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Rhinoceros Media

Series · 16 posts

The Deep Green Vote

Lansing's $120 million data-center proposal — the BWL fuel cell deal, Bloom Energy's track record, council process, and the conflicts on the table when the vote came.

  1. Energy

    Lansing: Email Headers Reveal Deep Green Support Letters Were Platform-Generated

    Rhinoceros NewsroomMar 10, 2026

    All 12 letters of support submitted to the Lansing City Council for the February 9, 2026 Deep Green public hearing were generated through The Soft Edge, a paid advocacy platform. Three template variants contained word-for-word identical text under different signers' names. One was sent by Steve Japinga, the Lansing Regional Chamber's SVP of Public Affairs and the operational contact for the Chamber's PAC, who identified himself only as "a member of the local business community."

  2. Energy

    Lansing: The Company Behind Deep Green's Fuel Cells Has Been Fined, Sued, and Subsidized in Three States

    Rhinoceros NewsroomMar 13, 2026

    Bloom Energy, contracted to operate the proposed Deep Green data center's 16 MW of fuel cells, received more than $580 million in public subsidies in Delaware, was fined $1.37 million by the EPA for hazardous waste violations, delivered fewer than 800 of 1,500 promised jobs, and had 18 MW of fuel cells decommissioned after roughly seven years against a 15-to-21-year expected lifespan. New Jersey pulled fuel cell subsidies entirely, and California ended its fuel cell manufacturer subsidy program.

  3. Energy

    Lansing: Did BWL's Board Know About Deep Green When It Approved a $100M Steam Conversion?

    Rhinoceros NewsroomMar 13, 2026

    On September 9, 2025, BWL's Board received a 26-slide Ever-Green Energy presentation on a $100 million steam-to-hot-water conversion that did not mention Deep Green, data centers, waste heat, or fuel cells. BWL GM Dick Peffley had been negotiating with Deep Green for roughly five months. The conversion creates a heat-source gap after the REO plant shuts down that Deep Green's fuel cell waste heat would fill, and Ever-Green designed the conversion and validated Deep Green's projections.

  4. GovernmentEnergy

    BWL's Steam Conversion Was on the Park Board Agenda. It Wasn't in the Minutes.

    Rhinoceros NewsroomMar 13, 2026

    The Lansing Park Board's December 10, 2025 agenda listed five Old Business items, including "BWL Wentworth Park Steam Conversion" tied to BWL's $100 million steam-to-hot-water project on the same corridor as Deep Green. The minutes listed three. Two items were missing, and the remaining items were relabeled to close the gap rather than marked tabled. The November 12, 2025 meeting where the BWL item was first introduced has zero documents in CivicClerk: no agenda, no minutes, no attachments.

  5. EnergyGovernment

    Lansing: Public Utility, Private Contract: The Deep Green Fuel Cell Deal

    Rhinoceros NewsroomMar 15, 2026

    Under the proposed Deep Green arrangement, Deep Green would purchase the 16 MW fuel cell plant, transfer ownership to BWL, and BWL would contract Bloom to operate it. The 20-year power purchase agreement, the Bloom service contract, and the fuel cell transfer terms are all withheld under an NDA BWL GM Dick Peffley signed with no documented Board authorization. Bloom's Delaware fuel cells lasted roughly seven years against a 15-to-21-year expected lifespan; the proposed contract is twenty.

  6. EnergyGovernment

    Lansing: Deep Green's Projected $933K in Tax Revenue Does Not Reach the General Fund

    Rhinoceros NewsroomMar 15, 2026

    The Lansing Economic Area Partnership projected $933,081 in average annual property tax revenue from the proposed Deep Green data center, the figure repeated as the project's signature public benefit. Under Michigan's TIFA Act, roughly $453,000 would be captured by the Downtown TIFA before reaching any general fund, with the city's share almost entirely diverted to debt on the Lansing Center and Jackson Field. Schor told council the taxes go to the general fund, then was corrected on camera.

  7. GovernmentEnergy

    Lansing: Is the Council Being Set Up to Vote on Deep Green Blind? The Public Record Says Yes.

    Rhinoceros NewsroomMar 16, 2026

    As the Lansing City Council approached its votes on the Deep Green land sale and rezoning, the public record showed the power purchase agreement, Bloom service contract, fuel cell transfer terms, hazardous waste provisions, environmental impact study, noise study, and fiscal impact analysis had not been disclosed. The mayor told council on February 9 that the project's property taxes "will go right into our general fund" and was corrected on camera by his own staff two minutes later.

  8. GovernmentEnergy

    Lansing: A Conflict Question Could Reshape the Deep Green Land Sale Vote

    Rhinoceros NewsroomMar 24, 2026

    The Lansing City Charter requires six of eight votes to sell city property and bars members from voting where they hold a financial interest "other than as a citizen of the City." Council Member Jeremy Garza is VP of UA Plumbers and Pipefitters Local 333 and earns $126,742 per year as Political Lead for the Michigan Pipe Trades Association, the body coordinating unions benefiting from Deep Green's union-labor commitment. Loss of Garza's vote would drop the maximum to five, one short of passage.

