From Kansas Public Radio

The Kansas Department of Health and Environment is once again on the hot seat as Sunflower Electric Power Corporation seeks a permit for construction of a coal-fired power plant near the southwest Kansas town of Holcomb. The proposal, in one form or another, has been stirring up debate since 2006. Despite a radical scale-back of plans, the issue still seems to pit environmental concerns against economic growth. Health Reporter Bryan Thompson has more as part of our series, “Kansas Health: A Prescription for Change”.

Click here to listen to the full report.

The following comments were delivered by GPACE Executive Director Scott Allegrucci at the Overland Park Public Hearing for Sunflower Electric’s Holcomb Station Expansion Project on Monday, August 2.

To the respected staff of the Kansas Department of Health and Environment:

Thank you for the opportunity to provide comments today.  My name is Scott Allegrucci and I am a third-generation Kansan. I am also the executive director of the Great Plains Alliance for Clean Energy, based in Topeka.

Our members appreciate, first, that the Kansas Department of Health and Environment plans to open a second public comment period for the draft permit in question. Obviously, since incorrect modeling data was filed, and since our engineers and consultants cannot review the full and accurate permit, we cannot speak directly to the technical aspects of the draft permit and what we expect will be bad news for Kansas air quality.  We will append our current comments with a more comprehensive and technical analysis once the draft permit is actually complete and accessible at KDHE. Today, then, we’d like to address another aspect of this project.

I come from a southeast Kansas working-class family. Early last century, many of my family members (and friends and neighbors) worked the coal mines in and around Crawford County. They were working with the technology and supplying the fuel of that era, and the Allegruccis have a long history of support for those industries as well as for the interests of working families across the state of Kansas.

Today, the organization for which I speak recognizes that Kansas needs jobs now and will likely need additional electrical power in the future. The real question is: What is the best way to create jobs and supply electricity for our economy?

Unfortunately, that question has been obscured by a false choice that has been foisted on Kansas by a powerful alliance of out-of-state, business, and political interests. That false choice is that we generate power and create jobs with another coal-burning power plant, just like we did last century – or, we do nothing.

The truth is that there is a better way to create jobs and supply power – especially in Kansas. A better way for Sunflower Electric Power Corporation to create more jobs over time, and create them sooner.  A way that develops Kansas’ native resources – especially natural gas and wind immediately.  A way that embraces the future, instead of clinging to the past, so that there will be good jobs for our children and grandchildren as well as for us, without jeopardizing the health and environment of all Kansans for generations.

I am submitting written testimony that substantiates this approach. There’s much more detail than time allows, but I will briefly share here today two examples of how Sunflower Electric could do this better for Kansans.

In August 2006, Westar Energy announced plans for two natural gas electricity production units at their Emporia Energy Center. The permits were granted in April 2007.  The first unit was complete and operational 13 months later.  The second came online a year after that.  The project was under budget, ahead of schedule, and operates at a higher efficiency than predicted.  At the peak of construction, almost 600 workers were employed.[i]

And the utilization of natural gas (a fuel Kansas currently exports) reduces carbon dioxide emissions by nearly 50% per BTU (as compared to coal), reduces the emissions of ozone precursors by even more, and nearly eliminates the dangerous particulate and mercury emissions that require the expensive and highly regulated technical controls that seem to have been problematic for Sunflower Electric’s initial modeling data.[ii]

About the same time, leaders in Nolan County, Texas, committed to developing their wind energy resources. In that one county, the wind energy industry has created more than a thousand jobs with a combined payroll of more than 45 million dollars a year. [iii][iv][v] Additionally, as you know, wind energy production emits no dangerous criteria pollutants, no greenhouse gas pollutants, no mercury, and requires none of our limited water resources to create electricity.[vi] [vii] [viii]

By contrast, nearly five years after the first version of this coal plant project was announced, Tri-State Generation &Transmission of Colorado (the entity that will own at least 80 percent of the proposed Holcomb coal plant), has publicly stated that the soonest construction would even begin for this plant would be 2016. [ix]

That’s a long time to wait for people who need jobs today.  Especially when we could have spent the last six years working together to create good, lasting jobs and industries built upon our own natural resources.

