Coal plant would be 'waste of money'

The Iowa Utilities Board will be meeting next to week to discuss the proposed coal-fired power plant that is proposed to built in Marshalltown. Iowa native James Hansen, a climate scientist form NASA, will be testifying about the environmental impacts of coal plants.

One of the world's top climate scientists says a new coal-fired power plant planned for Marshalltown would be a waste of money because it will soon be necessary to close such coal-burning facilities to save the earth's climate.

James Hansen, an Iowa native who heads NASA's Goddard Space Center in the Manhattan borough of New York, is expected to testify as a private citizen before the Iowa Utilities Board next week in opposition to Alliant Energy's proposed Marshalltown power plant.

"It would be a tremendous waste of money to put money into coal-fired power plants at this time, because it has become clear that we're going to need to phase out coal use where it is not possible to capture and sequester the carbon dioxide," Hansen said.

Coal plants being constructed now will never be able to fill out their useful lives because the government will be forced to regulate them out of existence, Hansen said.