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Cherokee County officials devised a solar power and battery storage ordinance that prepares for 1990. Too bad it is 2026 and the locals put up a half-baked and pint-size response to a request by the Smith Brothers of Aurelia to develop a solar array with complementary battery storage. Cattle would graze among the solar panels.
The Smiths were disappointed that the zoning commission and board of supervisors established prohibitive setbacks that do not take into account great increases in safety and longevity for battery technology. They also set acreage restrictions, in effect ordering that you cannot have too much solar energy.
What a disappointment.
We need more power. Everyone is hooked on AI. Coal and nuclear are yesterday. Wind and solar are the future for a challenged environment. They offer revenue alternatives to agland owners who suffer from lack of exports and uncertain demand for biofuels. Corn and soy producers in Iowa are going broke, as they say. We have water quality issues that hooves on grass help to moderate. The Smiths’ proposal makes too much sense in a regulatory environment that is growing hostile to clean energy.
You could build a massive sow complex with no regulations. County officials were musing about battery setbacks of a mile from water bodies, when millions of chickens can be laid in just about anywhere you would like. Ethanol plant? Go for it. Soy crushing facility? Build it. It is economic development.
Not solar. Why? They say safety, but the turfgrass movement is funded by fossil fuels. County officials get nervous. It is becoming ever more difficult to set up wind turbines because people are told that the blades kill geese. If so, why is Storm Lake covered in goose droppings? The propaganda has been terribly effective. Natural gas producers remain a powerful lobby.
If we had a state policy, that would help. Remember when the hog consolidators said you cannot have 99 sets of rules? They are strangely quiet. Where is Sen. Lynn Evans of Aurelia advocating a sensible way forward for investors willing to take a risk on Northwest Iowa? How can the supervisors thumb their noses at new tax valuation, beefed up by cattle?
They think they look reasonable by going halfway. But in so doing they might kill a project that will bring millions of dollars of tax revenue in, while providing local farm income. Those who say it takes crops out of production must like cheap corn and underpriced ethanol. Since when did we need to grow more corn?
The county will have a hearing Aug. 11. There is room to get this project going if the county folks educate themselves about dollars and sense, and common sense. Hoghouses threaten human health and safety more than batteries. So do anhydrous ammonia tanks. Let’s get real. We pollute the Little Sioux River with nitrate from corn ground and resist an effort to graze cattle on grass. We could be rich around here were it not for the stupid politics.
Rob Sand says he hears a lot about data centers on his Democratic campaign for governor. Sand developed a reasonable plan that would allow Iowa to move forward with appropriate data center development. Iowa is a leader in data center location thanks primarily to its low electric rates and secondarily for access to rivers.
Sand’s plan is pretty simple: The developer must bear the costs, not existing electric rates payers. No tax breaks should be allowed. The process must be transparent with no backroom deals. There must be setbacks from residential areas primarily because of noise. Make certain they do not damage or rob natural resources (most newer data centers use closed-loop water systems). Sand answers most of the general objections to data centers. People demand artificial intelligence, and must accept responsible data center siting.
We would add another requirement that they be powered by renewable energy (wind and solar). Iowa should not fire up nuclear or coal plants when renewables with battery systems can do the job better and cleaner.
MidAmerican Energy does ask developers to cover their own electrical infrastructure and generation costs. The company notes that Iowa’s electric rates are 44% lower than the national average even with 20 years of data center development.
Zach Lahn, Republican candidate for governor, articulated his lack of understanding of rural Iowa during a visit to the Hancock County Fair in Britt. There, he endorsed the privatization of Medicaid, which resulted in the closing of some 20 nursing homes in rural Iowa under the watch of Gov. Kim Reynolds.
Rob Sand, the Democratic candidate, documented how care was denied to people when private insurance companies were paid millions of dollars to run the program. Care was denied. Grandma had to find someplace farther away for nursing care. It has not been documented that the so-called reform has saved the taxpayers a dime.
Lahn also said he wants to expand private school vouchers, which have hamstrung rural schools. Des Moines Christian is building a new school. Storm Lake is cutting $500,000, and Boone eliminated the orchestra. Students are not crashing the doors at Storm Lake St. Mary’s because of vouchers. Instead, St. Mary’s hung up its cleats and will now play baseball and softball with the public school because the Panthers can’t field a team. The vouchers are no good in Britt, unless you truck your student to Algona or Mason City every morning. Vouchers hurt rural schools. Lahn runs a home-schooling business.
He could stake a new path to show he is not a patsy for Koch Enterprises. Why emulate the least popular governor in America? She is responsible for closing the nursing home at Newell. It was a good one. North Lake Manor in Storm Lake and the care facility in Albert City. Medicaid reform was bad politics.
Now, health care clinics are closing in rural communities as Medicaid has come under withering attack. Lahn is a continuation of Reynolds. He is blind to the needs of an already weak rural health delivery system. Rural schools are struggling, and he wants to double down on vouchers. There is a reason Kim Reynolds is so unpopular — she has been terrible for rural Iowa. Lahn would be more of the same.
Wildfires rage through 15 US states plus Canada. The Boundary Waters Canoe Area in northern Minnesota was evacuated. Spokane is burning down. Spain was ravaged. This is climate change in the here and now. It is certainly no hoax.
Iowa’s ability to grow corn will be challenged by extreme heat in July, given the current trajectory. Cattle herds are liquidated from the stress of long-term drought on the Great Plains. Moderate to severe drought has gripped Western Iowa for several years.
Extreme weather makes insurance nearly impossible along the coasts. It strips our soil. It causes waves of migration (witness Spain and North Africa, or Guatemalans forced into Iowa and Minnesota).
This is not something in the future. This is now.
We must make our economy more resilient. We must build more renewable energy plants to reduce the carbon load. We must create carbon sinks through grasslands and wetlands (which Nature created and we ripped up or drained in 150 years). Agriculture is a major contributor to greenhouse gases. Plus, air and water pollution are probable causes of Iowa’s rising cancer rates.
Our addiction to oil led directly to our war with Iran. That war is causing worldwide turmoil in energy and fertilizer markets. The war is spreading throughout the Middle East. It is another manifestation of the climate crisis.
Ignoring the reality puts us further in peril. We in Iowa cannot solve the problems but we can make ourselves more secure, at least. It starts with resilient agriculture and renewable energy.
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