Originally published February 15 2006
Iowa cities band together to produce green energy
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
In Iowa, cities have joined together in planning the construction of a 100-megawatt wind farm and a 200-megawatt compressed air energy storage plant, which will be located somewhere in central Iowa.
A group of Iowa cities intends to not only harness the wind, but also capture it, store it underground and use it to help make electricity when demand peaks.
Members of the Iowa Association of Municipal Utilities have invested in a proposed power plant that would use wind turbines to drive compressed air into underground aquifers.
"Wind energy is dependent upon whether the wind is blowing or not," said Bob Haug, executive director of the Iowa Association of Municipal Utilities.
The plant will use power from its own wind turbines, supplemented by cheaper electricity bought at off-peak times, to force air into rock formations at least 2,000 feet underground.
Current plans call for pressurized storage of tens of billions of cubic feet of air in rock formations deep underground.
When it is needed, the air will be released and mixed with small amounts of natural gas to power electricity-generating turbines.
The idea of pursuing the wind storage plant came as the municipal utilities were considering investing in their own electricity generating plant in 2001.
The group first considered a coal-fired plant, but began considering the increasing cost of environmental regulations and the impact coal plants have on the environment.
Iowa's project is unique in that it would use wind power to store the air and combine it with massive underground storage capacity.
The Germany and Alabama plants store hundreds of thousands of cubic feet of air in a thermos-bottle shaped container installed in the salt mines.
That capacity would allow the wind energy plant to compete with fossil fuel plants.
The Iowa project's initial plans call for construction of a 100 megawatt wind farm and a 200 megawatt compressed air energy storage plant.
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