘aumakua, per Scientific American. They often appear in dreams or visions to warn people of danger and act as protectors.

For Keanini Aarona, an avian recovery specialist at Maui Bird Conservation Center, it holds a special significance to care for ‘alalā, according to a statement from the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance. “To me, and in my culture, the ‘alalā are like our ancestors—our kūpuna. The forest wouldn’t be there without these birds.”

There is a shared ecology among the forest and its animals, and the ‘alalā have historically been part of it. They are also highly intelligent and charismatic creatures. Research has shown the crows even know how to use tools like sticks to bring food out of crevices.

“When you are in the presence of an ‘alala, it is a humbling moment,” says biologist Jacqueline Gaudioso-Levita, coordinator for the ‘Alalā Recovery Project, to Ke Kalahea’s Daisy Stewart. “Their intelligence and uniqueness is very apparent.”

The previous reintroduction effort between 2016 and 2020 saw a total of 30 ‘alala reintroduced on the Big Island. Initially, it was a success. Most survived for the first year, but their numbers started to dwindle, and in 2020, conservationists returned the remaining birds to human care. The effort, however, was not in vain—it proved essential for informing this new phase on Maui.

Reintroduction projects always come with some type of risk. In this case, as Maui is not the bird’s native range, introducing them to the habitat involves a risk of ecological consequences. For this reason, researchers chose a site where there were few animals of great concern, like rare snails and forest birds, to minimize the potential damage, per the Washington Post’s Dino Grandoni.

“We didn’t want to risk native species on Maui just in pursuit of finding a better path for ‘alalā,” says Michelle Bogardus, a deputy field supervisor at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, to the Washington Post. “We would not be doing this if we thought that this action was going to risk all of the other species that are also within our stewardship.”

On release day in early November, the five ‘alalā hesitantly made their way out of the aviary, where they had been acclimating for six weeks. The birds took their time, climbing atop the aviary first, then going from tree to tree. With time, they spread their wings and joined the forest.

It paid $44.4 million in a transaction that was finalized Oct. 15 and announced Nov. 29.

The Hilton Family Forest, as the parcel is known, is in Somerset and Franklin counties, according to a news release. The forest supports the local timber and maple sugar industries, and is a hub for recreational use, including hiking, biking, hunting, fishing, trapping, snowmobiling and ATV riding. It includes a segment of Maine's Interconnected Trail System.

The Conservation Fund said its goal with the deal is to safeguard wildlife habitat and its landscape connectivity, recreation access and economic benefits.

The fund is now working with the community to shape a permanent conservation solution.

“This land has long helped sustain the people of Jackman and Moose River and beyond, and it will continue to do so,” said Tom Duffus, fund’s vice president and Northeast representative based in Freeport. “The Conservation Fund is in the business of conservation — and we bought this land because we want to ensure it remains a working forest, supporting the local economy and community, all while maintaining the incredible habitats and recreation access that so many people enjoy.”

The organization said it targeted the forestland for acquisition when it faced possible conversion, subdivision and development.

The Hilton Land

The property is located along the Old Canada Road National Scenic Byway of Route 201 north of Jackman.

“The Hilton Land is a valued resource for the Jackman community,” said Kirstie Hale, Jackman’s town manager.

The land was on the market because the family decided after 70 years to sell, Duffus told Mainebiz.

The fund used capital from its Working Forests initiative, which includes some of the organization’s green bond funds.

Through the Working Forests initiative, when forestland becomes available, the fund can purchase “at-risk" forests, secure public and private funding to permanently protect them and resell the forests back to the private market, forever protected as working forests. 

Using the model, the fund has protected more than 1 million acres of working forests in 21 states.

Green bonds are an impact investment instrument. In 2019, the organization raised capital by issuing $150 million in taxable green bonds underwritten by Goldman Sachs. The 10-year bonds are a financing instrument dedicated to land conservation.

The property was marketed by LandVest, a real estae firm headquartered in Boston with multiple offices in Maine.

Features include a long-term, sustainably managed forest resource composed of natural hardwood and softwood types, with areas naturally well suited to regenerate and grow sugar maple and productive in maple sap, resulting in several commercial maple sugaring outfits operating on the property, according to marketing information.

