As multi-billion dollar energy conglomerates add wind, solar and ethanol to their stables, these options start to look less alternative and more mainstream. And all the more so when those firms begin to produce strong returns. Take Alliant Energy, which saw its second quarter profits this year jump 25% to $60.8 million from $48.6 million in the second quarter of 2007 due largely to increased sales from WindConnect, its wind power development division. Even with ongoing debate over various energy plans on the table, Alliant's chairman, president and CEO William Harvey believes this kind of growth, from so-called alternatives, is sustainable. Why else would the $3.7 billion Madison, Wis.-based firm pledge $1 billion in new wind investments by 2010? To Harvey, alternatives can be as lucrative as they are green.

Q: How much has conservation affected the energy sector?

A: We expect to see conservation grow modestly because of the increasing cost picture today, but the net impact will be less than 1% a year on the reduction of electricity.

Q: Which alternative energy sources have gained the most backing in the sector, and why?

A: Wind is one obvious example, along with solar, which has good traction in the West. Broader deployment of biomass is gaining more saturation, although its cost structure is still seriously uncompetitive. We are in the mature stages on two new plants, which will be hybrid coal and biomass facilities. In Wisconsin, fuel input will be 80% coal, 20% biomass; and in Iowa we'll combust 90% coal and 10% biomass.

Q: How can new natural gas sources, such as recent shale plays, affect the support of alternatives?

A: Depending on the price, and price volatility of natural gas, if you assume we will be saturated with it in the future, this could have a dampening effect on renewable and alternative energy because it will be more difficult to deploy those options.

Q: Do you expect your revenue to increase at the same pace as the second quarter because of WindConnect?

A: WindConnect is a very robust presence that has touched, in one form or another, 17% to 18% of all wind projects built in the U.S. And we believe those expectations are accurate. The $64,000 question is whether [subsidies] will continue. Once alternative resources become pervasive, the need for subsidies will decrease. Still, the debate now is whether these standards will be deployed on a national basis, or through tailored state standards for their regions. Solar, for example, in our part of the country, is just not cost effective.

Q:Tell me about Alliant's $1.1 billion investment in pollution control measures, despite the court striking down the EPA's Clean Air Interstate Rule?

A: We are proceeding with the belief that in the relatively near future, laws like that are likely to be brought back, and be just as stringent if not even more stringent.

Q: How important to this sector was the recent bailout?

A: I would say we have a sigh of relief. This sector borrows a lot of money, and constraints in the credit market are never good for [the sector.] Has it been felt? You bet it has.