Of note, Tri-State’s own resource planning shows no need for baseload coal in their system until at least 2026.[x] So, it could be an even longer wait for those construction jobs.

Indeed, in 2004 Sunflower Electric had a permit in hand for the Sand Sage coal plant, and they chose to abandon that project.[xi] If jobs and energy production are the priorities, that project could already be providing both.

In Kansas we need to make the right choices, the smart choices, for both jobs and energy. That means developing our own native resources, both natural and human.

Kansas should not let itself be manipulated by Wyoming coal companies, a Nebraska-based railroad and a Colorado utility that all stand to make millions while Kansas is left with depleted water resources and air pollution that will poison our children and grandchildren.

In fact, Colorado-based Tri-State G&T has already funneled at least 52 million dollars to its Kansas partners to push this project,[xii] and we can find no indication that that substantial amount of money has yet to produce any jobs for Kansas workers.

Our members believe it is time to look to the future, and not to the past, and to look to Kansas and not other states, for energy generation and related economic development in Kansas.

Thank you for your diligence regarding this manner, and for the difficult work you do protecting the most precious assets Kansas possesses.

Thanks also to the Blue Valley School District and the staff of Blue Valley Northwest High School for allowing this venue to be used for such an important public event.

Scott Allegrucci

Great Plains Alliance for Clean Energy

220 SW 33^rd Street, Suite 200

Topeka, KS  66611

[ii] http://epa.gov/cleanenergy/energy-and-you/affect/natural-gas.html

[iii] http://www.cleanenergyfortexas.org/downloads/Nolan_County_case_study_070908.pdf

[iv] http://www.reporternews.com/news/2008/jul/11/nolan-county-economy-soars-wind-industry/

[v] http://www.sweetwaterreporter.com/content/view/100663/60/

[vi] http://www.awea.org/pubs/factsheets/EmissionKB.PDF

[vii] http://www.windpoweringamerica.gov/pdfs/policy/wind_air_emissions.pdf

[viii] http://www.epa.gov/cleanenergy/energy-and-you/affect/non-hydro.html#wind

[ix] http://www.forbes.com/feeds/businesswire/2010/05/27/businesswire140299764.html

[x] http://www.tristategt.org/ResourcePlanning/ResourcePlanDoc.cfm

[xi] http://www.kdheks.gov/download/Application_Timeline.pdf

[xii] http://www.tristategt.org/Financials/annual-report.cfm

By Jim Roth, special to The Kansas City Star

As a Prairie Village native and K-State alumnus, I have spent my life proud of my home state. Today, however, I have serious concerns for the citizens of Kansas and the future health of my family members who still live there.

In my public service as a utility regulator, I have learned a great deal about the intricacies of energy and electricity and the choices that exist for the future of both. Nothing is more risky today than coal. It is dirty and cannot affordably be cleaned up. Period.

Oklahoma rejected a risky coal plant and instead chose to rely on its own native blessings of wind and natural gas to power its future. Time has proven that to be the right decision, especially as gigantic and disastrous cost overruns are coming to light on the coal plant under construction in Illinois. Kansas ratepayers are facing the prospect of increased electric bills from cost overruns on Kansas City Power & Light Co.’s new coal plant in Iatan, Mo.

Meanwhile, native fuel sources of wind and natural gas native to Kansas can spur economic growth and forever provide cleaner electricity.

Wind power emits zero air pollution. It is rural Kansas’ greatest hope for an economic shot in the arm, and it is truly sustainable.

Natural gas is America’s cleanest reliable power source. It is abundant in Kansas and affordably keeps the lights on 24 hours a day across our country. Remember, Kansas exports natural gas to other states.

