The Next Great Thing

</element><element id="paragraph-1" type="body"><![CDATA[ Shannon Hirsch of Du Quoin and Jack Queen of Pinckneyville have found themselves on the cutting edge of America's energy future.

The two men are working in Pottawattamie County, Iowa helping build one of the nation's largest wind turbine projects. It is called the Walnut Wind Project--a field of 102 wind turbines, each standing 280 feet tall--nearly the length of a football field.

When completed, Walnut Wind will generate 153 megawatts of power around the clock--with no environmental impact whatsoever.

Queen has been working for MidAmerican Energy Company for several months and invited longtime friend Shannon Hirsch to come to Iowa to interview for work on the project. Shannon is part of a Hirsch family groundskeeping business and served the Du Quoin High School as golf coach.

The turbines are put together in three sections. The pedestal is 15-feet across and is anchored in 300 cubic yards of concrete. Shannon works on the first 85-foot tall section and the second 95-foot section. The top section towers another 95-feet above the other two. "The turbine sits on top of that," said Shannon. "There are three blades to the rotor," he said. Each rotor is 115 feet long and the entire three-blade rotor system--that harnesses the power of the wind--is 230 feet across when completed.

Shannon said, "I've never had a fear of height. They won't let you work in an unsafe condition. I work directly with eight to 10 other guys," he said. "There's a main erection crew that follows us and sets the spike on top and assembles the turbine," he said.

Hirsch said 23 or 24 of the 102 units have been completed.

Shannon said wind studies were done and the gently rolling hills of Pottawattamie County were deemed ideal for the project. "It's neat to be part of this," he said.

Originally, MidAmerican Energy Company's plan called for about 67 turbines. Last month, MidAmerican Energy said it was expanding the size of Walnut Wind by 35 turbines. Interestingly enough, the cable that will loop the project together and feed into a large substation is manufactured at the General Cable Co. wire plant in Du Quoin.

The contractor is M.A. Mortenson, Inc. of Minneapolis.

MidAmerican expects to have the entire Walnut Wind Project - a total of 153 megawatts - on-line by the end of 2008. The development features 102 General Electric 1.5-megawatt turbines.

"We are pleased to be able to move forward with this expansion, which makes good economic sense for Iowa as the state continues to benefit from the pursuit of more renewable generating capacity," said Bill Fehrman, president of MidAmerican Energy.

With the announced expansion, MidAmerican plans to have 833 wind turbines, totaling 1,284.3 megawatts of generation capacity, on-line at the end of the year. That commitment will help maintain the company's national ranking as one of leading owners of wind generation capacity among regulated utilities.

Fehrman added, "We appreciate the support of the Iowa Utilities Board, Office of Consumer Advocate, Gov. Chet Culver and other state officials in making this expansion possible. Working together, we have established an energy strategy which focuses on the reliability and diversity of our energy supply, price stability over the long term and environmental responsibility."

MidAmerican began building wind projects in 2004 and has made the investment without raising customers' base electric rates. The company has committed to keep base electric rates stable for its customers.

Fehrman noted the Walnut Wind Project is providing a large economic impact for the area during the construction period and beyond.

"There are numerous economic benefits on projects like these, including the capital investment by MidAmerican, construction jobs, long-term maintenance jobs, annual lease payments to farmers and long-term property tax revenues," Fehrman said.

MidAmerican's other wind projects across Iowa are located near Schaller, Webster City, Carroll, Pomeroy, Charles City and Adair.

In addition to the investment MidAmerican is making in non-carbon electric generating capacity, the company is investing approximately $400 million on environmental upgrades to reduce emissions at its power plants by the end of 2009. When that work is completed, there will be a 44 percent reduction in emissions of nitrogen oxides, and a 38 percent reduction in emissions of sulfur dioxide from MidAmerican's coal-fueled power plants.

MidAmerican Energy Company's investment in wind energy followed former Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack's goal for Iowa to become energy independent and to develop into a national leader in renewable energy. Gov. Vilsack challenged regulators, business professionals and utility companies in Iowa to work toward achieving 1,000 megawatts of renewable energy by 2010.

MidAmerican Energy will continue to have electric rate stability until 2014. The last electric rate increase MidAmerican customers experienced was in 1995.