Columbia Daily Tribune: State must be realistic on energy
By WILLIAM H. MILLER
How will we meet Missouri’s increasing need for electricity to power our economy — and do it at a price people can afford?
Not by pretending we can do without coal and nuclear power, which together account for 91 percent of our state’s electricity-generating capacity and virtually all of our base-load, 24/7 power. Absent coal and nuclear power, it would be an even colder winter than we just experienced without heat in our homes and with our industries shutting down.
Yet the Obama administration’s energy policy seems to presume people would be better off if electric utilities switched to natural gas and renewable energy sources such as solar, geothermal and wind. In his State of the Union address, President Barack Obama spoke glowingly about the economic and environmental benefits of natural gas and renewable energy without once mentioning coal and nuclear power. To suggest two of the nation’s most important energy sources have no value — and imply we would be better off without them — is incongruous with his previously stated “all-of-the-above” energy strategy.
Certainly we’ve achieved cleaner electricity from natural gas and our nation has benefited economically from the surge in domestic gas production, but relying heavily on a fuel that has a history of price volatility would be foolish. The average price of natural gas on the “spot market” has increased 40 percent to more than $5 per million BTUs since the beginning of this year alone, largely in response to growing demand for heating and electricity production. In the mid-Atlantic states and some parts of the Midwest, the cost of spot gas for immediate delivery shot up to $140 per million BTUs, 40 times its recent cost!
