Clean energy firms have shifted their messaging strategy to adapt to Trump's energy preferences.

Blaine Halverson joked that his only exposure to data centers was from the Mission Impossible movies in the 1990s. That was, until one came to his town. Over the last seven months, Halverson’s community of Menomonie, Wisconsin, population 16,700, has become a flashpoint in a growing debate over data center development and local control in the state. Halverson has lived in Menomonie, which is just over an hour east of Minneapolis, for most of his life.

We're not done with 2025 quite yet! Here are some of our favorite rural movies, music, TV shows, and books you don't want to miss from the past year.

Federal clean energy incentives are expiring on Dec. 31. But homeowners will still have access to Efficiency Maine rebates.

Each year, an estimated 80 million U.S. utility customers have trouble affording their monthly heat and electricity bills. Now, as the cost of energy climbs, experts say more people are at risk of energy insecurity and poverty, defined by the struggle or inability to keep up with electric, heating, and cooling bills. Rural utility customers face unique challenges around access to fuel and affordability programs, and they often live in older, less energy-efficient homes than their urban and suburban counterparts. 

Down a winding dirt road and dense forest canopy in Denmark, Maine, a two-story cabin sits on top of a hill, adorned with moose antlers. Bob Libby, who has owned the property since the late 1990s, refers to the building as his camp in the woods. He and his adult son spend November weekends there during hunting season. Libby’s hope is that the camp will stay in the family for generations to come.

The site of Brattleboro Housing Partnership’s former development in West Brattleboro, Vermont, is unassuming at first glance. The windows are boarded up, and native tall grass stretches across the property and along the banks of the Whetstone Brook, a tributary to the Connecticut River. On a Sunday afternoon in early September 2025, Windham Regional Planning Commissioner Chris Campany stood on the bridge that connects the property to Route 9 heading into Brattleboro.

On the evening of August 21, 2025, Chris Giokaris hopped on the interstate heading southeast from his hometown of Tucson, Arizona. His destination was Benson, a town of about 5,500 people located 50 miles away. The small town is known as the gateway to the San Pedro Valley, in large part for the San Pedro River that winds its way north from Mexico as one of the last undammed rivers in the Sonoran Desert.

Editor’s Note: Reporting for this article was made possible by the Guerry Beam Memorial Reporting Grant award from the Institute for Journalism and Natural Resources. On a sunny, 85-degree day in August, some 9,300 oysters were loaded into ice-filled containers on southern Maine’s Casco Bay. The boat shuttling them from the warm, shallow waters of Recompense Cove to the marina two miles away hummed quietly.

Editor’s Note: This interview first appeared in Path Finders, an email newsletter from the Daily Yonder. Each week, Path Finders features a Q&A with a rural thinker, creator, or doer. Like what you see here? You can join the mailing list at the bottom of this article and receive more conversations like this in your inbox each week. A few weeks ago, I shared coffee with Mary Ignatiadis, a forest economist with…

Renewable energy experts and developers in Texas are warning that rural communities could bear the brunt of the economic impact from changes to federal tax credits for wind and solar put in place by the recently passed One Big Beautiful Bill (OBBB) Act, President Donald Trump’s signature piece of second-term legislation. Texas, which ranks first in installed renewable energy capacity, is continuing to build out its fleet of wind, solar, and energy storage projects.