{"id":328,"date":"2013-07-19T19:09:53","date_gmt":"2013-07-19T19:09:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/eng\/?p=328"},"modified":"2013-07-19T19:09:53","modified_gmt":"2013-07-19T19:09:53","slug":"clean-energy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/eng\/clean-energy\/","title":{"rendered":"Clean Energy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Down On The Farm, Clean Energy Requirements Are Opportunities, Not Burdens<\/a><\/h1>\n

By\u00a0Katie Valentine<\/a>\u00a0on Jul 18, 2013 at 3:23 pm<\/p>\n

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(Credit: AP\/Ajit Solanki)<\/p>\n

American farmers aren\u2019t usually seen as champions of climate causes \u2014 in fact, they\u2019re often\u00a0known for\u00a0<\/a>their climate change skepticism. But farmers across the country have begun standing up for clean energy mandates in their states because they see them as an opportunity for profit in an increasingly uncertain industry. <\/p>\n

This year, at least 14 of the 29 states with renewable energy mandates, which require utility companies to purchase a certain amount of their energy from renewable sources, have considered bills to weaken or repeal the requirements, none of which have passed. That\u2019s due in part to farmers, who have\u00a0teamed up<\/a>\u00a0with environmentalists and other pro-green energy groups to push legislators to keep the mandates. Their voices, along with the voices of some local businesses and the prospect of new clean energy jobs, have made it difficult for local lawmakers to repeal the standards.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s hard to be conservative when it affects your district,\u201d Rep. Mike Hager, the majority whip in the North Carolina House, told the Wall Street Journal.<\/p>\n

Farmers\u2019 reasons for supporting the mandates are profit-based: some want to ensure they still have a healthy market for leasing their land to solar and wind companies, and others want to continue to harvest their animals\u2019 waste as fuel. With the help of anaerobic digesters, hog farmers can capture the methane from pig waste and turn it into fuel, which they can use to power their equipment or sell to utility companies. North Carolina\u2019s\u00a0Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Portfolio Standard<\/a>\u00a0requires utilities in the state to purchase .2 percent of their fuel from hog waste by 2018 and 900,000 MWh from poultry waste by 2015 \u2014 requirements chicken and hog farmers don\u2019t want to lose.<\/p>\n

But regardless of their reasons, supporting renewable energy mandates, and thus ensuring that states uphold that portion of climate mitigation, makes sense for farmers, who are increasingly threatened by the effects of climate change. The 2012 U.S. drought hit the farming industry hard, with ranchers forced to\u00a0sell their cattle herds<\/a>\u00a0and corn, wheat and soybean farmers suffering serious crop losses. Many farmers aren\u2019t doing much better this summer: in the Midwest, the drought that began last year has ended with torrential rains, which,\u00a0according to the New York Times<\/a>, have \u201cdrowned corn and soybean plants, stunted their growth or prevented them from being planted at all.\u201d Extreme drought and wildfires in New Mexico have helped cut the state\u2019s cattle herd by\u00a0more than half<\/a>\u00a0since 2008, and nowthreaten\u00a0<\/a>traditional, small-scale ranching most of all.<\/p>\n

The farmers\u2019 choice to take sides with the renewable energy industry is also another example of the surprising alliances being formed in the fight for clean energy. Earlier this month, members of the Atlanta Tea Party\u00a0worked\u00a0<\/a>with clean energy advocates to help pass a solar requirement for Georgia Power, the state\u2019s utility provider. The Tea Partiers \u2014 which have historically been\u00a0dismissive\u00a0<\/a>of climate change \u2014 saw the requirement not as an example of undue government regulation but as an expansion of consumer choice. The Georgia Public Service Commission\u00a0passed\u00a0<\/a>the solar requirement last week.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Down On The Farm, Clean Energy Requirements Are Opportunities, Not Burdens By\u00a0Katie Valentine\u00a0on Jul 18, 2013 at 3:23 pm   (Credit: AP\/Ajit Solanki) American farmers aren\u2019t usually seen as champions of climate causes \u2014 in fact, they\u2019re often\u00a0known for\u00a0their climate change skepticism. But farmers across the country have begun standing up for clean energy mandatesContinue reading “Clean Energy”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":73,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"syndication":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/73"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=328"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=328"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=328"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=328"},{"taxonomy":"syndication","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/syndication?post=328"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}