Prairie State Energy Campus So.Ill. Crown Jewel

</element><element id="paragraph-1" type="body"><![CDATA[The new Prairie State Energy Campus at Lively Grove outside Marissa is towering over the Southern Illinois landscape, providing employment for over 3,500 construction workers.

It is energy's new crown jewel, envisioned by Peabody Energy Corporation, which found partners to participate. Peabody now has only a 5 percent ownership in the project.

Site personnel say the plant itself and the nearby coal mine that will feed it are approximately 65 percent completed.

In recent days, the families of those construction workers, townspeople and members of the media were invited to tour the $4 billion plant.

A sidebar story to the left called "By the Numbers" is an amazing look at the size of the project, which will generate enough electricity to power over 1.6 million homes.

Because steel and fuel prices, construction materials and manpower have all grown, the cost of the plant has risen from $2 billion to $4 billion, The cost of steel, for example, increased to more than $1,150 per metric ton, a more than 350 percent increase over its traditional price of $200 - $300. But a new fixed price agreement has now been reached which should stabilize those costs.

"This agreement will provide greater price stability and economic predictability, which will benefit Prairie State owners and the customers they serve," said Prairie State President and CEO Peter DeQuattro. "The agreement supports our mission of delivering low-cost, reliable and environmentally responsible electricity."

Prairie State is scheduled to begin operations of its first unit in the fourth quarter of 2011 and its second unit in the third quarter of 2012. "Equally important, the project will invest approximately $1 billion in 21st century technologies, making it among the cleanest power plants of its kind anywhere in the nation. Prairie State's carbon dioxide emissions will be approximately 15 percent lower than the typical U.S. coal plant."

The Prairie State Energy Campus in Washington County is a 1,600 megawatt state-of-the-art power plant.

The project also has tremendous economic impact. Prairie State is accelerating economic growth with more than 150 local subcontractors and 3,500 workers involved in the construction .

Overall, Prairie State will employ more than 500 full-time workers and stimulate $785 million in annual economic activity, for a total estimated impact of $22.6 billion over 30 years.