“There are 10 commercial sugar producers working their sugar bushes and the balance of the forest will also continue to be managed sustainably,” said Duffus. “These activities are critical to the local economy and employment.”

The land contains populations of rare plant and animal species, including the golden eagle and peregrine falcon.

“Defining and implementing a sustainable, sensible conservation solution for the forest will take time, collaboration and financial support,” Duffus said. “We anticipate owning and managing this land for several years and eventually passing it, with permanent protections in place, to a private owner committed to advancing the forest’s conservation and economic benefits.”

The organization said it is working to raise funds to permanently safeguard the property and its benefits.

The amount to be raised is still to be determined. 

“We have about five to seven years to raise private funds to match Forest Legacy and other funds,” said Duffus.

Forest Legacy is a conservation program administered by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Forest Service in partnership with state agencies to encourage the protection of privately owned forest lands through conservation easements or land purchases. Since its creation in 1990, Forest Legacy has conserved over 3 million acres of forestland and expanded across the country to 53 states and territories.

Safeguarding the land will like mean establishing a conservation easement, possibly through the Forest Legacy program, said Duffus. 

“This will keep the land in private ownership, open for traditional recreation access, managed sustainably and on the tax rolls as it is under our ownership,” he said.

Conservation measures implemented by California water regulators have collectively added more than 1.2 million acre-feet of water — the equivalent of 16 feet —  to Lake Mead’s water storage, according to the Colorado River Board of California. 

The Colorado River Board of California highlighted the state’s conservation progress during the annual Colorado River Water Users Association’s conference in Las Vegas Wednesday. 

Commissioner Camille Calimlim Touton with the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation — the federal agency that manages the Colorado River basin — said “California has been an incredible partner” in the federal government’s efforts to stabilize the Colorado River. 

 “The conservation that California is contributing to the river is unprecedented. It is an example of what needs to happen in the river. It’s all of us together. It’s agriculture, it’s tribal nations, it’s municipalities,” Touton said.

After federal officials gave western states an ultimatum in 2022 to either voluntarily reduce water use, or be forced to by the federal government, several states agreed to voluntarily cut use.

Nevada, Arizona, and California committed to collectively reduce water use by at least 3 million acre-feet through the end of 2026, when the Colorado River’s current water management rules are set to expire.

The temporary water savings measure was implemented to balance the Colorado River while the seven states that rely on the river — Arizona, California, Nevada, Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming — work with the federal government on a new long-term water sharing agreement.

California water agencies took the largest water cuts, committing to conserve 1.6 million acre feet of water in Lake Mead by 2026. 

As of December, the state has reached about three-fourths of its water saving commitments ahead of the 2026 deadline – with 500,000 acre-feet of water conserved in 2024 and 700,000 acre-feet saved in 2023. 

Together, Nevada, Arizona, and California have managed to increase water elevation in Lake Mead by nearly 20 feet compared to two years ago, and conserved more water in 2023 than any previous year since 1984. Lake Mead still has a long way to full recovery, sitting at 33% capacity as of Wednesday. 

California water regulators argued that their efforts have not only improved levels in Lake Mead, but also reduced downstream water releases from the troubled Lake Powell reservoir, which serves Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming.

Western states along the Colorado River have been split into two camps for months over how to manage the river after 2026: Arizona, California, and Nevada in the lower basin; and Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming in the upper basin.

“Every user, sector, state, and basin must do their part to protect this river. No one has shown that more than California’s cities, farms, and tribes,” said JB Hamby, chairman of the Colorado River Board of California and Colorado River Commissioner for California.

“Actions speak louder than words, and we are proud to lead by example on the river,” Hamby continued.

Last month, the Bureau of Reclamation finally offered the clashing states four different management options for the river’s post-2026 operations agreement. The Reclamation proposals will serve as the foundation of new water management rules to replace the current ones.

California water savings over the past two years were produced through on-farm conservation programs, temporary and seasonal land-fallowing programs, curtailment of replenishment water for groundwater basins, turf replacement programs, and urban water efficiency efforts.

