A major expansion of battery storage may be the most economical and environmentally beneficial way for Illinois to maintain grid reliability as it phases out fossil fuel generation, a new study finds.

The analysis was commissioned by the nonprofit Clean Grid Alliance and solar organizations as state lawmakers consider proposed incentives for private developers to build battery storage.

“The outlook is not great for bringing on major amounts of new capacity to replace the retiring capacity,” said Mark Pruitt, former head of the Illinois Power Agency and author of the study, which suggests batteries will be a more realistic path forward than a massive buildout of new generation and transmission infrastructure. 

The proposed legislation — SB 3959 and HB 5856 — would require the Illinois Power Agency to procure energy storage capacity for deployment by utilities ComEd and Ameren. Payments would be based on the difference between energy market prices and the costs of charging batteries off-peak, to ensure the storage would be profitable. The need for incentives would theoretically ratchet down over time. 

“As market prices for power go up, your incentive goes down,” Pruit said. “The idea is to provide an incentive that bridges the gap between the cost of battery technology and the value in the market. Over time, those will equalize and level out.” 

The bills, introduced in May at the end of the legislature’s spring session, would amend existing energy law to add energy storage incentives to state policy, along with existing incentives for nuclear and renewables. 

The study noted that Illinois will need at least 8,500 new megawatts of capacity and possibly as much as 15,000 new megawatts between 2030 and 2049, with increased demand driven in part by the growth of data centers. Twenty-five data centers being proposed in Illinois would use as much energy as the state’s five nuclear plants generate, according to nuclear plant owner Exelon’s CEO Calvin Butler Jr., quoted by Bloomberg. 

The North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) found in its summer and winter 2024 assessments that within MISO and PJM regional grids, Wisconsin, Michigan, Minnesota, Illinois and Indiana are all at “elevated” risk of insufficient capacity. 

“NERC, PJM, MISO and the Illinois Commerce Commission have all identified the potential for capacity shortfalls,” said Pruitt. “You do have some options for alleviating that. You can build transmission and bring in capacity from outside the state. You can maintain your current domestic generating capacity [without retiring fossil fuel plants]. You could expand your domestic generating capacity. And an independent variable is your growth rate. All these have to work together, there’s no silver bullet. We know there are major challenges on each of those fronts.” 

Gloomy numbers 

The latest PJM capacity auction results showed capacity prices increasing from $28.92/MW-Day for the 2024/25 period to $269.92/MW-Day — a nearly 10-fold increase — for the following year. That “translates into an annual cost increase of about $350 for a typical single-family household served by ComEd,” Pruitt said. “The increase in costs indicates that more capacity supply is required to meet capacity demand in the future.” 

There are many new generation projects in the queue for interconnection by MISO and PJM, but many of them drop out before ever being deployed because of unviable economics, long delays, regulatory challenges and other issues. A recent study by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory noted that while interconnection requests for renewables have skyrocketed since the Inflation Reduction Act, only 15% of interconnected capacity was actually completed in PJM and MISO between 2000 and 2018, and experts say similar completion rates persist. 

“This finding indicates that deploying sufficient new capacity resources to offset [fossil fuel] retirements is not likely to occur in the near term,” said Pruitt. “Just because something is planned doesn’t mean it gets built.” 

Meanwhile the state is running out of funds for the purchase of renewable energy credits (RECs) that are crucial to driving wind and solar development. The 2024 long-term renewable resources procurement plan by the IPA shows the state’s fund for renewables reaching a deficit in 2028, so that spending on RECs from renewables will have to be scaled back by as much as 60%. 

Long-distance transmission lines could bring wind energy or other electricity from out of state. But planned transmission lines have faced hurdles. The Grain Belt Express transmission line, in the works for a decade, was in August denied needed approval from an Illinois appellate court. The transmission line, proposed by Invenergy, would have brought wind power from Kansas to load centers to the east. 

“That sets it back years,” Pruitt said. “Transmission is a very long-term solution. I’m sure people are working diligently on it, but it’s five to 10 years before you get something approved and built.” 

Value proposition, solar benefits 

Pruitt’s study found that if 8,500 MW of energy storage were deployed between 2030 and 2049, Illinois customers could see up to $3 billion in savings compared to if they had to foot the bill for increased capacity without new storage. The savings would come because of lower market prices in capacity auctions, as well as investment in new transmission and generation that would be avoided. 

Pruitt found that $11 billion to $28 billion in macro-level economic benefits could also result, with blackouts avoided, reduced fossil fuel emissions and jobs and economic stimulus created. 

