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The way Bill Harvey sees it, opponents of Alliant Energy Corp.’s proposed coal-fired power plant in Marshalltown “aren’t evil people; they just have different points of view.”

In other words, Alliant’s president, chairman and chief executive officer views the $1.8 billion project as “the best thing we can do to meet our responsibilities to our customers and to the Iowa economy.”

Alliant subsidiary Interstate Power and Light Co. (IPL) wants to build the plant to add 630 megawatts (MW) of electric generation capacity within Iowa. The project would enable IPL to significantly reduce the amount of energy it purchases from outside the state, Harvey said. IPL has also formed an alliance to sell about one-third of the plant’s output to four Iowa electric power cooperatives, enabling its output to reach nearly every county in the state.

Harvey, who was in Des Moines last week to meet with labor leaders who support the project, told the Business Record the primarily coal-fired plant represents the best option for Iowa’s electric consumers, as well as to ensure that the state can “continue to attract companies like Google (Inc.)”

IPL currently purchases approximately 30 percent of its energy from other utility companies outside the state, Harvey said. “That will decline to 15 to 16 percent when this facility is operational,” he said. “You can think of it as local control; we have a lot more control and influence over energy we produce over energy we buy.”

The plant’s operating capacity of 630 MW is enough to power 472,500 homes and businesses in Iowa, according to Alliant. An alliance of environmentalist groups in Iowa has ridiculed construction of that much additional capacity, however, as “building a Cadillac when a Volkswagen is needed.”

Iowa Consumer Advocate John Perkins, who opposes the plant, said a coal-fired power station is not the most cost-effective option for the company or the state. His office, a division of the Iowa attorney general’s office, is charged with investigating the legality of rates and practices of utility companies that are subject to the Iowa Utilities Board’s jurisdiction. In January, Perkins provided testimony to the board in opposition to the plant.

“Our studies showed that clearly, it would be more cost-effective for Alliant to engage in more energy conservation efforts, and to build more wind energy capacity than it currently has,” Perkins said. Additionally, he said, the high cost of the plant and the likelihood of Congress imposing a tax on carbon-based emissions within the next two years argue strongly against a new coal-fired plant.

The three-member Iowa Utilities Board is expected to announce its decision on the power station within the next few weeks. A simple majority of two board members is all that’s needed to determine whether the massive project lives or dies.

‘Great partners’

The plant, referred to by Alliant as the Sutherland Unit 4 facility, would provide approximately 350 MW of its output to IPL customers. In November, IPL announced it had entered into a joint operating agreement with Central Iowa Power Cooperative (CIPCO) and Corn Belt Power Cooperative. Under the agreement, the two cooperatives would each purchase 100 MW of output from the plant. North Iowa Municipal Electric Cooperative Association subsequently became a joint owner in the project and plans to use approximately 20 MW. Harvey said IPL continues to negotiate to sell the remainder of the plant’s capacity.

“We’ve got great partners,” Harvey said. “The energy suppliers that touch 94 out of 99 counties in the state of Iowa will have an investment in this facility. So it truly is an Iowa plant for Iowans to fuel the Iowa economy.”

Though it’s sure to raise electric rates for its Iowa customers by 4 to 6 percent because of its large capital cost, Harvey said, the Marshalltown plant is a less costly option than the alternatives. Those options include either continuing to purchase the level of capacity it does from other utility companies, or building a natural gas-fired plant. And, he added, Alliant is already doing all it can to reduce demand through energy conservation and to add to its wind-energy capacity.

“At the end of the day,” Harvey said, “(those opposing the plant) don’t have the responsibility to make sure your lights come on, that you can power your factories and that there is power available to fuel this economy.”

Perkins, however, said Iowa’s baseload electricity needs are relatively stable compared with those of high-growth states such as Arizona, which are dramatically increasing their electricity demands.

“The simple fact is that (for Iowa), increased conservation and more wind energy will pick up the slack,” he said. “(Alliant’s) forecast load growth is just not supported by the facts; their forecast load growth is just wrong.”

Harvey, on the other hand, said it’s “ludicrous” to believe that more wind energy and conservation alone will be enough to meet Iowa’s increasing energy needs.

The new plant will not be powered solely by coal. It would initially use about 5 percent bio-based materials such as switchgrass and corn husks for its fuel, with the ability to increase that to about 10 percent.

The 5 percent is “a comfortable commitment,” Harvey said. “Our plant will be capable of burning more biofuels, but the limitation is primarily the availability of biofuels, not the capability of the plant to burn more. We burn up to 5 percent of the BTU input at the Ottumwa generating facility; we know how to do this. And that plant wasn’t designed to burn biofuels. This one will be.”

Perkins said Alliant’s assertion that adding even 10 percent biofuel capacity somehow makes the project environmentally benign is, to use Harvey’s term, “ludicrous.” Similarly, he said, the company’s stance that Iowa needs a large additional amount of baseload capacity to provide power to ethanol plants is “not valid,” particularly given that ethanol producers are working toward ways to burn more byproducts to generate their own electricity.

Harvey said the new plant would allow Alliant to scale back its use of older, less-efficient carbon-fired plants it owns.

New plants are expensive, Harvey said, “but they’re extraordinarily efficient in comparison to our older plants.

“As a consequence of that, one of the things we’re committed to doing is to pare back a good deal on some of our older, less efficient plants as part and parcel of building this new facility with the objective of mitigating the carbon impact of a new facility,” he said. “The reality is, when you burn carbon-based fuels in a power plant, you are going to have carbon emissions. But we are taking steps to mitigate that to the extent that we think it’s rational to do that and not injurious to our customers.”

Harvey pointed to IPL’s announcement in February of its planned development of a 200 MW wind farm in Franklin County as evidence that it’s moving forward with renewable sources. The company said it plans to invest approximately $450 million in the Whispering Willow Wind Farm over the next three years.