Opinion: MidAmerican should save customers more than $1 billion by retiring coal

Earlier this month, MidAmerican Energy announced a plan to build a new renewable energy project, Wind PRIME. But MidAmerican has produced no public plan to phase out its dirty coal plants and even said last year it will continue burning coal for another 27 years.  Last month, an independent report by Synapse Energy Economics found that replacing MidAmerican’s coal plants with clean energy by 2030 would save ratepayers at least $1.2 billion over 20 years, while preserving reliability.  

According to a Clean Air Task Force analysis using U.S. Environmental Protection Agency methodology, MidAmerican’s coal plants contribute to nearly 100 premature deaths and more than 1,000 asthma attacks every year.  And these aging coal plants, one of which is nearly 50 years old, spew an astonishing 20 million tons of climate-disrupting carbon pollution every year.  

Meanwhile, other utilities, such as NIPSCO in Indiana, are phasing out coal while saving customers’ billions. NIPSCO will replace all of its coal with clean energy by 2028 and forecasts customer savings of $4 billion over 20 years.

More:Environmental lawsuit: Iowa regulator should require MidAmerican to consider retiring coal plants

MidAmerican’s failure to address its carbon pollution is disastrous not only for our climate, but for the reputation that attracts other regional investment. Google issued a report last year that found that 60% of its electricity from MidAmerican in fact comes from coal-fired generation. We can’t expect corporations that have set climate targets to continue to choose Iowa as a green destination if we don’t confront MidAmerican’s 19th-century viewpoint on coal.

Despite the utility's “green” image, MidAmerican’s coal fleet is one of the largest in the U.S., and is primarily operated to increase shareholder profits, not to benefit Iowans. In 2020, all of the generation produced by its coal plants was in excess of Iowa customer demand. In other words, contrary to MidAmerican’s assertions, these coal plants are not needed for reliability. Yet it’s Iowans paying the price for this excess generation in health impacts, water and air pollution, decreased corn yields, and more natural disasters. This health, economic, and disaster burden costs every MidAmerican customer $4,800 per year.

MidAmerican’s announcement touts carbon capture as a potential solution to these concerns, yet that should be a non-starter for anyone who gets an electric bill from MidAmerican. The Kemper Project in Mississippi failed only after spending $7 billion on carbon capture. And a new Government Accountability Office report showed all eight “clean coal” carbon capture projects supported by the Department of Energy a decade ago have flopped. Iowans can’t afford a coal boondoggle dumping more ratepayer dollars into these uneconomic losers.

By failing to tie its new Wind PRIME project to any carbon pollution reduction commitment goal or timeline, and by proposing to investigate carbon capture, MidAmerican has made clear that it has no intention of delivering the low cost, reliable coal-free future that Iowans deserve. The time has come for MidAmerican to fess up to its coal addiction and stop the greenwashing. It’s time for a plan to phase out these unneeded, expensive, and polluting coal plants.

Katie Rock is the Iowa Campaign Representative based in Des Moines for the Sierra Club Beyond Coal, a national campaign to retire the U.S. coal fleet by 2030. To date, Beyond Coal has intervened to retire over 2,000 MW of coal power capacity in Iowa.