Iowa Utilities Board Holds Public Hearing on Marshalltown Coal Plant

On Monday the Iowa Utilities Board held the first public hearing in Marshalltown about Alliant Energy's plan to build a new coal powered power plant in Marshalltown. According to the Marshalltown Times Republican about 70 people attended and most spoke in favor of it.

Sally Wilson expressed concerns about the environmental impacts and sustainability of the power plant.

Economic development is not necessarily sustainable development,” added Sally Wilson, a Marshalltown Community College associate professor of biology. “We’re concerned about security and yet we’re willing to become more dependant on one single source of coal and one single source of power. ... I think Alliant is a secure enough, large enough, aggressive enough company that you can be leaders in this area and really look at how you can minimize or eliminate the dependence on these fossil fuels.

State Representitive Mark Smith supports the plant, but expressed some concerns about the environmental impacts...

[I agree] about the volatility of the natural gas market — and we saw those spikes in 2001 occur in this state and the difficulty a number of small businesses had surviving that,” said Smith, a member of the Iowa House of Representatives’ Human Resources Committee and Environmental Protection Committee. “We also know that as we advance the switchgrass industry — all of the different sources that we can of other sources of energy — we are not far enough along at this point to have that fill our electrical needs here in the state.

I was unable to attend the meeting because I am swamped with the end of the school year. However, this topic is one issue that I plan to write a lot about this summer. Stay tuned for more info.

**Update**
I heard from someone who attended the meeting that the plant has been designed to be able to run on switchgrass instead of coal in the future if the technology is available.