This article came from the May 1, 1977 Gazette:

 

Co-Generation? It Was Here All the Time

By Mike Deupree

Gazette Citv Hall Reporter

   What was the reaction at Iowa Electric Light and Power Co. (IE)

when President Carter mentioned the need to develop means of co-generation

of energy?

   One of the reactions was amusement, according to Duane Arnold, IE

president and board chairman.

   “Co-generation, that’s a good word.” he said last week, “but we’ve

always regarded it as full utilization of all our facilities.”

   Arnold was speaking primarily of the system of steam lines buried beneath

the streets of the central business district, a system that heats

nearly every downtown building during the winter and cools many of

them in summer.

   “We’ve had so many years of cogeneration experience of all types,

when they talk co-generation it doesn’t bother us a bit,” he said. “We

have the in-house experience.

   “As a matter of fact, only our older employes really have the

knowhow. Most of our newer ones haven’t really worked with it that

much.”

   The steam is a by-product of electricity generation at the Sixth street

power station. It is bled off from the generating turbines and delivered

to customers through pipes ranging from five to 20 inches in diameter.

   Customers can purchase the steam at either of two pressures, ten

pounds or 100 pounds, and they pay for it on a metered basis.

   The rate structure is, of course, subject to adjustments due to fuel

rates.

   “It’s a highly complicated mathematical computation, primarily because

it’s not the primary purpose,” Arnold said of the steam supply system.

   The steam system was inaugurated by William G. Dows in the company’s

early years, and the first client was a railroad station. That was

in 1896.

   “Then the thing evolved after that,” Arnold said, to the point that

“you don’t find a boiler anywhere downtown.”

   The steam system serves practically all of the downtown area on the

east side of the river, including both hospitals, Coe college, the new post

office and St. Paul’s United Methodist church, and reaches as far east

as the Times theater and the Commonwealth apartments.

 

   It’s not an old, outdated curiosity, either. The new community center

will be heated by the system, although the adjacent private hotel

will be all electric. Arnold said serious consideration was given to using

“city steam,” as the product is commonly called, to heat the IE tower,

but it was decided an all-electric system would be more efficient.

   In all, IE serves 323 customers with its steam.

   Some of the advantages are obvious.

   While the rate may be slightlyhigher than for natural gas, there’s

no investment in a heating plant for each business or industry, and the

maintenance problems are mostly lE’s problems.

   The firms don’t need to waste valuable space on heating equipment,

and the generation process is concentrated in one spot, considerably

reducing pollution problems.

   “It’s been a great convenience for the community, not having the black

stuff downtown,” Arnold said. “It permitted the wonderful development

of a clean downtown.”

   So why isn’t everybody on the system?

    “During the late 30s, the 40s and even into the 50s, steam heat was

promoted very heavily. We had the excess steam down there we could

bleed off. We had a department that did nothing but promote steam

heat,” Arnold said.

   However, there are limitations. One is sheer distance, how far the

steam can be “pushed” from its point of generation.

   Another is the cost of installing steam lines. That was never done on

the west side of the river because it wasn’t economically feasible, and it

wasn’t until the redesign of  the downtown bridges that the lines

were extended to serve the government buildings on May’s island.

   There are about 15 miles of steam lines in the city (no return lines are

necessary, because the used steam  — water — is either put to use or

disposed of by the customers), and at today’s prices, 12-inch pipe costs

about $300 per foot, installed.

 

   “If you start figuring $300 a foot for 15 miles, you’re talking about an

astronomical sum of money,” said Robert LaFontaine, vice-president

and eastern region manager for IE.

   He also pointed out that some businesses use the steam for air-conditioning

as well as heating; the biggest such clients are Merchants National

bank, the new post office and the Skogman building.

(The steam is permitted to expand in the air-conditioning system,

drawing heat from a coolant which is circulated through the building and

draws heat from the air. If you understand the physics of air-conditioning,

that should be sufficient explanation. If you don’t, just accept it

on faith, as I did.)

   The biggest limitation on the use of steam, though, is the amount

available.

   “When you utilize steam or any by-product for co-generation, the

supply becomes limited by the demand for what it’s a by-product of,”

Arnold said.

 

   As things stand now, there are limes the plant is operated beyond

the capacity required for generation of electricity In order to keep steam

customers supplied.

   “I would say in the spring, summer and fall, we operate that plant

when we don’t need  to (to generate electricity). Particularly in the

spring and fall,” Arnold said.

   “We get the by-product of the electric kilowatt-hour, it isn’t wasted,

but that means we have to pull back on our more efficient sources of

generation.”