“Mother Nature provided us a helping hand over the last couple of years,” said Jim Madaffar, the vice chair of the Colorado River Board of California. 

Robust water years gave the state time to establish the collaborations and partnerships needed to conserve water for Lake Mead, said Madaffar.

“We know we still face challenges on the river due to drought in our changing climate, but the collaborations that you’ve seen really provide a benchmark for how we’re moving forward to ensure that the river continues to serve all users,” Madaffar continued.

According to recent estimates, there are nearly 7 billion smartphones in the world. With many tech companies avidly hoping you’ll upgrade your pocket computer annually ad nauseum, that means a lot of electronic waste (e-waste) in landfills leaking toxic chemicals detrimental to human and environmental health. And that’s only smartphones. The U.N. estimates that in 2022, the world produced 62 billion kilograms of e-waste—an 82 percent increase from just a decade earlier.

While other industries have started transitioning toward biodegradable products, electronics is more complicated, as it often relies on rare earth metals that produce toxic waste But now, the industry may be turning over a new leaf… literally. An international team of scientists, led by researchers at the Dresden University of Technology (TU Dresden) in Germany, have leveraged the quasi-fractal lignocellulose structures—essentially the veiny scaffolding of a leaf—in leaves to create biodegradable polymer films. In other words, they’ve made leaf-based electronics, or “leaftronics,” as the researchers called it. The details of this process were published in the journal Science Advances in November.

“We were surprised to find that these natural quasi-fractal lignocellulose skeletons not only support living cells in nature, but can also hold solution-processable polymers together, even at relatively high temperatures where these polymers should begin flowing,” TU Dresden’s Hans Kleemann, a co-author of the study, said in a press statement.

These natural quasi-fractal structures thermomechanically stabilized polymers films, but crucially did not impact their biodegradability along the way. Furthermore, the researchers demonstrated that these polymer films can withstand soldered circuitry and support organic light-emitting diodes, or OLEDS.

“Recycling rates have stagnated in the United States, despite the positive benefits recycling offers local economies and the environment,” said Matanya Horowitz, founder of AMP. “This latest investment enables us to tackle larger projects and deliver real outcomes for waste companies and municipalities – by lowering sortation costs, capturing more material value, diverting organic waste, and extending landfill life – all while helping the industry optimize its strategic assets.”

Founded in 2014, AMP Robotics said its AI platform has identified 150 billion items and guided the sortation of more than 2.5 million tons of recyclables. The company said its technology can help modernize and change the economics of resource recovery. It has three full-scale facilities and more than 400 AI systems deployed across North America, Asia, and Europe.

From sortation to AMP ONE

AMP Robotics said its AI uses deep learning to continuously train itself by processing millions of material images into data. The software uses pattern recognition of colors, textures, shapes, sizes, and logos to identify recyclables and contaminants in real time, enabling new offtake chemistries and capabilities, it added.

The company noted that its first products were a series of sorting robots deployed with minimal retrofit into existing recycling facilities. AMP then developed facilities that it claimed involve almost no manual sorting, are reliable, and provide “pervasive data.”

“These facilities make the recovery of commodities safer and more cost-effective than ever and have grown to encompass MSW sorting, an offering out of reach to the industry prior to the advent of AMP’s technology,” it said. “AMP ONE provides a full-scale facility solution to sort various material streams and capture more of the billions of dollars in value otherwise lost to landfills or incinerated annually.”

AMP Robotics marks recent deployments, new CEO

Recycling and Disposal Solutions demonstrated AMP ONE’s ability to cost-effectively sort MWS at its facility  in Portsmouth, Va. It has processed 150 tons per day of local waste with more than 90% uptime, said the company.

Last month, AMP Robotics entered into an agreement with Waste Connections Inc. to equip and operate one of Waste Connections’ single-stream recycling facilities in Colorado. 

“AMP provides meaningfully lower-cost, higher-performance systems to recover commodities and increase landfill diversion, and we’re uniquely positioned to reshape the waste and recycling landscape at a critical time,” said Tim Stuart, CEO of AMP. “We’re grateful to our longstanding and newest investors for their support in helping us chart a new path for sustainable materials management and resource efficiency.”