Pruitt’s analysis indicates that the incentives proposed in the legislation would cost $6.4 billion to customers. But the storage would result in $9.4 billion in savings compared to the status quo, hence a $3 billion overall savings between 2030 and 2049. 

“Solar is great, but solar is an intermittent resource; battery storage when paired with solar allows it to be far more reliable,” said Andrew Linhares, Central Region senior manager for the Solar Energy Industry Association. “Battery storage is not as cheap as solar, but its reliability is its hallmark. Combining the resources gives you a cheap and reliable resource.” 

“Solar and storage is this powerful tool that can help reduce costs for consumers and create new jobs and economic activity,” he continued. “I don’t believe that same picture is there for building out new natural gas resources. Anything that helps storage, helps solar and vice versa. CEJA sees these two technologies as being joined at the hip for the future, they are being seen more and more as a single resource.”

Study suggests a big role for grid battery storage as Illinois shutters its coal power plants is an article from Energy News Network, a nonprofit news service covering the clean energy transition. If you would like to support us please make a donation.

Darryl Moton is ready to “get on a roof.”

The 25-year-old Chicago resident is among the latest graduates of an intensive 13-week solar training course that’s helping to connect employers with job candidates from underrepresented backgrounds.

Moton was referred by another job readiness program meant to keep youth away from gun violence. He “never knew about solar” before but now sees himself owning a solar company and using the proceeds to fund his music and clothing design endeavors.

He and others interviewed for jobs with a dozen employers assembled at a church on Chicago’s West Side on August 1 as part of the fourth training cohort for the 548 Foundation, which is partnering with Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker on a recently-announced $30 million initiative to create 1,000 solar jobs in Chicago’s South and West side neighborhoods.   

The 548 Foundation is part of 548 Enterprise, a suite of renewable energy and affordable housing development projects, launched in 2019 and named after the public housing unit where co-founder A.J. Patton grew up. 

The idea is to help keep housing affordable by using solar to lower energy bills, while training people left out of the traditional energy economy to supply that solar. 

“When you invest in a community, the biggest question is who benefits, who gets the jobs?” asked Patton, during the job fair. “This is as good as it gets,” he added, about the recent state investment. “We just have to keep advocating for quality policy.” 

Employers at the job fair said such training programs are crucial for them to find workers in Illinois, where robust solar incentives are attracting many out-of-state companies eager to hire and hit the ground. Mike Huneke, energy operations manager for Minnesota-based Knobelsdorff said he has hired 18 employees from previous 548 cohorts, and he expected to make about six job offers after the recent interviews. 

“Illinois is on fire,” said Huneke. “We’re not from Illinois, so finding this new talent pipeline is what we need. We have a ton of projects coming up.” 

Lisa Cotton, 30, has dreamed of being an electrician since she was a kid. She had received two job offers at the August 1 fair before the group even broke for lunch. 

“A lot of times you go through a training program, get a certificate, and that’s the end of it,” said Jacqueline Williams of the Restoring Sovereignty Project, a partner which administers the wraparound services for the training program. 

The 548 program makes sure to connect graduates with employers, and only companies with specific openings to fill are invited to the job fair. 548 and its partners also stay in contact with graduates and employers to make sure the placement is successful. 

“We have a post-grad program where they can call us any time, and an alumni fund. If an employer says, ‘This guy can’t come to work because his radiator is busted,’ we’ll take care of that,” said Williams. 

Achieving equity   

After Illinois passed an ambitious clean energy law in 2017, multiple solar training programs were launched in keeping with the law’s equity provisions. But employers and advocates were frustrated by a seeming disconnect in which many trainees never got solar jobs, and employers weren’t sure how to find the workers. 

Since then, the state has passed another clean energy law – the 2021 Climate & Equitable Jobs Act, with even more ambitious equity mandates; and non-profit organizations have developed and honed more advanced workforce training programs. To access incentives under the law, employers need to hire a percent of equity-eligible applicants that rises to 30% by 2030. The program prioritizes people impacted by the criminal justice system, alumni of the foster care system, and people who live in equity-designated communities. 

548 affiliates help employers navigate the paperwork and requirements involved in the equity incentives. Several employers at the job fair said this is a plus, but noted that regardless of equity, they are desperate for the type of highly-trained, enthusiastic candidates coming out of the 548 program. 

“This is a great way to bridge what the state is trying to do with its clean energy goals, and connecting under-represented people with these opportunities,” said Annette Poulimenos, talent acquisition manager of Terrasmart, a major utility-scale solar provider. “We came here ready to hire, and I think we’re going to walk away with some new talent.”   

