How do you make a public liability into a public asset? According to Wayne Beyea of MSU’s Land Policy Institute, it’s first and foremost about informing the community.

Beyea believes a lack [of community understanding and consensus is the main hurdle for redeveloping Michigan brownfields, which could potentially “create 17,500 jobs and bring $15 billion in new investments to the state,” as reported by my esteemed colleague Andy McGlashen in January.

With only one-third of Michigan’s 260 brownfields being developed, there’s room for improvement.

“We’d like to see that higher,” Beyea said. “We also need more technical assistance to our Brownfield Authorities.”

The hot new option is using  brownfields as renewable energy sites. Solar panels or wind turbines on the land should eventually be profitable, Beyea said, though he couldn’t say when.

“That’s one of the big questions left out there,” he said.

Additionally, wind turbines require a fair amount of land. The average size of a Michigan brownfield is 10 acres: not big enough to support large-scale wind operations.

The connection between wind power and brownfield potential is still “up in the air” nationally, Beyea said, but a breakthrough is just around the corner.

“We need a few small success stories in Michigan,” he said.

Opening day of the 2009 Michigan Land and Prosperity Summit was aptly titled ‘research day,’ as university faculty and regional consultants gave presentations on the challenges facing Michigan’s economy. 

Keynote speaker, Land Policy Institute director, and land-use guru Soji Adelaja spoke with me about the summit’s intent and summed up LPI’s latest report “Chasing the Past or Investing in our Future: Placemaking for prosperity in the new economy.”

Alongside Adelaja was Bill Rustem, president and CEO of Public Sector Consultants, Inc., a Lansing-based private firm that helps businesses in the way of environmental, economical and technological assistance.

– Andy Balaskovitz

By developing renewable energy on abandoned or underused industrial sites, Michigan could create 17,500 jobs and bring $15 billion in new investments to the state, all while creating enough electricity to power nearly half the state’s homes, according to a new report from MSU’s Land Policy Institute.

The roughly 44,000 acres of so-called brownfields where wind and solar power could be harvested offer “a prime opportunity to expand Michigan’s renewable energy capacity,” said LPI Director Soji Adelaja.

Converting the brownfields could help the state meet the target set last year of meeting 10 percent of its energy needs with renewables and increased efficiency by 2015.

-Andy McGlashen