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The Lower Mississippi

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This summary is part of Beyond the Beltway: A Report on State Energy and Climate Policies produced by the Center for Law, Energy & the Environment at Berkeley L

 

The states in the lower Mississippi River basin have a lot in common. From Missouri down to Louisiana and Alabama, they all voted for President Trump. None of these states – Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri and Tennessee – has deregulated their electricity or natural gas markets. (It is a bit of a geographical stretch to include Alabama in the Mississippi basin, since only the top of the state drains into the Mississippi, but it is a natural pairing with Mississippi.) And, as it turns out, none of them are home to any significant solar or wind. Nevertheless, there are interesting differences between their energy mixes, which can be found easily on Georgetown’s state climate database.

To begin with, the use of coal varies widely. Coal is 10% of the energy mix in Mississippi, 27% in Alabama (about the same share as nuclear there), 40% in Arkansas, 14% in Louisiana, 40% in Tennessee, and a whopping 78% in Missouri. Recent trends also vary widely. For instance, in Alabama, coal use fell by half from 2005 to 2015, replaced by natural gas, but the decline in Louisiana was much smaller.

Use of natural gas varies similarly: 70% in Mississippi, 37% in Alabama, 27% in Arkansas (about the same as nuclear there), 60% in Louisiana, 12% in Tennessee (with nuclear at about 30%), and 12% in Missouri.

As pointed out earlier, none of these states makes significant use of solar or wind, with many below 1% of total generation. But in 2014, distributed solar rose steeply in Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas. Louisiana saw some increase that year but a bigger one the following year. Since the baselines were miniscule, however, the overall percentages still remained low. Tennessee also saw distributed solar rise in 2014, but unlike the other states, utility-scale solar was also a presence and more or less doubled.

Missouri stands out because 1.2% of its power comes from wind – not much, but well above the other states in this group. Missouri is also a standout because it is the only one of these states with a renewable portfolio standard, adopted by the voters in 2008. The RPS requires 10% renewables by 2018. According to the Energy Information Administration, renewables “accounted for 3.4% of Missouri’s net electricity generation in 2016; most of that generation came from conventional hydroelectric power, solar, and wind.” However, things may be changing: local utility Ameren has announced intentions to introduce at least 700 MW of wind power to the state by 2020, and 100 MW of solar by 2027.[1]

Things could also be starting to change in the other states in the region. In the last couple of years, for instance, utility-scale solar has begun to make an appearance in Mississippi.[2] Energy efficiency is an especially appealing option in the South. Arkansas has taken the lead in the region in this regard.[3]

Despite minimal use of renewables in this region, the huge diversity in energy mixes shows the importance of factors other than state policy. There seem to be some geographic trends. Within the region, natural gas use rises closer to the Gulf of Mexico, while coal use rises as you go north. That might be due to transportation costs, but that cannot be the whole story. For instance, Illinois on the opposite side of the river from Missouri, but relies half as heavily on coal (and very heavily on nuclear.) Alabama and Mississippi are neighbors, but Mississippi relies twice as much on natural gas. It is reasonable to think that politics and the business strategies of particular utilities have something to do with the variation, not just geography.

It is heartening to see that renewables are beginning to get a small foothold in these states. But so far there has been little indication of a rapid transformation. It seems likely that any real changes will have to come from a combination of economic pressures and federal intervention.

 

  1. Anmar Frangoul, “Ameren Missouri Set to Invest $1 Billion in Renewables, Adding 700 Megawatts of Wind Power,” CNBC (Sept. 26, 2017), https://www.cnbc.com/2017/09/26/ameren-missouri-to-invest-1-billion-in-renewables-wind-power-solar.html.
  2. Louie Miller, “As Another Coal Plant Closes, Solar Energy Keeps Shining in Mississippi,” Sierra Club (Sept. 25, 2017), https://www.sierraclub.org/press-releases/2017/09/another-coal-plant-closes-solar-energy-keeps-shining-mississippi.
  3. Jim Pierobon, “As Arkansas Leads on Efficiency, Two States Poised to Follow,” Southeast Energy News (June 26, 2017), http://southeastenergynews.com/2017/06/26/as-arkansas-leads-on-efficiency-two-states-poised-to-follow/.