Yet, Kansas is now debating building a new coal plant in Holcomb, using Wyoming coal for the sake of Colorado utility customers. They can’t build the plant in Colorado, so they want to build it in Kansas.

Colorado will get the power, but the problems will remain with Kansas: Risky capital debt for the 60-year life of the plant, depletion of Kansas’ finite ground water, and massive amounts of dirty air and pollution across Kansas’ skies for the next three or more generations.

A new, massive coal plant in Holcomb makes no sense for a state that prides itself on common sense. Why would Kansas pollute our future, stall our own local, native energy economy and ship Kansas citizens’ money out-of-state for this dirty coal plant?

Because of the pollution expected from this proposed plant, Holcomb’s parent company, Sunflower Electric Power Corp., must obtain an air permit from regulators. That process is underway now and allows parents and grandparents a chance to stand and have their voices heard.

The public hearings begin at 2 p.m. Aug. 2 at Blue Valley Northwest High School in Overland Park. They continue Aug. 4 at the Highway Patrol Training Center in Salina, and Aug. 5 at Garden City Community College.

It’s time that clean air advocates speak out. It’s time for parents who want local Kansas’ energy jobs to exist for their children to speak out.

It’s time that Kansans stand up for Kansas, and I hope you will.

Jim Roth, an attorney and former member of the Oklahoma Corporation Commission, resides in Oklahoma City.

July 15 Part One – Public Comments on Sunflower Energy’s Proposed Coal-Fired Power Plant

Community Bridge opens this week with Stephanie Cole, Kansas Sierra Club, and Scott Allegrucci, Great Plains Alliance for Clean Energy, in a discussion of the public hearing process for Sunflower Electric’s proposed 895-MW coal plant in Holcomb.

While many may think this is a done deal because the governor and the legislature removed even the potential of regulatory and rate oversight over Sunflower by the Kansas Corporation Commission, and stripped the Kansas Department of Health and Environment of any state authority over air quality, the truth is, neither the governor, nor the legislature, nor a single utility has the ability to unilaterally ignore the existing enforcement agreement between the State of Kansas and the Environmental Protection Agency. Making the up-coming public comment time and public hearings worth paying attention to.

Recently, Physicians for Social Responsibility issued a report showing that coal emissions contribute to four of the five leading causes of death in this country. That means that although Sunflower claims this plant will be the “cleanest in the country,” if it is built, Kansans will be at an increased risk for heart disease, cancer, stroke, and lower respiratory diseases, such as chronic bronchitis and emphysema. So although Colorado is poised to get 80 percent of the energy produced by the plant, Kansas will be stuck with 100 percent of the pollution and 100 percent of the health risks.

The public comment period for Sunflower’s Holcomb Station coal plant is open from July 1 – August 15. Public comments can be submitted to KDHE anytime during that period. Public hearing will be held on:

• August 2 in Overland Park at 2:00 PM Blue Valley Northwest High School (135th and Switzer)
• August 4 in Salina at 2:00 PM Highway Patrol Training Center Auditorium (2025 East Iron)
• August 5 in Garden City at 2:00 PM Garden City Community College Joyce Auditorium (801 Campus Drive)

Hearings will break at 5:00 PM and reconvene at 6:30 PM, continuing until all verbal and written comments have been submitted. For more information, visit KDHE’s Website.

To listen to the podcast, click here.

By Scott Rothschild of The Lawrence Journal World

The Kansas utility wanting to build a giant coal-burning electric power plant is also interested in nuclear energy.

Hays-based Sunflower Electric Power Corp. has joined a consortium promoting the technology to build smaller commercial nuclear reactors and the regulatory changes needed to bring them to market.

“Sunflower’s board is pretty visionary. We are always investigating new technology,” Sunflower spokeswoman Cindy Hertel said Friday.

She emphasized the consideration of nuclear energy is in the beginning stages. “We’re just part of a consortium that says this is a viable technology that needs to be pursued,” Hertel said.