AMP last month augmented its leadership team with the appointment of Stuart, former chief operating officer for Republic Services Inc. Horowitz transitioned from CEO into the role of chief technology officer.

Congruent Ventures leads round

Congruent Ventures led AMP Robotics’ Series D round. Current and new investors participated, including Sequoia Capital, XN, Blue Earth Capital, Liberty Mutual Investments, California State Teachers Retirement System (CalSTRS), Wellington Management, Range Ventures, and Tao Capital Partners.

“AMP’s AI sortation systems enable consumers to recycle both with and without curbside separation and communities to benefit from the recovery of recycled commodities while reducing dependence on landfills,” added Abe Yokell, co-founder and managing partner of Congruent Ventures. “AMP is an example of the real-world impacts of AI; solutions like AMP’s will divert billions of tons of recyclable material from landfills while reducing emissions.”

Congruent Ventures is a leading early-stage venture firm focused on partnering with entrepreneurs to build companies addressing climate and sustainability challenges. The firm has more than $1 billion in assets under management across early-stage climate tech funds and 59 companies in its portfolio.

That kind of consumption is piling pressure on the Asian city state to address growing concerns about global water scarcity. So it’s building new technology to prepare itself for a future where obtaining clean water will be even more difficult.

“Singapore truly has become a global water hub,” said Shane Snyder, executive director of the Nanyang Environment & Water Research Institute at Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University. “But as it stands, it imports approximately 40% of its water today. And with climate change, that water has become far less dependable.”

Rapid urbanization and rising global temperatures are making access to natural water sources increasingly hard to come by. Today, a quarter of the world lives in areas of high water stress. Experts say we’re consuming natural resources faster than the earth can replenish them.

Singapore, meanwhile, is home to more than five million people and is covered in fountains, reservoirs and other water features — including the world’s tallest indoor waterfall, a 130-foot Rain Vortex that pumps 10,000 gallons of water per minute.But it has no natural water sources of its own, instead relying heavily on recycled water and imports from its neighbors.

Singapore is home to the world's tallest indoor waterfall, which pumps 10,000 gallons of water per minute.

Snyder’s research facility is one of several places developing solutions for Singapore’s water dependency. The hope is to create projects that could be used across the city.

“What we have become used to as reliable water, may quickly change — so we have to be prepared, we have to be thinking about the infrastructure in advance,” Snyder said. “There’s a big drive to become water independent — to control our own future — and that is largely dependent on the technologies we’re developing.”

One development: a small, black sponge called carbon fiber aerogel that the university says can clean waste water on a mass scale. The sponge absorbs 190 times its weight in waste, contaminants and microplastics.

The material is being further developed for commercial use by Singapore-based startup EcoWorth Technology. CEO Andre Stoltz said the company will first enter Singapore’s waste water market before eventually developing this material for use on a global scale.

“We believe it’s potential impact is very big,” Stoltz said, adding that the product allows the company “to convert waste products to something of worth.”

EcoWorth Tech says carbon-fiber aerogel can remove 190 times its weight in waste, contaminants and microplastics. 

EcoWorth

Another company, WateRoam, is already taking innovation from Singapore to the rest of the region. Founded in 2014, WateRoam says it has developed a lightweight, portable filtration device that they say has already provided clean drinking water to more than 75,000 people across Southeast Asia.

WateRoam CEO David Pong said one of the most innovative aspects of the product is its simplicity.

“We’re going with a no-frills approach because we’re looking at water as a basic problem and a basic commodity … and as a result, we needs basic technology to solve this problem,” Pong said. “We want people who are laymen— not specialists or engineers — to be able to pick up this product and intuitively know how to use it.”

The water filtration device is no bigger than a bicycle pump, yet it can provide clean water to villages of 100 people for up to two years, according to the company.

WateRoam's filtration device is designed to be as simple as possible. 

WateROAM

“We’ve been very blessed to have access to clean drinking water,” Pong said. “It’s a privilege that we should be able to bring forth to the rest of the region, and advocate that clean water is an essential aspect for life on earth.”

