Today's Des Moines Register--another voice for our side as HR 2454 is
debated in Congress
Iowa's future shouldn't depend on fossil fuels
RICHARD HEINBERG is a senior fellow of the Post Carbon Institute. See
www.iaenvironment.org for more information. • September 2, 2009
More than 70 percent of Iowa's electricity comes from coal. That's a much
higher proportion than the national average of 50 percent. Not only does
this imply a supersized statewide contribution to global,
climate-changing, greenhouse-gas emissions, it also means vulnerability
to higher coal prices.

Higher coal prices? The very idea seems ludicrous today, as depressed
energy demand has led to a temporary national coal glut. Moreover, we
have all been lulled by the mantra that "America has 250 years' worth of
coal."
But coal is a depleting non-renewable resource, and we have tended to
extract the best first. That's why Britain, formerly the world's coal
powerhouse, has virtually no coal industry left. That's why nearly all of
Pennsylvania's anthracite is gone. That's why the energy content per ton
of U.S. coal has been declining steadily for well over a decade.

Everyone agrees that America has enormous quantities of coal underground.
But how much of that coal can practically be mined? Recent studies by the
U.S. Geological Survey and National Academy of Science, among other
organizations, suggest that supply problems may come much sooner than we
have been led to think; indeed, one German analytic group has forecast
that U.S. coal production will peak 20 years from now - well within the
operating lifetime of power plants being built today.
Iowa's utilities are spending big on television, radio, and print ads
aimed at convincing the public that federal climate legislation will cost
too much. They'd be better off using their cash to prepare for an
inevitable energy future in which coal is no longer the least costly
option.

The debate about how much we can afford to do to mitigate climate change
is often framed by the unrealistic assumption that fossil fuels will
continue to be cheap and abundant for many decades. But we have already
picked the "low-hanging fruit"; as time goes on, our domestic coal will
be coming from greater depths, and it will be of declining quality.
While fossil fuel prices will inevitably trend higher in years to come,
renewable energy sources are almost certain to get cheaper as research
yields greater efficiencies in the conversion of abundant sunlight and
wind into usable electricity.

Utilities might wish to wait until renewables are still more affordable
before making the switch from old, familiar energy sources to ones that
will require new infrastructure for generation, storage and transmission.
But doing so entails more than higher climate impacts from the burning of
carbon-rich coal. It also constitutes an enormous gamble: the utilities
assume that when renewables become clearly the cheaper option,
investments can be quickly mobilized to make the transition to wind,
solar and geothermal. But with fossil fuel prices rising relentlessly in
the meantime, will the economy then be resilient enough to summon the
needed capital?
If America doesn't seriously begin the transition to renewable energy
now, we may well get caught, not many years hence, with too little coal
and not enough installed alternatives.

There are few states where the stakes are higher. Iowa is currently
second in the nation in per-capita production of wind energy, and has the
potential for much more wind and other renewables. But with its alarming
reliance on coal, the state must choose: Either lead the way to a clean,
renewable future, or risk being saddled with a dirty 20th century energy
system that no one can afford to maintain.
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