Member organizations of the Chicago Coalition for Intercommunalism do outreach to recruit most of the training program participants. 

Nicholas Brock found out about the training thanks to a staffer at one of these organizations who noticed his professional attitude and punctuality as he walked by every morning to a different workforce program. 

“Whatever I do, nine times out of 10, I’m the first one to get there, before the managers,” said Brock, 20. “He noticed that and asked me, ‘Have you ever heard about solar panels?’” 

Brock knew little about solar at that point, but now he aims to be a solar project manager. 

“I’m so glad I came here,” he said. “They bring out the best in you.” 

Full service 

Wraparound, holistic services are key to the program’s success. During the training and for a year afterwards, trainees and alumni can apply for financial help or other types of assistance. 

“There are so many barriers, it might be child care or your car is impounded,” said Williams. “We might be writing a letter to a judge asking to ‘please take him off house arrest so he can work.’ It’s intensive case management, navigating the bureaucratic anomalies that arise when you’re system-impacted.”

Moises Vega III, 26 – who always wanted to work in renewables because “it’s literally the future” – noted that his car battery died during the training program, and he was provided funds to get his vehicle working again. 

While ample support is available, the program itself is rigorous and demanding. Classes meet from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. each day, and trainees are required to check their phones at the door and be fully focused, notes instructor and 548 workforce strategies director Michael Thomas. During the hands-on boot camp week, the day starts at 6 a.m. 

“That’s when the trades start,” noted Thomas. “You need to figure out how that works, how will you get child care at 5:30 a.m.?” 

Sixty-one trainees started in the first three cohorts, and 46 graduated, the first group in July 2023. The fourth cohort started with 25, and as of the job fair, 18 were on track to graduate. Eighty-five percent of graduates from the first three cohorts are currently working in the field, according to 548. 

“Even though I wish the graduation rate were higher, the people who commit to it, stay with it,” said Kynnée Golder, CEO of Global HR Business Solutions, which has an oversight role for the 548 Foundation. “It’s monumental, it’s life-changing for a lot of people.” 

Comprehensive curriculum 

The curriculum starts with life skills, including interpersonal relationships, resume-building, financial planning and more. Each day begins with a spiritual reflection. 

The students learn about electricity and energy, and soon move into specific instruction on solar installation and operation. Rooms at St. Agatha’s church served as labs, where students connected wires, built converters and eventually mounted solar panels on a demonstration pitched, shingled roof. 

Terrance Hanson, 40, credited Thomas as “the best instructor ever.” 

“I’m not a young kid, my brain is no longer a sponge,” Hanson said. “He made sure I got it all. Now I feel like I know so much, I’m confident and prepared to get out and show what I can do.” 

He added that people in disinvested neighborhoods have ample untapped potential to be part of the clean energy workforce.  

“You see a lot of basketball players in my community because there are a lot of basketball hoops,” he said. “If there were golf courses in the hood, you would see more golfers. It’s about opportunities. And this was the most amazing and empowering thing I’ve ever been through.” 

Jack Ailey co-founded Ailey Solar in 2012, making it the oldest still-operating residential installer in Illinois, by his calculations. He noted that there can be high turnover among installers, and intensive training and preparation is key. 

“You’re out there in the sun, the cold, it’s heavy physical labor, wrestling 40-pound panels up to the roof,” he said. “You have to know what you’re getting into.” 

“Some training programs vary in quality,” Ailey added, but he was impressed by the candidates at the 548 job fair. 

Trainees test for and receive multiple certifications, including the OSHA 30 for quality assurance, and the NCCER and NABCEP for construction and solar professionals, respectively. The program is also a pre-apprenticeship qualifier, allowing graduates to move on to paid, long-term apprenticeships with unions representing carpenters, electricians, plumbers and laborers – the gateway to a lucrative and stable career in the trades. 

Thomas noted that most trade unions still don’t have a major focus on solar. 

“We’re ahead of the unions, and our graduates bring real value to them, and to the companies,” he said. “The students might know more than a company’s foreman knows. It’s a win-win situation. Solar is a nascent industry, there’s so much opportunity in this space.” 

When Tredgett Page, 38, connected with 548, his auto detailing work and other odd jobs were not going well. He had always loved science and been curious about photosynthesis and the sun’s power. 

“I had been in the streets before, and I was leaning back toward that, but God brought me here,” he said. “Now I have the confidence, I know what I’m talking about, I know about megawatts and kilowatts, net metering, grid-connected, pretty much anything about solar.” 

He sees metaphorical significance in his new trade: “Energy is life, and it teaches you balance, it’s all about negative and positive ions.” He feels like “the sky is the limit” after the training. 

