Earth Equity News

Iowa's Green Energy Policy Struggle. By Scott Simon, BBC News, January 30, 2009. "The Iowa Climate Change Advisory Panel recently wrote a report for Governor Chet Culver setting out how the state can reduce carbon emissions by 90% by 2030. The state has set up an Office of Energy Independence... Iowa hopes that wind energy will deliver more than just electricity - and that investment in wind technology will help to transform towns depressed by unemployment... Refineries across the state produce 1.5 billion gallons of ethanol a year -- enough to replace 10% of the petrol in America's cars. But biofuels are controversial... Many of Iowa's ethanol refineries use coal -- the dirtiest fuel of all. It is one of the reasons why Iowa will soon be building another coal-fired power plant. More than half of all the electricity produced by the new plant is expected to be used to fuel the state's ethanol refineries."