Now, researchers are taking a closer look at the molecular structure of this oddly powerful organism — and they’ve found that it could hold the secrets to replacing some types of plastics.

Parts of the fungus, formally called Fomes fomentarius, were found to have similar structural strength to plywood or leather but at a lower weight, according to a study published Wednesday in the journal Science Advances.

“F. fomentarius fruiting bodies are ingeniously lightweight biological designs, simple in composition but efficient in performance,” the study noted. “Growing the material using simple ingredients is an alternative solution to overcome the cost, time, mass production, and sustainability of how we make and consume materials in the future.”

What makes F. fomentarius so strong

Humans have long used F. fomentarius — also sometimes called “hoof fungus” because of its visual resemblance to a horse’s hoof — harvested in the wild to feed fires. It’s also been used to create some clothing items, including hats. But the fungus has only recently piqued the interest of the scientific community, according to the study.

Researchers at the VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland sought to analyze the internal structure of F. fomentarius more in depth, getting a glimpse of the microstructures that give the fungus its uniquely strong yet lightweight consistency. What they found was extremely promising, said study coauthor Dr. Pezhman Mohammadi, a senior scientist at VTT.

The fungus has structural integrity similar to certain grades of plastic and could be used to replace shock-absorbing materials used in things like football helmets and other sporting equipment; heat and sound insulators; and even consumer product parts, such as headset parts, Mohammadi said via email.

F. fomentarius “has a very stiff and hard protective outer layer, has softer spongy mid-layer, and a strong and tough inner layer each (of which) could outperform a different class of man-made and natural materials,” Mohammadi added.

Potential use of F. fomentarius

The researchers are not suggesting that tinder fungus should be harvested from the wild and funneled into the industrial process. That wouldn’t be economically viable, Mohammadi noted, and F. fomentarius takes seven to 10 years to grow to a significant size. The fungus, which is very common across the Northern Hemisphere, also plays a crucial role in its ecosystem, blooming on the bark of rotting beech and birch trees to aid the decomposition process.

But researchers have made promising steps toward growing the fungus or a similar species in a lab environment, Mohammadi said.

“With the advances in industrial biotechnology, we forecast the production of Metric Tons in a matter of weeks in contrast to wild-type mushrooms that take years to grow,” Mohammadi wrote in an email. “For example in our research institute, we have 1000-liter pilot scale bioreactors where this could be carried out.

“However, like any starting technology, it would take some years of R&D to be realized fully.”

The polluting coal plant is on its way out, scheduled for retirement in the next five years. It’s generated billions of dollars’ worth of electricity in its 50-year life, but the most valuable of its parts is the plug — how it connects to the grid that powers our homes.

Instead of letting it go to waste as the fossil fuel plant closes, Xcel Energy is going to leave it plugged in to connect the largest solar project in the Upper Midwest, and one of the largest in the entire country, directly to the grid.

Repurposing the so-called interconnection system is short-circuiting what could have been seven years of bureaucracy and red tape to get this electricity distributed to its customers.

Experts say this is the secret to solving America’s clean energy dilemma: There is more electricity from clean energy waiting to get connected to the grid than the entire amount of energy currently on the grid. The years-long delays are an existential threat to many projects’ chances of getting built.

A view of Sherco power plant, which has been operating since the 1970s and is slated for full retirement by 2030. Julian Quinones, CNN

Xcel Energy's Ryan Long explains how the company is leap-frogging the system to transition from coal to solar. Evelio Contreras/CNN

“It allows us to move much more quickly,” said Ryan Long, Xcel Energy’s Minnesota president, who called reusing the plant’s infrastructure “a real key to our strategy here.”

The US could essentially double the capacity of its electrical grid overnight by plugging renewables projects into old fossil fuel power plants, University of California Berkeley researchers found, whether they be coal, gas or oil. And projects could be plugged into existing plants, not just ones that are retiring.

“This should be one of the main strategies that we adopt going forward, because we already have so many existing assets, so much grid infrastructure and we don’t want to just throw them away,” said Umed Paliwal, a senior scientist at UC Berkeley and a lead author of the study.