   The steam production at the Sixth street station, which has eight generating

units operating off 10 boilers, is just about at its maximum limit

now.

The  capacity the community center needs is available largely because

urban renewal removed several steam-heated buildings, but there

wouldn’t be much chance of another large user joining the system now.

 

   “We’d have a very difficult time supplying them with steam if we

could do so at all,” Arnold said. “But if they look out a whole

block of buildings to put in a new hotel, we might he able to do it.”

   Some of the biggest steam users are industries — IE supplies the

needs of both Quaker Oats and Cargill — and would probably do so for

others if the capacity was there.

    “If we could economically justify it, I’m sure we would have no problem

getting others on it,” Arnold said.

   While on the subject of co-generation, efficient power generation and

conservation, it’s interesting to note some of the other aspects of the IE

relationship with industries.

   “We burn an awful lot of waste material,” Arnold said, explaining

that oat hulls have been piped across to the power station from Quaker

Oats for years, and the station also burns corn cobs from that industry.

 

   “Talk about burning trash and so forth — this company has been

doing that since 1921,” he said.

   IE also has worked cooperatively with Penick and Ford, which makes

its own steam and electricity. The company’s primary objective is the

steam, so at times it has more electricity than it needs and sells the excess

to IE.

   Expansion of the steam system would mean expansion of generating

facilities, and Arnold doesn’t consider that likely.

    It couldn’t be done at the Prairie creek station or at the Duane Arnold

Energy Center nuclear plant near Palo, because those facilities don’t

have the special boilers required to bleed off the steam.

    Expansion at Sixth street, Arnold believes, isn’t feasible because of

space, financial and legal constraints. Especially the latter, which

deal with air quality.

   “As I understand the new constraints that are going to come out,

they are going to be much more stringent,” Arnold said.

 

   He’s not surprised at the increased regulations, Arnold said,

noting that IE adopted a program a dozen years ago with that in mind.

   “That was one of the major reasons we went nuke, because it was

environmentally sound,” he said.

   The downtown steam system could be directly affected by new

regulations, if those regulations require retrofitting the Sixth street

station with electronic “scrubbing” equipment to clean up its emissions.

   “That would be the end of the Sixth street plant,” Arnold said simply.

   “Then you’d see a scramble. We’d really have one heck of a problem in

downtown Cedar flapids.”

   All the buildings would have to find alternate sources of heat, and

just locating a place to put the boiler could be a problem in many of them,

not to mention the cost of installation.

   “If we had to put scrubbers on that plant, it would probably cover

two football fields,” Arnold said. “It would lake that much area to handle

all the process.”

 

   He said the scrubbers add $100 to $150 per kilowatt hour capacity to

the cost of constructing a plant, and it takes 20 to 30 percent of the

plant’s electrical output to operate them.

   The discussion prompted Arnold to repeal a statement he’s made often,

that the mere availability of energy, rather than the cost, has become

the key question in America.

    “People are no longer living with a monetary currency, they’re living

 in an energy currency society,” he said.

    Commenting on plans to convert from oil and natural gas to coal, as

well as some other plans advanced to solve the nation’s energy needs, Arnold

said, “All they’re looking forward to is a multiple increase in the

price of energy . . . we’ll be looking only at whether it’s available.”

   He said the Houston Lighting and Power Co. recently calculated the

cost of converting its generating facilities from natural gas and oil to

coal, and came up with a cost of  $8 to $10 billion to do it by 1985.

   “That’s over $1 billion a year, and they won’t get one ounce more electricity.

As a matter of fact, they’ll get less,” Arnold said.

 

   He said the need is evident to use more than one or two energy sources

(”It isn’t a matter of one or the other. You have to use all of them.”)

and he isn’t sure when congress will act on Carter’s energy plan or what

its action will be.

   But, he said, he’s been predicting for years there will be rationing by

the 1980s, and he hasn’t changed  his mind.

   “We may call them “interruptibles” or “time-of-day service” but if

that isn’t rationing, what the hell is it?” he asked.

   Meanwhile, businesses and industries in downtown Cedar Rapids can

continue to use a source of energy that, while it isn’t unique, is rare and

getting rarer.

    IE provides some steam service in Percy and some in Spirit Lake, but

that service is being dropped because higher costs can’t be justified.

   The chance of future installations as secondary facilities to electricity

generation is, as Arnold explained, unlikely.

    And finally, it’s just too expensive to build a central plant that’s meant

to supply steam as a primary product.