(Radio Iowa) – A report shows Iowa made significant strides in advancing renewable energy over the last two decades with wind and solar rising to 64-percent of Iowa’s electricity generation last year.
Steve Guyer, the main author of the report for the Iowa Environmental Council, says the state’s utilities need to speed up efforts to transition away from coal to reach national and international targets to help stave off climate change. Guyer says Iowa relied predominately on coal back in the year 2000, but wind generation started to really pick up around 2008, and 2019 was the cross-over point where Iowa started generating more power from wind than coal. Guyer says to reduce emissions further, utilities need to shut down the state’s remaining coal plants.
MidAmerican Energy, Iowa’s largest utility, says it plans to do that and reach net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 by investing more in wind and solar, as well as nuclear.