The consortium includes a number of utilities promoting a proposal by Babcock & Wilcox Co. to build small nuclear reactors that can be built in factories and then shipped to sites. Babcock, of Lynchburg, Va., now makes small reactors for the Navy.

Sunflower Electric is seeking a permit to build an 895-megawatt coal-fired plant in Finney County. Public hearings on the project are scheduled next month in Overland Park, Salina and Garden City.

—

For more information, visit The Climate and Energy Project blog.

From WIBW TV

Sunflower Electric has applied for an air quality permit to build a new coal-fired plant in Holcomb, Kansas. KDHE is offering opportunities for the public to comment via e-mail, letter

HOLCOMB, Kansas – Sunflower Electric Power Corp has applied for an air quality constructionpermit to construct one new 895-megawatt coal-fired steam generating unit and associated equipment at its generating station located in Holcomb.

Public comments will be accepted July 1 – August 15 and a series of public hearings are scheduled for August.

Public Hearings Scheduled
Overland Park – Monday, August 2 at 2 p.m. and 6:30 pm.
Blue Valley Northwest High School, 135th and Switzer

Salina – Wednesday, August 4 at 2 p.m. and 6:30 p.m.
Highway Patrol Training Center Auditorium, 2025 East Iron

Garden City – Thursday, August 5 at 2 p.m. and 6:30 p.m.
801 Campus Drive

In each location, the public hearing will begin at 2 p.m. and continue until all participants present have an opportunity to offer written and/or verbal comments, but no later than 5 p.m. The hearing will reconvene at 6:30 p.m. and continue until all verbal and/or written comments have been submitted by participants. People requiring special accommodations to participate in the public hearings should notify Linda Vandevord at (785) 296-6423 by 5 p.m. on July 23.

The public comment period began on July 1, 2010 and ends on August 15, 2010. All comments should be submitted by e-mail to sunflowercomments@kdheks.gov, or presented at the hearing, or in writing to:
KDHE Bureau of Air
Attn: Sunflower Comments
1000 SW Jackson, Suite 310
Topeka, KS 66612-1366

A copy of the draft permit, permit application, supporting documentation, and information relied upon during the permit application review process are available for public review online at http://www.kdheks.gov/bar/index.html or at the above Topeka address during normal business hours (8 a.m. until 5 p.m.) July 1 – August 15.

Copies of the draft permit and all supporting documentation can also be reviewed at the KDHE Northwest District Office, 2310 East 13th St., Hays, or at the KDHE Southwest District Office, 302 W. MacArtor Road, Dodge City. The standard departmental cost will be assessed for any copies requested.

To obtain or review the draft permit and supporting documentation, contact Linda Vandevord at (785) 296-6423 in Topeka; Allen Guernsey, District Environmental Administrator at the KDHE Southwest District Office (620) 225-0596; or Dan Wells, District Environmental Administrator at the KDHE Northwest District Office at (785) 625-5665.

Public hearings scheduled, controversy rekindled

From EarthJustice.org

Topeka, KS – Today, the Kansas Department of Health and Environment released a draft air permit and schedule for public hearings for Sunflower Electric’s proposed 895 MW coal plant in Holcomb, KS. The controversial expansion plans have been the subject of a multi-year debate in Kansas stemming from the many public health, environmental, and financial risks the plant poses. Although very little of the power would stay in Kansas, the Holcomb expansion poses a multitude of public health and environmental risks to Kansans.

“For Sunflower’s minimal power needs, building a near 900 MW coal plant is quite possibly the most risky option for ratepayers and the environment,” said Stephanie Cole of the Kansas Sierra Club.

“The draft permit is a highly technical and lengthy document, and Kansans deserve enough time to thoroughly review the details of the draft permit,” said Amanda Goodin, an Earthjustice attorney who is representing opponents of the expansion project. “Given the fact that the health and welfare of Kansas citizens is at stake, a comprehensive independent review of the permit provisions is essential,” said Goodin.

The public hearings are an opportunity for the coal plant project to be fully vetted by the public, which is a necessary element of the permitting process.

