May 24 - McClatchy-Tribune Regional News - Dave DeWitte The Gazette, Cedar Rapids, Iowa

On a spring day when Coralville Lake levels are high and the tailwaters of the reservoir dam are a churning, raging torrent, it's easy to believe in Ken Bickner's dream.

The civil engineer and his Iowa City-based company, Midriver Power LLC, envision the current of waters passing through the dam's overflow conduit producing another kind of current -- electricity -- that is now made in Iowa mainly by burning coal transported by rail from Wyoming's Powder River Basin.

The potential of hydroelectric power has largely been bypassed in Iowa's green power renaissance, which includes ample quantities of wind power, biofuels and even electrical generation from switch grass.

No place is that more apparent than at Coralville Lake. The water flows are usually ample, and the drop is an impressive 32 feet.

"This is the best place in Iowa other than the Mississippi because of the flow rate and the fall," said Bickner, who used to work as a civil engineer in Cedar Rapids' water and sewer operations.

Demand for renewable power has spawned a surge in permit filings for hydroelectric installations on dams maintained by the Army Corps of Engineers, said Jim Bartek, hydropower coordinator for the Corps' Rock Island District, which oversees Coralville Lake.

"We've got just about every site in our district permitted, with somebody or other assessing the feasibility of hydro," Bartek said.

Bartek helps developers with the information they need to obtain permits.

While he's helped quite a few developers to that stage, none of them has been able to make a hydroelectric project happen.

"They just don't seem to be economically feasible," Bartek said. Potential obstacles could be finding buyers for the power output, which would vary with the flow of the river, or the initial cost of installing hydroelectric generators, he said.

At the Coralville Lake dam, Bickner says, seven previous applicants have gained permits to develop a hydroelectric generation facility.

Bickner decided to pursue the permits anyway, gaining preliminary approval this spring from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

His next steps will be get ting permits from the Corps of Engineers to construct the hydroelectric facility, completing the financial projections and finding investors to back the project financially.

Previous developers who pursued the Coralville site seemed to be waiting for better government incentives to make it more feasible, Bickner said. Midriver's approach is to "use good design to make it more costefficient," he said.

The preliminary permit from the energy regulatory commission calls for twin generators with a combined capacity of 5.7 megawatts in two 70-foot-long, 180-inchdiameter structures on the reservoir side of the existing conduit.

The project would generate on average around 3,000 kilowatts of electricity, much less than the rated capacity, because of the highly variable flow rate of the dam, Bickner said.

Contact the writer: (319) 398-8317 or david.dewitte@gazcomm.com