Bay City Times: Michigan’s solar industry has a dirty secret: It needs a lot of coal-fired power. The process of manufacturing base materials and panels to capture electricity from the sun is energy-intensive, utility officials say. And that energy comes mostly from fossil fuels in Michigan, where up to eight new coal-fired power plants are on the drawing board. That includes a $2 billion-plus, 800-megawatt plant proposed by Consumers Energy in Bay County’s Hampton …