Minnesota’s clear, cool lakes are heating up over the summer, and those warmer waters can produce a toxic agal bloom.

“Blue-green algae is bacteria,” said Kim Laing, a surface monitoring manager with the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency. “It often looks like pea soup [or] green paint; sometimes it might have a smell to it. It thrives in warm, shallow, nutrient-rich lakes.”

Water that’s warmer than 75 degrees along with calm, sunny weather is a perfect recipe for blue-green algae, he said.

“We have had three to four degrees higher average July and August surface water temperatures in Minnesota lakes than compared to 50 years ago,” Laing said. “Our waters are warming, we have less ice during the winter.”

This means ripe conditions for blue-green algal blooms, which can be harmful to people and their pets.

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President Donald Trump’s massive budget bill eliminates tax credits and incentives for small and large scale solar and wind projects in Minnesota. It’s also projected to increase electricity bills across the state.

The clean energy industry in Minnesota is now trying to figure out a new path forward in the wake of the massive federal budget bill where credits will dry up at the end of the year.

“There’s no phase-down period,” said All Energy Solar co-founder and CEO Michael Allen. “At the end of 2025, the residential tax credit is being eliminated, the commercial tax credit has a slightly longer extension, but it’s still also pretty painful for the industry and ultimately on the commercial side.”

Allen explained that energy still needs to be produced — somewhere — and the utility industry will likely buy or generate electricity from traditional sources: oil, coal and gas.

“If you look at it from a cost comparison, solar and wind consistently beat out those traditional forms of electricity when it comes to cost,” Allen said. “The expectation is that consumers in Minnesota will ultimately have to pay higher electricity prices because of these adjustments to the tax credits.”

Allen added, from policy standpoint, the clean energy industry will look to individual states to step up, including Minnesota which has a 100 precent carbon-free goal by 2040.

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Will Minnesota become a climate refuge for business?

A survey conducted by MIT Technology Review Insights, in conjunction with the Michigan Economic Development Corporation, asked 300 senior level executives in 14 industries how climate change is impacting their company’s bottom line.

The overwhelming answer was that many companies have been harmed, to some degree, by climate change. And nearly half said Minnesota and the Midwest are the best places to relocate their business to minimize climate impacts.

“Texas, California, New York — these are three states that actively experience the consequences of climate change,” said Kristoffer Tigue, a reporter for the Minnesota Star Tribune.

Tigue said insurance premiums have also skyrocketed nationwide, and some states impacted by extreme weather events, like California, home insurance is no longer available. The Midwest offers a refuge from those issues.

“It's milder thanks to our location in the middle of the country. We don’t get major wildfires, and we definitely don’t experience hurricanes and we tend to have an abundance of natural resources, including water.”

Tigue explained that climate change is just one factor that would determine whether a business decides to relocate, and that just 6 percent of executives who took part in the survey said they’re considering a move in the next five years.

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