{"id":12957,"date":"2024-09-26T19:29:19","date_gmt":"2024-09-26T19:29:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/?p=12957"},"modified":"2024-09-26T19:59:14","modified_gmt":"2024-09-26T19:59:14","slug":"clean-energy-governor-we-have-some-reading-on-that","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/?p=12957","title":{"rendered":"Clean energy, governor? We have some reading on that"},"content":{"rendered":"

This post originally appeared at https:\/\/www.badgerinstitute.org\/clean-energy-governor-we-have-some-reading-on-that\/<\/a><\/p>\n

As Tony Evers tours schools to talk of energy, here\u2019s some background\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/h4>\n
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Wisconsin is nearing the end of what Gov. Tony Evers proclaimed<\/a>\u00a0\u201cClean Energy Week,\u201d and\u00a0the Badger Institute offers ample reading on the subject.<\/p>\n

Wisconsin will likely need to generate more<\/a> electricity, even as utilities shut down the former workhorse of their generating mix<\/a>, coal-fired power plants, in response to federal regulations and Evers\u2019 demand that Wisconsin cease emitting any carbon dioxide from power plants by 2050.<\/p>\n

The demand for electricity will increase due to data centers, efforts to make consumers turn to electric cars<\/a>, and possibly efforts to push electric home heating<\/a> as a replacement for natural gas.<\/p>\n

Natural gas and the similar fuel, propane, account for most home heating<\/a> in Wisconsin. The most likely electric replacement, heat pumps, use a lot of electricity in cold climates \u2014 enough to add about $20,000 in heating costs to a typical Wisconsin home over a 15-year period, a groundbreaking Badger Institute study found<\/a>. Nonetheless, Evers has gone out of his way<\/a> to keep open a pathway to banning natural gas use in Wisconsin homes.<\/p>\n

Electricity bills have been rising rapidly in recent years<\/a> after a period of stability. Replacement sources of electricity, such as utility-scale solar installations, while not requiring any fuel and having the regulatory advantage of not emitting any carbon dioxide, can run into other problems because of their extensive land use<\/a>.\u00a0 And both solar installations and wind turbines generate power much less reliably<\/a> than the coal and gas they are slated to replace.<\/p>\n

One possibility is nuclear power. It uses little land and produces a lot of reliable\u00a0 electricity,\u00a0leading to renewed interest across the political spectrum in states such as Michigan<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Nuclear is getting new attention from the Biden administration\u2019s Department of Energy, which reports new plants could be added to existing sites<\/a>, including in Wisconsin. And the advent of \u201csmall modular reactors,\u201d which could bring down costs and make nuclear applicable in more places, has sparked interest from Wisconsin\u2019s rural electric cooperative market<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s worth keeping in mind that Wisconsin faced a similar crisis in power supply in the late 1990s \u2014 and managed to overcome it, chiefly by building power plants<\/a> that now are being shut down,\u00a0 and building new transmission capacity.<\/p>\n

Any\u00a0use or reproduction of Badger Institute articles or photographs requires prior written\u00a0permission.\u00a0To request permission to post articles on a website or print copies for distribution, contact Badger Institute President Mike Nichols at\u00a0mike@badgerinstitute.org<\/a>\u00a0or 262-389-8239.<\/em><\/p>\n

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