This story is made possible through a partnership between Grist and The Flatwater Free Press, Nebraska’s first independent, nonprofit newsroom focused on investigations and feature stories.
Applause echoed through the halls of the Gage County courthouse. The county board had just approved new, more stringent wind energy regulations, and the overflow crowd of residents couldn’t contain themselves.
Few in the crowded courthouse that day in September 2020 beamed brighter than Larry Allder. The Cortland-area resident helped lead the yearslong charge against wind energy’s looming expansion into the county.
“It’s been a long road,” he told The Voice News after the vote.
Now six years later, another historically controversial energy source — nuclear power — could be coming. Last month, the Nebraska Public Power District, or NPPD, announced a list of four potential sites for a new nuclear power plant. Gage County, south of Lincoln on the border with Kansas, is on it. This time, though, Allder has no plans to mount an opposition.