It is far faster to build a project like Sherco solar right now than it is for that project to connect to the electric grid. That’s because room needs to be made on the grid to add new sources of energy, which requires lengthy engineering studies and uncertain project timelines. A cheap, clean energy boom is now running up against this complex, regional bureaucracy.

Rob Gramlich, CEO of consulting firm Grid Strategies LLC, likens plugging renewable projects into existing interconnection sites to using a fast pass to skip the long lines at Disney.

“There’s a line everybody wants to get on, and then somebody just has this Disney pass to skip the line,” Gramlich said. “It’s a sensitive topic to talk about, jumping around the interconnection queue. But the reality is, it’s there.”

From super-polluters to clean energy juggernauts

The answer to supercharging clean energy could lie inside some of the most polluting power plants in the US.

Sherco has been Minnesota’s largest coal-fired power plant — and its biggest polluter — since it was built over the course of the 1970s and 80s. Its smokestacks emitted around 10.5 million tons of planet-warming pollution in 2022 alone, the equivalent of over 2 million cars spewing emissions in a year.

CNN's Bill Weir looks at the coal fire that generates energy for thousands of customers through a protective welder's mask. Julian Quinones, CNN

Outside the plant, solar panels span acres of farmland. Sherco — a fossil fuel behemoth — looks small in comparison. 

Julian Quinones, CNN

But as Berkeley researchers found, plants like Sherco that are either gradually retiring or even still operating are good candidates for renewables to plug into their infrastructure.

“Any fossil fuel power plant does not operate every single hour of the day,” said Sonia Aggarwal, CEO of clean energy think tank Energy Innovation, and a former White House climate official. “The other hours — that big plug, this really valuable resource that everyone is waiting years to get access to — that’s just sitting there, not being used.”

Aggarwal and Paliwal argue this method allows utilities to have the best of both worlds; they can build wind and solar farms nearby, put that clean energy on the grid during the hours a coal or gas plant isn’t producing electricity, and not have to entirely shut down a plant.

Doing so brings a multitude of benefits. It helps save jobs at a plant that might otherwise be threatened by closure and helps increase the local tax base around the plants. In Minnesota, Xcel is promising no layoffs for workers at the Sherco coal plant.

“We really need them to stay at those coal plants until the end of (the plant’s) life because they do provide critical reliability and energy for our communities,” Long said. “When the time is right, we’ll find them a job at Xcel Energy and we’ll retrain them and position them for success in that role.”

It can also result in savings for electric customers, as the plants ramp down coal and switch to wind and solar, which are far cheaper sources of energy.

The Berkeley study considered several factors to determine good candidates for interconnection: whether there was land nearby a thermal plant suitable for wind and solar; how much energy could be generated by the sun or wind; and how much renewable energy could be fed into a plant’s interconnection system.

The answer to that last question? A lot.

Paliwal and his colleagues found that by 2032, utilities could install a whopping 1,000 gigawatts of new clean energy near power plants that checked all three boxes. And those are the big numbers America needs; energy analysts believe data centers, AI and the increased demand as people electrify homes and cars.

Several power plants in Illinois are attempting something similar, and in Virginia, a new solar array is plugging into the interconnection at a nearby gas plant.

Solar panels sit on acres of old farmland in Becker, Minnesota — part of Xcel Energy's massive Sherco solar project. Julian Quinones, CNN

For Pete Wyckoff, who serves as the Minnesota Commerce Department’s deputy commissioner of energy resources, the Sherco solar farm represents a chance to produce energy locally.

“We’re a good wind and solar state,” Wyckoff said. “Anything we burn that’s fossil fuel, we are importing. We are making the wind and solar electricity here.”

It’s also a huge step forward for Minnesota’s climate and clean energy goals. Under its Democratic governor and 2024 vice-presidential candidate Tim Walz, the state is aggressively trying to decarbonize its power sector — getting to 100% clean electricity by 2040.

“That is a key driver for how we’re going to decarbonize the rest of the economy,” Wykoff said. “We’re aiming to be clean economy-wide by 2050. And I think we can get there.”