“I have so much skill that they gave me, now I’m hungry to use it,” he said. “I’m a little nervous, but optimistic, excited, very exuberant!”  

‘The sky is the limit’: Solar program opens new opportunities for Chicago trainees is an article from Energy News Network, a nonprofit news service covering the clean energy transition. If you would like to support us please make a donation.

On June 7, 2023, exactly 2,206 large trucks and buses passed through the intersection of Kedzie Avenue and 31st Street in Chicago’s Little Village neighborhood. 

That’s an average of 1.5 heavy-duty vehicles per minute — much more in the morning and afternoon — rumbling through this crossroads in a dense, residential neighborhood near multiple parks and schools.

The numbers are the results of a groundbreaking truck counting program carried out by the Little Village Environmental Justice Organization, which is using the information to bolster its demands for electric trucks and an end to development that burdens communities of color with diesel pollution. 

The Chicago Truck Data Project, carried out by LVEJO along with the Center for Neighborhood Technology and Fish Transportation Group, used cameras and software to systematically measure the number and types of vehicles, bicycles and pedestrians for 24-hour periods at 35 intersections around the city. The project website launched this spring, and organizers hope to continue compiling, analyzing and modeling truck counts, as well as helping allies carry out similar work in other cities. 

“This is the power of community science,” said José Miguel Acosta Córdova, LVEJO transportation justice program manager. “We’ve had to collect this data, when this is data the city should have been doing.”

The highest concentration of truck traffic was just south of Little Village in the Archer Heights neighborhood, where 5,159 trucks and buses passed in a day. A few miles east in the heavily residential McKinley Park neighborhood, in a single day over 4,000 trucks and buses passed, along with more than 800 pedestrians. 

“It paints a picture of pedestrian proximity to truck traffic, which is an air pollution concern, and a safety concern,” said Paulina Vaca, urban resilience advocate with the Center for Neighborhood Technology.  

Long-standing demands

In years past, LVEJO members had conducted grassroots manual truck counts — standing on corners to log the frequency of pollution-spewing traffic.

“Unfortunately we weren’t taken seriously by the Department of Planning,” said Vaca. “With [the Chicago Truck Data Project] we wanted to be more systematic with the research. This is hard evidence, hard proof. We wanted community advocates to be able to wield these numbers for organizing efforts, tying them to state-level policies.” 

Electrifying trucks is a primary way to reduce truck emissions, protecting public health while reducing carbon emissions, especially as increasing amounts of electricity come from renewables. 

LVEJO and other groups have for years been calling on Illinois to adopt California’s standards on clean trucks and zero-emissions vehicles. Only 11 states — none of them in the Midwest — have adopted California’s Advanced Clean Trucks standard, according to analysis by the Alternative Fuels Data Center. The standard requires manufacturers to sell an increasing percentage of zero-emissions trucks through 2035, and includes reporting requirements for large fleets. Seventeen states plus the District of Columbia have adopted California’s Zero-Emission Vehicle standards, which create similar requirements for cars and light trucks. Minnesota is the only Midwestern state to adopt those standards. 

A 2022 study by the American Lung Association estimates that if truck fleets electrify by 2050, the cumulative benefits could include $735 billion in public health benefits, 66,800 fewer deaths, 1.75 million fewer asthma attacks and 8.5 million fewer lost workdays. The Chicago area would be among the top 10 metro areas — and the only Midwestern one — that would see the most health benefits from truck electrification, the report found.

A winding road 

The U.S. EPA reports that heavy duty trucks contribute more than 25% of greenhouse gas emissions in the transportation sector nationwide, though they make up only about 5% of traffic nationally. While greenhouse gases don’t have localized health impacts, such emissions from diesel vehicles come in tandem with particulate matter, nitrogen oxides and other compounds that hurt nearby residents most. 

In Illinois, trucks are responsible for 67% of nitrogen oxide pollution, 59% of fine particulate pollution, and 36% of the greenhouse gas emissions from on-road vehicles despite making up only 7% of those vehicles, according to a 2022 study commissioned by the Natural Resources Defense Council.

Cleaning up truck emissions has long been a focus of advocates and policymakers, but progress has been slow. 

An August 2021 executive order from President Joe Biden said that, “America must lead the world on clean and efficient cars and trucks,” and called for a rulemaking process for heavy-duty trucks under the Clean Air Act.

In December 2022 the EPA released a new rule regarding nitrogen oxides and other  emissions from heavy-duty trucks starting with model year 2027, but environmental justice advocates blasted the rule as not protective enough. 

