The Alabama-Coosa River System 183 



parable standard, the costs involved in providing the 688,000 acre- 

 feet of controlled surcharge storage in the Alabama Power Com- 

 pany plan should be removed from the estimated total. Since the 

 incremental costs of flood control storage do not appear in the 

 public record, if they have been determined, we must compare 

 the alternate plans without benefit of this relevant information. 

 The data available for analysis of the alternative plans, with the 

 adjustments described above, are presented in Table 31. 



The plan of the Alabama Power Company promises approxi- 

 mately 45 per cent more installed generator capacity than the 

 proposal for development embodied in the Corps' report to the 

 President's Water Resources Policy Commission. Actually, it does 

 not follow that the Alabama Power Company's plan will provide 

 for more electrical energy merely because it will provide more 

 installed capacity. The four projects under the Corps' plan would 

 provide for something like 977 million kilowatt-hours annually, 

 on the average, compared to an estimated 1,024 million kilowatt- 

 hours under Alabama Power Company development. The greater 

 capacity under the company's plan does suggest, however, that it 

 would be used for peaking purposes. Since energy used for peaking 

 purposes will have a higher value than the equivalent amount used 

 for base load, to that extent, the hydroelectric potential would be 

 more efficiently utilized. Aside from the difference in the amount 

 of energy and its purpose in the system, the estimated cost under 

 the Alabama Power Company plan would be approximately 80 

 per cent as great as under the 1950 version of the Corps' plan. 

 Despite the incidental costs incurred for the controlled surcharge 

 storage for flood management, it is apparent that Alabama Power 

 Company's plan for power development is substantially more 

 efficient; it provides more economic services than does the Corps' 

 plan, at a smaller expenditure of society's resources. 



Although we can feel reasonably sure that an economically effi- 

 cient plan of development for power has been proposed — or would 

 be undertaken — by the Alabama Power Company,^^ another con- 



" In reviewing the evolution of the Alabama Power Company plan, one 

 becomes aware of the alternatives which were analyzed by Alabama Power 

 Company, presumably, exclusively in terms of the calculus of private costs and 

 gains. At any rate, the plan which is advanced in the applicant's license appli- 

 cation shows numerous modifications over the plan which was originally con- 

 templated, as indicated in its application for preliminary permit. 