Scientists analyzed coal ash from power plants across the United States and found it could contain up to 11 million tons of rare earth elements — nearly eight times the amount the US has in domestic reserves — worth around $8.4 billion, according to recent research led by the University of Texas at Austin.

It offers a huge potential source of domestic rare earth elements without the need for new mining, said Bridget Scanlon, a study author and research professor at UT’s Jackson School of Geosciences. “This really exemplifies the ‘trash to treasure’ mantra,” she said. “We’re basically trying to close the cycle and use waste and recover resources in the waste.”

These so-called rare earths are a cluster of metallic elements, with names like scandium, neodymium and yttrium, which exist in the Earth’s core. They have a critical role in clean technology, including electric vehicles, solar panels and wind turbines.

Despite their name, these metals are not rare in nature, but can be hard to extract and separate from the ore that surrounds them such that demand is outpacing supply.

As the world moves away from planet-heating fossil fuels, more rare earths will be needed. Demand for the metals is expected to soar up to seven times current levels by 2040, according to the International Energy Agency.

Yet US supply remains small. Its only large scale rare earths mine is Mountain Pass in California. The country currently imports more than 95% of its rare earth elements, the vast majority of which come from China, posing supply chain and security issues.

“We need to improve the situation,” Scanlon told CNN. That’s why there has been a move to look at unconventional sources of rare earths, she said, “and one of these sources is coal and coal byproducts.”

Coal ash contains relatively low concentrations of rare earth elements compared to what can be mined directly from underground deposits. The advantage is that it’s readily available. Around 70 million tons of coal ash is produced each year in the US.

“There’s huge volumes of this stuff all over the country. And the upfront process of extracting… is already taken care of for us,” said Davin Bagdonas, a study co-author and research scientist at the University of Wyoming.

The aftermath of the collapse of a coal ash pond at the TVA Kingston Fossil Plant in Harriman, Tennessee, on December 22, 2008. Wade Payne/AP

The Dallman coal ash pond in Springfield, Illinois, in November 2021. 

Justin L. Fowler/The State Journal-Register/USA Today Network/Imagn Images

Where the coal is from determines how straightforward rare earth extraction would be, the study found.

Coal ash from the Appalachian Basin contains the highest amounts of rare earth elements, but only 30% can be extracted. Coal ash from the Powder River Basin, which straddles Wyoming and Montana, has the lowest average concentration of elements but more than 70% can be extracted.

The extraction process from coal ash could be costly, said Paul Ziemkiewicz, director of the Water Research Institute at West Virginia University, who was not involved in the study. The costs of mining need to be weighed against how much product can be recovered, he told CNN.

“Strong acids and bases are needed to extract rare earth elements. Both are expensive,” Ziemkiewicz said. Coal ash from the West can contain higher concentrations of alkaline minerals, he added, which would increase costs as alkalinity neutralizes the acid.

The more chemicals required for the process, the higher the potential environmental impacts.

Rare earth elements also only make up a tiny proportion of coal ash, Ziemkiewicz added, so their extraction “wouldn’t change the volume requiring disposal and storage.” Coal ash contains contaminants like mercury, arsenic and lead, making it a very risky waste stream.

The study authors, however, suggest the value from extracting rare earth metals could be used to offset the costs of improving the way coal ash is stored and managed.

In April, the Biden administration announced a $17.5 million investment into projects to extract rare earths from coal and its waste.

The funding “will increase our national security while helping rebuild America’s manufacturing sector and revitalize energy and mining communities across the country,” Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said in a statement at the time.

Some have expressed concerns that transforming coal ash into something valuable could be used to push for more coal, the dirtiest of the planet-heating fossil fuels.

It’s not something Scanlon is too concerned about. “We will be using legacy waste for the most part,” Scalon said. There are currently more than 2 billion tons of coal ash stored across the US, according to the Department of Energy. “There is no indication that future reliance upon coal ash as a feedstock for critical materials will incentivize coal power,” said a DOE spokesperson.

The broader aim is to find out ways to get a range of products from coal in addition to rare earths, Scanlon said, to extract value from it without burning it.