A World of Horses, Buggies and Tesla’s
My family has a tradition of visiting my in-laws in the Iowa City, Iowa area each spring. One of the traditions is visiting a small Amish and Mennonite community located about 15 miles south of Iowa City. We love the little shops and venturing down various gravel roads to find our favorite bakeries, shops, and greenhouses.
This is a fascinating intersection of two worlds, especially for someone from the energy industry. On the one hand, you have a bustling college town with nearly 200,000 people in the metro area. Lights, arenas, business districts and industrial facilities abound. Everywhere you look are electric vehicles and roof top solar panels. But just a short drive away, you enter a completely different world, where the main mode of transportation is the horse and buggy. Most businesses are run with propane or single solar panel, but very little electricity is used, if any. There are no lights in the shops, which can be a little inconvenient. When it’s an overcast day, like what we experienced, it’s hard to know if you are looking at a jar of fresh strawberry jam or a jar of pickled pig’s feet. It’s a little ironic seeing customers using the light on their cell phone to look at products because the store only uses natural light.
On the drive home, we passed through several large-scale wind farms in northern Iowa. These wind farms that have been popping up in rural America for the past 20 years have been very controversial as of late. Whether you love them or hate them, they play an important role, and ever-increasing role in our generation portfolio. Here in South Dakota, I anticipate a push for additional utility scale wind and solar farms in the coming decade. Along with that there will need to be additional transmission developed, allowing the energy produced to flow to where it is needed.
As the energy industry in our country changes, it really is going to take electricity that is generated from multiple sources. Unrealistic deadlines to end fossil fuel energy production are putting a strain on the energy grid. On page 14 and 15 in this edition of the Cooperative Connections, you will see an article titled “Reliable Energy is in Jeopardy”. This article outlines some of the concerns with these regulations. The energy industry cannot pivot in less than a decade without significant impacts to reliability and costs.
While it’s nice to spend a few hours in the peace and quiet of a community that has very few modern conveniences, I always appreciate getting home and flipping on the lights knowing the power will be there when I need it. Unless we want to go back to the horse and buggy days, we are going to need all available forms of energy production for the foreseeable future.
Until next month, stay safe and God bless.
Quote of the Month: “A wise man will make more opportunities than he finds” – Francis Bacon (Lord High Chancellor of England from 1617-1621)