Iowa
Back to mapTo get to zero by 2050, Iowa must cut emissions by 3.8% a year
Emissions in Iowa
Million metric tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) 
equivalent (MTCO2e ) emissions
Note: Grey area indicates missing data due to processing delays.
Source: WRI, Mar 2021
This is how we're going to do it
- Boilers and furnaces with heat pumps
- Gas stoves with electric induction stoves
- No-till farming to keep CO2 in the soil
- Capturing methane leaks from landfills
- Capturing CO2 to make emissions-free concrete
- Burning green hydrogen to make emissions-free steel
- Plugging methane leaks from gas pipelines
Decarbonize Our Buildings
7% of Iowa's climate pollution comes from buildings.
We burn fossil fuels to heat our air, water, and food.
To cut this pollution...
Let's electrify our heat!
We'll replace...
...in all of Iowa's 2.1 million buildings.
In fact, 28.3% of appliances in buildings in Iowa are already fossil fuel free!
That means we only need to electrify the remaining 1.5 million dirty buildings in Iowa. That's around 57,000 per year.
Source: Microsoft, Mar 2021; NREL, Dec 2021Electrifying all buildings cuts 7% of the pollution.
Decarbonize Our Transport
15% of Iowa's pollution comes from cars, trucks, trains, and planes.
But mostly from cars.
To cut this pollution,
your next car must be electric.
Or consider going car-free with public transit, bikes/e-bikes, car share, or other alternatives!
There are 1.2 million vehicles in Iowa and 2,000 are already electric (0.2% of the total).
We need to electrify (or replace) the remaining 1.2 million gas-powered vehicles. That's around 44,000 a year.
Source: DOT, Feb 2021Electrifying all transportation cuts 15% of the pollution.
Decarbonize Our Power
21% of Iowa's pollution comes from burning coal, gas, and oil to make power.
That's because of how power is generated in Iowa today.
Power Generation in the State of Iowa (2020)
But there's already 64% carbon-free electricity generation in Iowa!
To clean up the emissions from the polluting power plants we need to replace all fossil fuel power plants with solar and wind farms.
...and find good jobs for those workers.
Current Fossil Fuel Power Plants in Iowa
15 coal plants
1,779 MW
1,080 MW
812 MW
726 MW
696 MW
341 MW
295 MW
294 MW
291 MW
236 MW
211 MW
52 MW
49 MW
47 MW
8 MW
30 gas plants
709 MW
603 MW
576 MW
264 MW
189 MW
182 MW
180 MW
158 MW
145 MW
141 MW
128 MW
119 MW
109 MW
72 MW
43 MW
40 MW
36 MW
27 MW
27 MW
18 MW
17 MW
15 MW
10 MW
8 MW
8 MW
5 MW
5 MW
4 MW
3 MW
1 MW
84 oil plants
90 MW
84 MW
79 MW
55 MW
33 MW
32 MW
28 MW
24 MW
23 MW
22 MW
22 MW
21 MW
20 MW
19 MW
19 MW
18 MW
18 MW
17 MW
16 MW
16 MW
14 MW
14 MW
12 MW
12 MW
11 MW
11 MW
10 MW
10 MW
10 MW
9 MW
9 MW
8 MW
8 MW
7 MW
7 MW
7 MW
7 MW
7 MW
6 MW
6 MW
6 MW
6 MW
6 MW
6 MW
6 MW
6 MW
6 MW
6 MW
6 MW
5 MW
5 MW
5 MW
5 MW
5 MW
5 MW
5 MW
4 MW
4 MW
4 MW
4 MW
4 MW
4 MW
4 MW
4 MW
4 MW
3 MW
3 MW
3 MW
3 MW
3 MW
3 MW
3 MW
2 MW
2 MW
2 MW
2 MW
2 MW
2 MW
2 MW
2 MW
2 MW
1 MW
1 MW
1 MW
But wait!
It's not enough to replace our power plants with wind and solar farms.
To power our electric cars and buildings, we need two times the electricity we have today.
In all, we'll need to build 4,000 megawatt (MW) of wind power and 4,000 MW of solar power.
Since the average wind turbine provides 2.75 MW of peak capacity, Iowa would need to install about 1,000 turbines.
Since Iowa already has 4,000 MW of wind and 54 MW of solar, that's -122 MW of wind power we need to build and 4,000 MW of solar power. That's around 0 MW of wind power and 147 MW of solar power a year.
Source: EIA, Apr 2022Decarbonizing all dirty power cuts 21% of the pollution.
And gives us zero-emissions power we need to eliminate pollution from buildings and cars!
Other Emissions
The last 56% of Iowa's climate pollution comes from other sources...
This includes farming, landfills, industry, and leaks from gas pipelines.
There's no one solution to solve these problems, but there are lots of great ideas:
That doesn't mean there's no solution, it just means that clean electrification doesn't help with these problems, and you could fill a whole book with covering all of them. We need to encourage our politicians to invest in researching new solutions and implementing existing solutions to these problems!
Ready to do your part?
Learn how to electrify your own machines and pass local policy to electrify the rest
Take Action