Commentary: Great Lakes Energy faces promising, challenging times

MACKINAW CITY, Mich. — In early October, just as the leaves were beginning to turn color and people were starting to reach for their thermostat, I traveled through Michigan and Wisconsin with a group of 15 journalists from across the nation, and one from Hungary, to learn about the energy boom that’s happening across the Great Lakes region.

This boom is one that includes new sources of oil and gas, like those being drilled in Ohio and its eastern neighbor, Pennsylvania. But it also includes oil coming from Canada and the Dakotas, as well as coal, wind, solar, and energy created from farms, through the use of anaerobic digestion....