In April 2023, the EPA launched a rulemaking to strengthen curbs on greenhouse gas emissions for heavy-duty trucks manufactured between 2027 and 2032. That led to a final “phase 3” rule governing truck greenhouse gas emissions, published in April 2024 and taking effect June 21.

The final phase 3 rule is billed by the EPA as more protective than the previous rule, but includes a slower phase-in of standards than an earlier phase 3 proposal backed by environmental justice advocates. 

Union of Concerned Scientists senior vehicles analyst Dave Cooke wrote in a recent blog post that the phase 3 regulations mean up to 623,000 new electric trucks might hit the road between 2027 and 2032, “with zero-emission trucks making up over one third of all new truck sales by 2032.” 

“But that number is highly dependent on manufacturer compliance strategy and complementary policies,” Cooke continued, “and the path to a zero-emission freight sector remains uncertain.”

Cooke fears that electric heavy-duty trucks will be sold primarily in states that have adopted California’s Advanced Clean Trucks rule, leaving fewer available for other states.

“The rule risks having communities of haves (in ACT states) and have-nots (in the remainder of the country),” wrote Cooke, “precisely the sort of situation a federal rule is supposed to ward against.”

A national EJ issue 

Reducing heavy-duty truck emissions has long been a focus for Clean Air for the Long Haul, a national coalition of environmental justice groups including the Wisconsin Green Muslims, South Bronx Unite, the Green Door Initiative in Detroit, WE-ACT for Environmental Justice and the Deep South Center for Environmental Justice.

Wisconsin Green Muslims has organized several in-person and virtual events for community members to talk with state and local officials about truck emissions.  

Huda Alkaff, co-founder of the organization, noted that their office is on Fond du Lac Avenue, a major thoroughfare plied by truck traffic. Alkaff described the fight for clean air in a blog during the Muslim holiday of Ramadan, writing that people can fast from food and even water for limited times but cannot abstain from breathing air. 

Alkaff said local leaders would like to do mobile air monitoring and truck counting, similar to LVEJO. 

“Learning from each other, that’s our power,” she said.

In Milwaukee residential areas bisected by highway-type roads like Fond du Lac and Capitol Drive, meanwhile, air pollution is compounded by the safety risks posed by trucks. 

“Let’s look at the routes, let’s look at the timing, the types of things that might be able to happen with minimum disruption,” she said.

She noted that residents don’t want to endanger the livelihood of truckers who can’t afford to invest in new equipment. But she’s hopeful the transition can be facilitated by federal funding, like recently announced EPA grants of $932 million for clean heavy-duty vehicles for government agencies, tribes and school districts.

Bridges, warehouses and railyards

In Detroit, construction of a new international bridge to Canada is expected to increase the heavy diesel burden on local residents already affected by trucks crossing the international Ambassador Bridge, as well as heavy industry.

“We have a huge issue with maternal health outcomes because Black moms are living near freeways and mobile sources [of pollution],” said Donele Wilkins, CEO of the Green Door Initiative and a member of the White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council. “Birth outcomes are huge issues, asthma, issues with heart disease are elevated in ways they should not be because of exposure to mobile sources.”

The under-construction Gordie Howe International Bridge is aimed specifically at commercial truck traffic, and unlike the Ambassador, it will allow hazardous materials. The new bridge culminates in the Delray neighborhood, a heavily industrial enclave that has a much higher Latino population — 77% — than the city as a whole.

In Detroit, Chicago and other cities, warehouses are a major and growing source of diesel emissions from trucks. A 2023 investigation involving manual truck counts by Bridge Detroit and Outlier Media found that one truck per minute passes homes near an auto warehouse on Detroit’s East Side. 

An Environmental Defense Fund study found that in Illinois, 1.9 million people live within half a mile of a warehouse, and Latino people make up 33% of such warehouse neighbors, while they make up only 17% of the total state population. Black people are also disproportionately represented among warehouse neighbors, while white people are underrepresented.

Little Village gained national attention with the closure of a coal plant in 2012, and city officials worked with community members on a stakeholder process to envision alternate uses for the site. Residents envisioned a community commercial kitchen, indoor sustainable agriculture and renewable energy-related light manufacturing as possible new identities.

Many were furious when the site became a Target warehouse, a magnet for truck traffic. LVEJO is now working with elected officials on drafting city and state legislation that would regulate and limit new warehouse development, even as new warehouses are proposed in the area, including a controversial 15-acre plan on Little Village’s northern border.

LVEJO’s Acosta notes that environmental justice is “not only about electrification but land-use reform.”