“Citizen input was not allowed in the agreement Governor Parkinson reached with Sunflower last year, and our hope is that the public will recognize that the permit hearings are an important opportunity to have our concerns with this project considered,” said Stephanie Cole.

Coal plant development across the country faces increased regulatory uncertainty, lack of financing, and an awareness of the financial risks coal plants pose to ratepayers. In recent years, due to record-setting clean energy growth and dramatic increases in efficiency, not a single new coal plant has broken ground for construction in the last 18 months.

Sunflower Debt to Taxpayers Remains a Sticking Point

Sunflower has yet to pay back taxpayers for their existing coal plant in Holcomb, which has been the source of financial struggles for Sunflower, as well as unnecessarily high rates for their ratepayers. A lawsuit challenging the Rural Utilities Service approval of funding mechanisms for the Sunflower expansion is already being considered in federal court.

Read information on the draft permit and public hearings.

From the Kansas Chapter of The Sierra Club

You may recall last year that Governor Parkinson entered into an agreement with Sunflower which attempted to allow construction of one coal plant. The good news for us is that governors don’t have the authority to grant air permits, so our fight is not over!

Sierra Club and Earthjustice petitioned the Kansas Department of Health and Environment to require Sunflower to update their permit and host public hearings to allow for citizen input – and we won. The EPA has agreed to our requests and public hearings will likely be scheduled in August. Since we were not allowed to voice concerns when Governor Parkinson entered into an agreement with Sunflower, now is our time to make our voice heard.

Sign onto our statement to demonstrate opposition to new coal plants in Kansas!

We need your help now more than ever to ensure unnecessary coal plants are not built in Kansas. In addition to the host of environmental and public health threats associated with this coal plant, Sunflower Electric remains in debt to taxpayers for their existing coal plant in Holcomb¹.

Sierra Club has opposed this misguided project from day one, and we need your help to keep dirty coal plants out of Kansas.

Add your name to our statement to put Kansas on a path to clean energy!

Sincerely,

Stephanie Cole
Kansas Sierra Club

P.S. We’ve launched a new website that is dedicated to the Sunflower coal plant. We’ll post updates, factsheets, and newslinks related to our Kansas Beyond Coal Campaign on this website. Check us out here.

[1] Learn more about Sunflower’s debt to taxpayers here: http://www.sierraclub.org/coal/ks/pr/pr2009-10-03.aspx

From WIBW TV

The Kansas Department of Health and Environment continues reviewing permit application for Sunflower Electric. Public hearings are expected to be held in August.

The Kansas Department of Health and Environment (KDHE) continues to review the permit application from Sunflower Electric for construction of an 895 megawatt coal-fired electrical generating unit (EGU) in Holcomb, Kan.

The application was submitted in January and staff in KDHE’s Bureau of Air is currently reviewing the permit application materials to ensure they meet Kansas air quality requirements. The remaining application updates from Sunflower are expected to be received soon and the review is anticipated to be completed by the beginning of July. Following the review, a public comment period will begin, with public hearings expected to be held in August.

Current public information meetings being held by Sunflower are not part of the state permitting process. Upon completion of the permit review process, KDHE will publish information on the public comment period as well as the state-led public hearings.

Following the public comment period, KDHE will review and respond to comments and make any necessary revisions.

From the Hutchinson News

Sunflower Electric Power Corp. will hold two open houses early this week in Holcomb and in Great Bend to address any questions and concerns the public has about the planned construction of the 895-megawatt coal-fired unit at the Holcomb station.

The open houses will be 4 to 7 p.m. Monday at Holcomb High School and 4 to 7 p.m. Tuesday at the Knights of Columbus Hall in Great Bend.

Cindy Hertel, Sunflower communications coordinator, said the meeting will provide the public with answers to concerns and will provide information on aspects of the plant such as economic benefits, environmental issues, the permitting process, air quality and the technologies and processes that will be used in order to meet federal regulations.