by Liz Haworth | Sep 9, 2025 | Energy Rant
Guest blogger Liz Haworth, VP of Marketing at Michaels Energy That’s right, Jeff handed me the keys to The Energy Rant this week (what could possibly go wrong?)! Don’t worry – I’m not here to argue about kilowatts, rates, or policies. Instead, I’m wading into a...
by Jeff Ihnen | Sep 2, 2025 | Energy Rant
I like to stay ahead of the curve here at the Rant, but I would have needed to call play-by-play like Kirk Herbstreit on a college football game to keep up with the Cracker Barrel makeover fiasco. The CBRL fiasco played out faster than a college football game, which...
by Jeff Ihnen | Aug 26, 2025 | Energy Rant
First, A Branding Whetter. Two weeks ago, I peppered the Big Three Automakers, Ford, General Motors, and the company formerly known as Chrysler, for forgetting their cash-cow customer base, which loves large gas-guzzling sport utility vehicles and big honkin’...
by Jeff Ihnen | Aug 19, 2025 | Energy Rant
Doing a minor cleanup on personal transportation this week, here in the beloved City of La Crosse, I have one perennial gripe: road construction that takes an entire season. The saying goes, there are two seasons: winter and construction. Winter lasts three months,...
by Michaels Energy | Aug 12, 2025 | News
July 2025 – In April of 2025, the Global Cold Chain Foundation (GCCF) was notified of a new grant award as a part of the Danone Institute North America’s (DINA) Sustainable Food Systems Initiative Focus on Food. In partnership with DINA and the Foundation for Food and...
by Jeff Ihnen | Aug 11, 2025 | Energy Rant
Last week, The Wall Street Journal quietly mentioned that the transition to electric vehicles died months ago. “After the highly anticipated EV boom in the U.S. fizzled out, President Trump and Congress set out to eliminate state and federal regulations they...
by Michaels Energy | Aug 11, 2025 | Awards
Michaels Energy was awarded a spot on the Inc. 5000 Fastest Growing Private Companies in the United States in 2025 with 272% growth. To make this list, companies must be U.S.-based, privately held, for-profit, and independent–not subsidiaries or divisions of...
by Jeff Ihnen | Aug 5, 2025 | Energy Rant
This week, I’m providing the other side of last week’s Less for More Train. From my 30 years of observation in and around the utility industry, utilities were driven into the oncoming mess of less reliability for higher electricity costs. I use the word...
by Jeff Ihnen | Jul 28, 2025 | Energy Rant
Michaels Energy was founded in 1984 in the wake of the 1970s energy crises when fear of energy starvation gripped the nation and world. Forecasts indicated natural gas and crude oil reserves would soon be depleted. Policymakers were so freaked out that, for a short...
by Jeff Ihnen | Jul 21, 2025 | Energy Rant
Saving the best for last, there was a session at the Mid-America Regulatory Conference entitled Nuclear, Go Small or Go Home. I could call that false advertising because there was almost no discussion on SMRs, or small modular reactors. Only a University of...