“The reason why all these facilities are concentrated where they are is because of zoning, historically racist practices,” said Acosta, who is pursuing a doctorate in geography and GIS mapping at the University of Illinois. “We want to completely reform the way we do land-use planning and industrial planning, not forcing our communities to coexist with trucks every day. It’s also thinking about pedestrian and bicyclist access and safety, mobility justice.”

Counting trucks, demanding change: Chicago project aims to quantify heavy-duty vehicle impacts  is an article from Energy News Network, a nonprofit news service covering the clean energy transition. If you would like to support us please make a donation.

Annamaria Leon was initially enchanted by the lush greenery of Douglass Park and the handsome greystone homes of North Lawndale, located on Chicago’s West Side. But it wasn’t until after she moved into the greystone she first rented and would eventually purchase that she realized what lay beneath the surface of the stunning architecture of the neighborhood and its showplace park: the ravages of decades of redlining, disinvestment and racial unrest. 

“I got off the highway and I ended up in North Lawndale. I thought it was the most beautiful place in the world. Douglass Park, you know, and being a feng shui practitioner, you had the curved streets and the old houses with the big doors. I said, ‘oh my gosh, I want to live here,’” Leon said.

She also discovered that her new neighborhood had transformed from a predominantly Jewish enclave to an almost all Black area. This transformation is reflected in the naming of Douglass Park, visualized by architect William LeBaron Jenney and reimagined by world-renowned landscape architect Jens Jensen. 

The park was originally Douglas Park, with one “s,” named for Stephen A. Douglas, who was instrumental in bringing the Illinois Central Railway to Chicago and famed for his debates with Abraham Lincoln. Due to his pro-slavery stance, the park was renamed in honor of abolitionists Anna and Frederick Douglass in 2020.

Leon, whose family origins are Filipino, dug in, and committed herself to applying her extensive knowledge in sustainable urban agriculture and permaculture to cultivating much-needed green spaces, enhancing resiliency against the effects of climate change, and improving the overall quality of life in the place she now considers her home.

Digging in

As the co-founder of both Permaculture Chicago Teaching Institute and Homan Grown, L3C, Leon applies her experience and expertise as a certified permaculture designer and dynamic educator. She also draws on years of experience with her former employer, Christy Webber Landscapes, where she developed a reputation for creating community gardens, including work on high profile commissions for garden installations in downtown Chicago’s Millennium Park. 

Leon has forged a number of collaborative relationships and built a deep reservoir of trust, establishing herself as a resource for enacting social change. She is recognized as a leader, and respected for her willingness to engage with other community stakeholders.

Her determination to grow roots in North Lawndale is consistent with that overall world view.

“When I look at the condition of the groups in my community, if they’re in need, if they’re hurting, I need to do something about that. Because my life is the groups that make up my community. I’m a connector…If you don’t share your ideas with the people in your community, it doesn’t work; it’s only like you talking into the mirror. Those bonds of trust are what makes a community happen,” Leon said.

For Leon, environmental elements such as abundant green spaces are essential to the overall health of any community, including to provide a cooling effect as climate-fueled heat waves threaten urban areas. North Lawndale, she believes, is not and should not be an exception. 

She is outspoken about calling out bad actors as opportunists seeking to exploit the community for their own political or financial gain — or both.

“If I see that all you’re doing is using the community, and to use a phrase, being a ‘poverty pimp,’ no, I’m not going to be with you. I’m not going to help you. Because unless you alter and transform how you see my community, why would I engage with you?” Leon said.

At the same time, she also looks to allies to facilitate acceptance among community members who trust them, but who do not yet know her. 

“Even though I’ve been there [for years], I haven’t been there [for] generations. And I’m also not African American. If I can’t be effective in [communication with stakeholders], I want somebody else who can be effective in that, and I want to make sure that we’re all on the same page. But I am also not going to dictate how they express that.

“I need to find somebody who can break down those barriers for me… My commitment is to have North Lawndale thrive, to have people find beauty wherever they are, and for them to be self-expressed. That’s what guides me in my work. If it’s about architecture, if it’s about biking, if it’s about healthcare, is that providing beauty? Is it having people be self-expressed in their life? Then I’m for that,” Leon said.

Frustration and municipal red tape

Like many Black, Brown and Indigenous communities, North Lawndale suffers from disinvestment, including a paucity of green spaces. But the community’s reception of Chicago Department of Planning and Development proposals was initially lukewarm, Leon said. Leon persuaded community members to attend subsequent meetings and take an active role in executing various green space initiatives.

“We had a lot of people come because they trusted me. Like, if Annamaria is asking us to do something, let’s go,” Leon said.

But Leon also expressed frustration with dealing with the territorialism that often occurs with municipal politics.

