Powering the Plains

Thursday, June 07, 2007

The Great Plains Institute released a road map for Powering the Plains:

Most people in North America don't give much thought to where their energy comes from. They just know that when it's dark, cold or hot, they want light, heat and cooling. The engineering marvel that is today s electric grid has delivered all those things, and more, so well that most of us now take them entirely for granted. Unfortunately, that same electric system also faces serious problems. Rising costs, aging infrastructure and global climate change are among the challenges that make an energy transition both necessary and urgent. Over the next half century we must dramatically change the way we produce, distribute and use energy.

How we make this energy transition is as much a social and political decision as it is a technological and economic one. This roadmap summarizes years of stakeholder negotiation about how the Upper Midwest can best position its energy and agriculture sectors to thrive in the future. It is not about picking technology winners and losers or micro-managing the market. Its aim is to illuminate paths forward that look economically and environmentally promising no matter what the future holds. It represents a consensus among leaders from Iowa, Manitoba, Minnesota, North Dakota, and South Dakota on how best to meet this challenge.

Powering the Plains lays out these key strategies:

1. Invest in energy efficiency until investment in other energy
options would be less expensive;

2. Accelerate commercialization of advanced coal technologies with the capture and geologic storage of CO2 emissions;

3. Maximize economic and reliable integration of wind energy onto the electrical grid and harness the region’s wind energy resource for additional uses;

4. Launch a biorefinery industry that produces liquid fuels, biogas, electricity and bio-products from cellulosic biomass;

5. Advance new low-impact hydropower development as part of a broader portfolio of energy options;

6. Build a hydrogen and fuel cell industry based on regional renewable and carbon-neutral energy resources; and

7. Expand electric transmission and energy delivery capacity to accommodate the substantial increases needed in low- and zero-carbon energy production.