A Musing Environment

From the Washington Post,

the Energy Department says as many as 150 new coal-fired plants could be built by 2030

just in the US.

“A lot of congressmen ask me, ‘Dave, why are you building that coal plant?’ ” says MidAmerican’s (chief executive David) Sokol. “And I say, ‘What are my options?’ ”

Sokol says he wants to help customers improve efficiency by 10 percent. His holding company, which is more than 80 percent owned by Berkshire Hathaway, includes the utility PacifiCorp in the Northwest and Rocky Mountains as well as MidAmerican; together they generate 16.7 percent of their power from renewable resources. The Iowa subsidiary alone gets 10 percent from renewables. Between 2000 and 2005, the company cut the amount of carbon emitted for every unit of energy generated by 9 percent.

But half of that reduction in the rate of emissions was offset by higher overall output. Electricity demand in Iowa is growing at a rate of 1.25 percent a year, and Sokol says that until new technologies become commercial or nuclear power becomes more accepted, coal is the way to meet that demand.

This entry was posted on Sunday, March 11th, 2007 at 6:48 am and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.