  9. Energy

    Bloom Energy Has a Pattern of Downplaying Toxic Waste

    Rhinoceros NewsroomMar 26, 2026

    Bloom Energy VP Marisa Blackshire told the Lansing City Council in writing on March 22 and in person on March 23 that the company's fuel cells "do not contain, require the storage of, or generate any toxic chemicals." The EPA classifies Bloom as a Large Quantity Generator of hazardous waste, fined the company $1.16 million in 2020 for 258 unmanifested benzene shipments, and Bloom settled a 2016 federal lawsuit from a contractor who found benzene in canisters Bloom labeled non-hazardous.

  10. EnergyGovernment

    "Under Duress": Why Is Deep Green Revenue in the City Budget?

    Rhinoceros NewsroomApr 1, 2026

    On March 23, at the same Lansing City Council meeting where the Deep Green public hearing took place, Mayor Andy Schor introduced a supplemental budget tying $1 million in firefighter equipment, housing rehab, facade grants, and neighborhood grants to the project's approval. One week later, his Chief Strategy Officer formalized the linkage in the FY27 budget presentation with a dedicated Deep Green slide. Council Member Ryan Kost called it a pressure tactic; Council VP Pehlivanoglu objected.

  11. Energy

    Deep Green's Parent Company Has Negative £435 Million in Net Assets

    Rhinoceros NewsroomApr 1, 2026

    Deep Green has 1.13 megawatts of operational data center capacity across two UK sites and was being asked to build 24 megawatts in Lansing, a 22-fold scale-up. The company is controlled by Octopus Energy Group, which holds 4 of 7 board seats and majority voting rights. Octopus is the UK's largest household energy supplier, and as of 2024 it failed Ofgem's capital adequacy with negative £435 million in adjusted net assets. Its listed renewables fund ORIT trades 43.5 percent below IPO.

  12. Energy

    Fact-Checking Deep Green's Emissions Blog Post

    Rhinoceros NewsroomApr 2, 2026

    On April 2, 2026, Deep Green Technologies published a blog post titled "Analysis: Deep Green Data Centre project confirmed to reduce overall Lansing emissions," citing a March 1 BWL response to City Council as the source for an emissions-comparison table. No such March 1 BWL response exists in the public record, the table omits CO2 entirely, and the comparison conceals that the fuel cells run on natural gas.

  13. EnergyGovernment

    Twenty-Three Unanswered Questions About Deep Green

    Rhinoceros NewsroomApr 4, 2026

    As of April 4, 2026, four days before the Lansing City Council's scheduled votes on the Deep Green land sale and rezoning, twenty-three specific questions about the project remained unanswered in the public record. The list spans contracts (fuel cell electricity price, the 20-year PPA, the Bloom service contract), money (federal ITC ownership, TIFA capture, BWL costs), technology (fuel cell lifespan, hazardous waste, cooling), and governance (NDA authorization, environmental and noise studies).

  14. EnergyGovernment

    The Document the Council Is Voting On: Deep Green's Buy-Sell Agreement

    Rhinoceros NewsroomApr 6, 2026

    The buy-sell agreement between the City of Lansing and Deep Green Technologies USA LLC is 14 pages long. The first 11 contain the agreement text and signatures. The last three, Exhibit A (legal description), Exhibit B (covenant deed), and Exhibit C (memorandum of development agreement), are blank. Those three blank pages are the documents that would contain the binding, recordable commitments that run with the land and bind future owners.

  15. EnergyGovernment

    BWL's Hot Water Conversion and Deep Green's Free Heat

    Rhinoceros NewsroomApr 6, 2026

    Deep Green's central public promise to Lansing is free waste heat for BWL's downtown heating system, but that hot water system does not exist yet, the conversion takes 15 years to build, the waste heat would cover roughly 12 percent of current capacity, and retrofit work inside every connected building has undisclosed cost and scope. The BWL-Bloom service contract over the 20-year term is under NDA. Bloom's 18 MW Delaware installation was decommissioned after roughly seven years.

  16. Energy

    Lansing's Deep Green Due Diligence Gap

    Rhinoceros NewsroomApr 8, 2026

    Deep Green's flagship 1.1 MW UK facility experienced three cooling-related outages totaling roughly 11 hours of downtime between July and October 2025, all on customer Civo's public status page. Civo subsequently removed the Deep Green-hosted London region from its product documentation, and Deep Green deleted the "heat reuse" claim from the facility's webpage. None of this surfaced during five months of Lansing public hearings, two Planning Commission votes, or a 604-page Council packet.

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