Iowa’s power companies are looking to step around a law that intended to avoid energy shortages in the future. The current law requires power companies in the state to buy a certain amount of their power from alternate energy sources, such as wind power or solar power.

The purpose of this is quite simple: Fuels such as natural gas and coal are not limitless and will eventually be depleted. The alternate energy law is intended to foster development of these alternative energy sources, which will someday hopefully be able to provide us with enough power once the coal and gas run dry.

But Iowa’s power companies don’t like the law. Investing in alternate energy, they say, is too expensive. And maybe from a business perspective it is. But when the state legislature considers cutting this law from the books this spring, it needs to look at the total costs of not investing in alternate energy sources.

For instance, how expensive is it to clean up the pollution created by fuels such as coal? What will happen to the development of cleaner power sources if the state does not help them out? And what happens when our limited supply of mainstream fuels runs out, and we are left with nothing to take its place?

We need to invest in our future now. The power companies may not like it, but it will eventually serve the greater good of us all.