“If our federal government, our local government, our city government, our alderpeople, when they say ‘Hey, I’m going to assist you with this project’ and they actually assist you with the project, and [if] they created it in a way that it is planned to succeed versus planned to fail, then this becomes stronger and stronger and stronger,” Leon said. “But there’s so many agendas out there. We can’t work like that anymore.” 

For instance, a number of proposed greening projects in North Lawndale have run into significant hurdles, some of which Leon suspects were integrated by design. She highlighted one instance where a contract for green space maintenance in various lots was given to an organization with no experience doing that work.

“Why does the city then put it on the community? And then the community fails. Then they say, see, ‘we tried and they couldn’t take care of it.’” 

Another project, Leon says, was a plot that featured pollinator-friendly plants that instead have simply been mowed, defeating the purpose of the original design.

“I’m part of the tree equity collaborative. I’m part of the urban heat island watch. And trees are great. But if you look at the heat index, it’s still high. And so, you have to have deep roots in the soil to bring up that water up. And [the greenery] becomes like an air conditioner.” 

Making an impact

Despite dealing with red tape and other hurdles, Leon and her allies have made significant headway with adding green spaces, both for recreation and as a vehicle for facilitating community and economic development in North Lawndale.

For example, the North Lawndale Greening Committee recently expanded their portfolio of edible community gardens from 14 to 20, utilizing a city program to develop vacant lots while providing paid employment to residents of the community, Leon said.

During a recent presentation at the Morton Arboretum, located in the Chicago suburb of Lisle, Leon also described several projects administered by Stone Temple Baptist Church, a former Jewish synagogue located in North Lawndale, including a vacant lot that has been converted to a community garden and performance space. The church has also created a free community store stocked with donated furniture, Leon said.

A new cafe and flower shop is also scheduled to open in the near future, operating on a donation basis to avoid paying hefty zoning fees, Leon explained during her presentation.

And while grants have been a significant source of funding for various green space projects in North Lawndale, Leon and her collaborators are working toward greater community autonomy in furthering their mission of improving the neighborhood and its green spaces.

“We’ve received almost $2 million in grants, but we’re weaning ourselves off of the grants. I don’t think we can fully, but you know grants are fickle and you have to fulfill what the grantor wants. Sometimes it takes people off of their mission.”

For Leon,  good management of green spaces provides a potentially useful blueprint for improving the overall quality of life — for North Lawndale, for the city and beyond.

“It’s land tenure. It’s the way you manage your resources. It’s also societal, how you create your society. Is it hierarchical? Is it linear? You could just look at the soil. What makes a soil fertile is there’s a lot of the little organic microorganisms in there,” Leon said. “But those microorganisms live because they have air and they have good shelter that’s not poison, which is the soil. And it has good maintenance, and they respect each other’s boundaries and they collaborate.

“So that’s what makes a good society as well.”

A Chicago advocate builds climate resilience, one green space at a time is an article from Energy News Network, a nonprofit news service covering the clean energy transition. If you would like to support us please make a donation.

Illinois’s carbon dioxide pipeline and sequestration law passed May 26 is being described as among the nation’s strictest. It is only the second carbon dioxide pipeline moratorium in the U.S., after California, and it creates a significant permitting process once the moratorium is lifted.

But landowners and advocates are still unhappy with several key provisions left out of the law, and said they are exploring options to end the use of eminent domain for carbon pipelines and protect landowners from carbon being sequestered in their underground pore space against their will.

“There’s a lot of good in there, but it definitely is a work in progress in terms of guard rails,” said Jennifer Cassel, a senior attorney for Earthjustice who worked with the Illinois Clean Jobs Coalition that endorsed the new law after members previously worked with lawmakers on a stronger bill. “The federal uncertainty was part of the push, and there’s so much of a gold rush already happening,” with applications for 22 carbon dioxide injection wells pending in the state, plus various pipeline proposals.

SB 1289, or the SAFE Act, allows a company seeking to sequester carbon to move forward if the owners of 75% of the affected land agree to the plan, which provides them compensation. That means, critics note, that owners of 25% of the land cannot stop a project, even if they are opposed. Owners of small several-acre parcels would have few rights compared to large landowners, noted Pam Richart, co-founder of the Coalition to Stop CO2 Pipelines.

The coalition had worked with lawmakers on a much more stringent bill, which would have limited the use of eminent domain to acquire land for pipelines and sequestration. It would also have banned the injection of carbon dioxide through the Mahomet Aquifer. The Farm Bureau opposed the SAFE Act in part because it didn’t address eminent domain, though the new law includes some protections regarding compensation for land damage.  

