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Panelists Weigh in on Wisconsin's Green Energy Future - Will It Exist?

All week we’ve been airing a special series, Project Milwaukee: Power Switch, which has been exploring the promise and reality of green energy in Wisconsin.

Today, we conclude the series with an hour-long forum featuring a live studio audience and a panel of guests, which was recorded at the Pilot House atop Discovery World at Pier Wisconsin. The forum was moderated by Lake Effect’s Mitch Teich, and our panelists were:

  • Milwaukee Journal Sentinel writer Tom Content, who writes on energy issues for the newspaper. He’s been with the paper since 2000, and won a major award in 2007 for his reporting on climate change in Wisconsin.
  • Deborah Erwin, the renewable energy specialist at the Public Service Commission of Wisconsin. She provides lead policy analysis on renewable energy development in Wisconsin, and provides additional policy support and technical expertise on investigations and special projects.
  • Shahla Werner, whose academic expertise is in entomology - she studied forest beetle biodiversity in getting her master’s and doctorate degrees, but her purview has been much wider since she took over in 2008 as director of the Sierra Club - John Muir chapter.
  • Gary Radloff directs Midwest energy policy analysis for the Wisconsin Energy Institute at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He’s also been interim director of the Wisconsin Bioenergy Initiative and authored several key studies on the field in this state.
  • Charles McGinnis is U.S. Director-Commercial Energy Solutions for Johnson Controls Inc. McGinnis manages a high performance team of business development, engineering and project managers focused on the U.S. Property Assessed Clean Energy-Commercial Real Estate Market.
  • Andy Hesselbach, who is Project Director of We Energies. He has spent more than two decades in the energy industry, covering a broad range of responsibilities in energy generation and energy procurement. In the last ten years or, he has concentrated on the development, permitting, and construction of various electric generation facilities, including Wisconsin’s two largest wind farms and the newest natural gas and coal-fueled facilities.

WUWM's Bob Bach also gathered questions from audience members for a Q&A with our panel. You can listen to that below.

le061413SuppAudio-Audience_Questions.mp3
Audience Q&A for our Project Milwaukee panelists