Report links Indiana’s climate, energy demand

A recently released report maintains Indiana’s climate is key to residents energy demands, as well as its sources.

According to the Indiana Climate Change Impacts Assessment, Indiana residents will heat homes and businesses less but rely more on air conditioning as Indiana’s climate warms, and get more of their energy from natural gas and renewable sources as those become more cost-effective throughout the rest of the century.

“We will have more need for dealing with warm-weather problems than cold-weather problems,” Jeff Dukes, director of the Purdue Climate Change Research Center, said. “If you’re an energy company, you’ll need to be prepared for these demand shifts, especially as summer needs may stress the state’s energy infrastructure.”

The report maintains Indiana currently gets about 73 percent of its energy from burning coal, 18 percent from natural gas, 5 percent from wind and the rest from other gases, hydroelectric sources, solar and biomass, adding that is expected to continue changing as natural gas and renewable sources become cheaper than coal and coal-fired plants reach the end of their expected life spans.

“Coal is basically being priced out of the market,” Leigh Raymond, a Purdue University professor of political science and the report’s lead author, said. “Natural gas has already cut coal significantly based on price, and renewables have become much cheaper recently. If those trends continue, which the highest-quality predictions seem to indicate, then coal will likely disappear from the energy mix.”