Power Supply—Challenges for the Future

Access Energy Cooperative Board members and staff attending the 46th annual meeting of Associated Electric Cooperative (AECI) in St. Louis June 2–4, heard how climate change legislation being debated in Congress could raise their electric rates more than 260% if new power generation is not developed. AECI is the generation cooperative that supplies Access Energy’s power.
    
Duane Highley, director of power production at AECI, examined the Lieberman-Warner America’s Climate Security Act proposal, which would impose a cap-and-trade process to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 70% below 2005 levels by 2050. In a worst-case scenario, that would mean Americans would have to reduce their electricity consumption to 10% of the electricity they use today. American households also could spend an estimated $4,000 to $7,000 more annually to pay for the environmental controls needed to reduce and capture greenhouse gases.
 
Glenn English, CEO of the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association, also encouraged members to participate in the national grassroots campaign (www.ourenergy.coop) and start asking their representatives in Congress how climate change legislation will balance an increasing demand for reliable, low-cost electricity among rural cooperative members with the responsibility to protect the environment.
    
Dr. Richard Sandor, Chair/CEO of the Chicago Climate Exchange, the world’s first and North America’s only multi-national and multi-sector marketplace for reducing and trading greenhouse gas emissions, applauded AECI for being the first and only Missouri utility to join the Exchange. Sandor noted one-sixth of the U.S. economy already participates in $240 billion of cap-and-trade carbon trading annually.