DNR expert speaks for the trees

New clean energy laws might encourage developers to raze Michigan’s forests, a forestry specialist in the Department of Natural Resources, wrote to DNR colleagues in a March email.

Michigan law calls for the state to derive 50% of its power from renewable energy by 2030. The law increases that requirement to 60% renewable by 2035 and a 100% "clean energy portfolio" by 2040.

Renewables provided 11% of Michigan’s electricity net generation in 2023, with wind energy providing 64% of that amount, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

Michigan must balance the goal of lowering carbon emissions with protecting Michigan’s 20 million acres of forest, Mike Smalligan, a forestry stewardship coordinator for the Department of Natural Resources, said in an email Michigan Capitol Confidential obtained through a public records request.

“Michigan has net zero deforestation right now, but the clean energy laws might have the unintended consequences increasing deforestation clearing forests for solar,” Smalligan wrote to colleagues March 21, 2024.

Michigan might need to use as many as 209,000 acres for solar panels and wind turbines, CapCon previously reported.

“Right now Michigan is net zero on deforestation losing 46,119 acres of forest to urban sprawl and gaining 48,188 acres of forest, likely from abandoned agriculture,” Smalligan wrote. ”These are 2020 data and I am very worried that the clean energy bills demanding tons of solar will greatly increase deforestation in Michigan in the next 5 years. I am hearing stories about 600-acre, 1,000-acre, and 2,000-acre deforestation events for solar near Gaylord and Marquette.”

The state leases 4.6 million acres of public lands for forestry, public recreation, hunting and wildlife habitat management, among other uses, according to DNR public information officer Ed Golder.

“State land is currently leased for gas and oil wells and processing facilities, pipelines and flowlines, mines, sand and gravel pits, an asphalt plant and cell phone towers,” Golder wrote in an email to CapCon. “All of these uses are carefully regulated, meet high standards of environmental care, and demonstrate the variety of state land uses that can benefit residents and the economy. The DNR’s approach to land management and leasing balances the state’s economic needs with our mission of conservation and sustainability.”

The state has leased more than 350,000 acres of public lands for oil and gas development and issued over 10,000 drilling permits, compared to two solar development leases on public lands that cover 1,324 acres, Golder said.

“To date, no part of the land leased for solar has been developed with solar panels,” Golder said.

Once those solar panels start generating power, some of the revenue derived from them will fund future solar projects, Golder said.

“Thus, there will be no net loss of forest land on state managed public land,” Golder wrote. “In fact, once solar leases run their course and previously forested acres used for solar have been returned to forest land, there will be a net gain in forest land in the department’s public land portfolio.”

The state will devote no more than 4,000 acres of state-managed public lands for solar development – less than one-tenth of one percent of the DNR’s overall public land ownership Golder wrote.

Building wind and solar projects is expensive and risky, but they only provide intermittent energy, said Jason Hayes, director of energy and environmental policy at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, in an email to CapCon.

"The governor has said Michigan must move to solar and wind power,” Hayes wrote. “But these technologies are inherently unreliable, and it takes a lot of solar and wind installations to make up for the loss of fossil fuels. Even then, they are not economical, absent government support. Finally, Michigan is too far north and has too many cloudy days for us to depend on these questionable energy sources."