Thursday, March 27, 2008; Posted: 10:08 AM
Mar 27, 2008 (The Gazette – McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) — LNT | news | PowerRating | PR Charts — A non-profit growers organization will conduct a study aimed at developing a viable market to supply switch grass to help fuel Alliant Energy’s proposed Sutherland Unit 4 Generating station in Marshalltown.
Tom Aller, president of Alliant’s Interstate Power & Light subsidiary, said Wednesday that the utility has formed a partnership with Prairie Lands Bio-Products Inc. to study ways to develop a market for switch grass of sufficient size to supply up to 10 percent of the fuel for the 630-megawatt plant. The plant’s primary fuel would be coal, a source of opposition from environmental groups worried about the impact of its high carbon dioxide emissions on climate change. But the plant will be designed to allow for up to 10 percent of its fuel to be renewable sources such as switch grass and cornstalks. Prairie Lands has about 60 members who grow switch grass on their farms. Many of them participated in the Chariton Valley Biomass Project, which supplied switch grass for test burns conducted at Alliant’s Ottumwa Generating Station in 2006. The study will examine cost effective ways to collect, process and deliver switch grass to the power plant as well as the environmental, economic and agricultural benefits of switch grass. The 630-megawatt Marshalltown plant is expected to cost about $1.5 billion and be operational in 2013, the company said. Contact the writer: (319) 398-8317 or david.dewitte@ gazettecommunications.com To see more of The Gazette, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.gazetteonline.com. Copyright (c) 2008, The Gazette, Cedar Rapids, Iowa Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For reprints, email tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com, call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.
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