Renewable Energy Mandate Would Fuel Iowa Job Market, Report Says
Sep 13 - The Gazette - Cedar Rapids, Iowa
Sep. 11--A federal mandate that utilities obtain 20 percent of their electricity from renewable sources would bring about 1,600 more jobs to Iowa, according to an updated study by the Union of Concerned Scientists.
Because the standard would create a market for renewable energy outside the
state that could be supplied from Iowa, the study indicates Iowa would generate
more renewable energy than the mandate requires, about 34 percent of the amount
consumed in Iowa.
"Iowa has the capability to meet 17 times its need with renewable
energy," Abend said, visiting Iowa to attend the IRENEW Energy Expo that
begins today at the Prairiewoods Franciscan Spirituality Center in Hiawatha.
The study looks at the economic impact of the renewable energy standard by
2020, when it would take full effect. Iowa would garner $1.6 billion in new
capital investment, the study suggests, much of it spent in rural communities
that have been bypassed by much of the economic progress of the past decade.
The capital investment would mean about $50 million in new annual income for
Iowa and about $110 million in additional gross state income. Much of the income
would be in the form of land- lease payments to farmers for wind turbine sites,
and in the form of agricultural revenue for bioenergy crops such as switchgrass.
Consumers would benefit indirectly from the renewable standard, the study
suggests, because energy from sources such as wind would displace the need for
natural gas to generate electricity.
The cost of natural gas has roughly doubled in the past four years, Abend
said, mainly because of demand for natural gas as an environmentally acceptable
fuel to generate electricity. The UCS study estimates that Iowans would save
about $400 million in total by the year 2020, with commercial electric customers
benefiting slightly more than residential or industrial customers.
Abend will speak at the expo on the status of renewable energy legislation.
She says Iowa's support is key to passage of the standard, with Sen. Chuck
Grassley, R-Iowa, a leading champion of the standard when it was last considered
in a House-Senate conference committee, and Rep. Jim Leach of Iowa the lead
Republican co-sponsor of the House version of the legislation that included the
standard.
The energy bill that included the standard has stalled, Abend said, with the
exclusion of the wind energy standard among the deal-breaker issues in the U.S.
Senate.
The political picture has changed since the last UCS study of the economic
impact of a renewable standard two years ago, Abend said. While natural gas
costs are still high, she said energy security has become a much larger issue.
Renewable energy could help reduce projections that the United States will
increase its imports of liquified natural gas from abroad tenfold by 2025, she
said.
"Electricity is becoming a security issue, just as oil and gas have been
in the past," Abend said.
Details of the UCS study are available on the group's Web site:
www.ucsusa.org
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