“Landowners are profoundly disappointed that the act was approved without eminent domain [limits],” Richart said.  “The landowner protections weren’t as strong as we hoped.”

The coalition’s preferred bill would not have allowed forced integration of pore space against landowners’ will. Richart said they expected some compromise on that front, but not to the extent enshrined in the SAFE Act.  

“That’s not how this is supposed to work,” she said. “If a project is in the public interest, you wouldn’t expect landowners of 25% of the land to hold out.”

The SAFE Act stands for Safety and Aid for the Environment in Carbon Capture and Sequestration. It still awaits signature by Gov. J.B. Pritzker, who has indicated he will sign it, and bills become law after 60 days in Illinois if the governor takes no action. 

Future options

Richart said advocates don’t plan to “reopen the whole process” around legislation, but hope to work with legislators on a trailer bill that could increase protections for landowners.

“A lot of legislators expressed serious concern about the aquifer, I wouldn’t be surprised if those issues and potentially others come back up in some form,” Cassel said.

The new law places a moratorium on new carbon dioxide pipelines for two years or until the federal Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration issues regulations for carbon dioxide pipelines, which are in the works. The previous bill advocates backed included a moratorium of four years or until the federal regulations are adopted. Cassel said labor unions felt that moratorium was too long.   

Richart said the Illinois law is only a “quasi-moratorium” since companies can begin the application process for new pipelines even before the PHMSA regulations come out.

Meanwhile the SAFE Act does not include setbacks from properties for carbon dioxide pipelines. If the PHMSA regulations do not include setbacks, which is likely, Illinois advocates could push for setbacks under the permitting process created by the SAFE Act, since it allows for additional safety measures to be developed provided they are not in conflict with federal regulations.

Advocates say county governments, which have in multiple cases refused to approve sequestration sites connected to pipelines, could work together to push for setback policy.

Benefits of new law

Advocates are grateful for a robust public engagement process created by the new law.

“Before there was no requirement to notify anybody about a carbon dioxide pipeline except when the Illinois Commerce Commission was ready to begin its application process,” said Richart, citing two recent controversial proposals. “Wolf never notified anybody, One Earth never notified anybody. The commerce commission just said, ‘You better come to this hearing, it might be subject to eminent domain.’”

The Illinois Commerce Commission decides whether a given proposal is in the public interest and able to invoke eminent domain, but previously the commission had no authority over carbon sequestration sites and its consideration of pipelines was largely limited to property values.  

The SAFE Act creates a permitting process that requires companies hold two public meetings in each affected county and post materials about the proposal and public comment process. Under the new law, the Illinois Commerce Commission can consider safety and other information in deciding whether to grant eminent domain powers.

Under the new law, companies must also pay into an emergency response fund and create an emergency plan, which entails modeling about possible risks and the expected distribution of carbon dioxide plumes in case of a leak.

“They have to do computational fluid dynamics modeling, and they have to make it public, at a time when there is a definite movement by pipeline developers to make their modeling proprietary, confidential,” said Richart. “So this is huge.”

Companies doing carbon injection and sequestration must also put up money for future environmental mitigation, so future costs don’t fall on the state. The law does not allow self-bonding, a controversial financing mechanism used by coal companies in the past that ultimately forced the state to foot the bill for mine cleanup.

The SAFE Act also enshrines safeguards to make sure that carbon capture and sequestration doesn’t ultimately lead to an increase in air pollution by allowing coal plants to keep operating, and it prohibits the use of carbon dioxide for enhanced oil recovery.

These protections gained approval from environmental justice organizations like the Little Village Environmental Justice Organization, a member of the Illinois Clean Jobs Coalition.

The Illinois Corn Growers Association and Illinois Renewable Fuels Association also backed the new law. Their members stand to benefit from the expansion of the ethanol industry, which depends on carbon sequestration to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions. While carbon capture and sequestration was launched in Illinois in relation to coal plants, recent pipeline proposals have focused primarily on connecting ethanol plants to sequestration sites.

State Rep. Ann Williams, a sponsor of the law, said in a statement that:

“Illinois is a national leader on climate and energy policy, and SB 1289 ensures that if companies are going to use CCS as a climate mitigation strategy, they will need to meet some of the strongest standards in the nation. The CCS protections bill ensures critical guardrails are in place to protect Illinois taxpayers, landowners and our environment.”

Illinois passed ‘strongest standards in the nation’ on carbon sequestration, but advocates say more work is needed is an article from Energy News Network, a nonprofit news service covering the clean energy transition. If you would like to support us please make a donation.