Wise Energy for Virginia Coalition calls on ODEC to permanently withdraw delayed coal plant proposal

Media release from Wise Energy for Virginia

The Wise Energy for Virginia Coalition lauded Old Dominion Electric Cooperative’s announcement today to delay plans for what would be the largest coal-fired power plant in Virginia. The temporary halt will allow the company, its customers, government officials and the conservation community to explore alternatives that will cost less and cause less harm to the environment.

The coalition has long opposed the $6 billion coal plant and has mobilized tens of thousands of citizens across the state who are concerned about air pollution, mercury poisoning of waters, mountaintop removal coal mining and the consequences of a warming planet. Since 2002, plans for 133 coal-fired plants in the U.S. have been dropped for economic, environmental and other reasons, according to the Sierra Club.

ODEC, according to its press statement, is delaying the project for a coal plant in Surry County by one-and-a-half to two years.  The coalition today called on the utility to pull the plug on the coal plant altogether and instead commit to deploying more energy efficiency resources and to pursuing cleaner sources of energy, including offshore wind and solar. These sources of energy would more than offset the 1,500 megawatts from the delayed plant.

Appalachian Voices:

“The degree of citizen opposition to the plant is clearly more than ODEC bargained for. Opponents in Dendron and Surry County really made their voices heard. When the Surry County Planning Commission took this up, at least 200 people showed up and the great majority of speakers opposed the plant. This gives ODEC a sense of what to expect if it pursues state and federal permits and they can already see the opposition building in the greater Hampton Roads area and among their retail co-ops’ ratepayers,” said Tom Cormons, Virginia Director.

Chesapeake Climate Action Network:

“We are encouraged that ODEC recognizes that inevitable carbon pollution regulation will continue to make fossil fuels an incredibly poor investment. As ODEC continues to voice their commitment to this plant, we will continue to make every effort to obstruct this project while pursuing alternatives like energy efficiency and renewable energy sources,” said Mike Tidwell, CCAN director.

Sierra Club:

“This is a prudent pause by ODEC. With the advances in efficiency and renewable energy this delay allows ODEC to keep their options open,” said Glen Besa, Virginia Director of the Sierra Club.

Southern Environmental Law Center:

“All Virginians-watermen on the Chesapeake Bay, downwind families affected by smog and soot pollution, ODEC customers who would be facing higher electric bills to pay for the new plant-can breathe a sigh of relief, but this is not over.  The coalition remains engaged in the permitting processes before the Army Corps of Engineers and elsewhere, and we hope to work with ODEC on the clean energy alternatives that produce jobs, keep electricity rates down, and reduce harmful air and water pollution,” said SELC senior attorney Cale Jaffe.

See the original announcement by Old Dominion Electric Cooperative here.

Company that gave up on coal-fired power plant for southern Ohio now plans natural gas plant

From Canadian Business Online

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) – A power company plans to build a natural gas-fired plant in southern Ohio on a site where it scrapped plans for a plant using coal.

Columbus-based American Municipal Power Inc. on Monday said its new project would build a 600-megawatt gas plant on the Ohio River in Meigs County. The coal-fired plant would have been larger, generating 1,000 megawatts.

AMP needs approval from more than 80 cities it supplies with power in six states.

The company gave up on the coal-fired plant last fall.

An environmental group that opposed the coal plant says it won’t object to the gas plant. Another critic of the earlier plan says it’s still studying the new project.

Gov. Ted Strickland says it will create more than 500 construction jobs and 28 permanent ones.

OPINION: Pennsylvania’s energy future needs a better source than coal

By Don Goldstein for the York Dispatch

The Senate leadership recently announced it didn’t have enough votes to bring a climate and energy bill to the floor for a vote before Congress’ August recess. Whether the Senate takes up the legislation later is anybody’s guess.

The House of Representatives passed comprehensive legislation more than a year ago. The Senate is gridlocked, due in part to pressure from the oil and coal industries. Big Coal in particular is loath to see a cap on carbon emissions, given that coal-fired power plants are responsible for a third of those releases.

Coal industry-paid lobbyists and ads have targeted Pennsylvanians, with our critical votes in Congress and deep roots in the coal economy, using two arguments for the energy status quo.

First is the claim that un-capped coal is cheap. But ads claiming coal power plants provide the lowest-cost electricity conveniently leave out the huge costs that are not reflected in the price of that power. The public health costs alone are staggering – over $60 billion per year, according to a study commissioned by the National Research Council.

Coal-fired electricity is responsible for 70 percent of the nation’s sulfur dioxide, 33 percent of nitrogen oxide and 23 percent of particulate matter (soot) emissions, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. Substantially reducing these emissions would prevent millions of missed work and school days, tens of thousands of heart attacks and hospital visits, and 14,000 to 36,000 premature deaths from causes like heart and lung disease annually.

A recent National Academy of Sciences study of coal plant emissions in 2005 found that four of the nation’s 10 deadliest plants are in Pennsylvania and four others are just upwind, in Ohio. After decades of delay, some of the state’s coal plants have since installed or are installing air pollution controls to reduce pollutants, but others continue to operate without modern controls. While newer and modified coal plants emit fewer conventional pollutants, new and old plants alike emit enormous amounts of carbon dioxide, the primary heat-trapping gas that causes global warming – another “cost” Big Coal would rather not discuss.

The industry’s second claim is that capping carbon and moving toward cleaner energy sources would cripple Pennsylvania’s economy. It is true that from the mid-1800s until now, coal powered our factories, warmed our homes and kept our trains running. But today there are only 8,000 direct coal-mining jobs in Pennsylvania, amounting to 0.14 percent of our state workforce. While coal still provides the bulk of our economy’s power needs, entrepreneurship and innovation across the state and nation are rapidly making cleaner alternatives more available and cost-effective. Should we tie those jobs to a dirty, 19th century technology, or help affected workers and communities play a positive role in our 21st century energy transition?

In addition, doing nothing could impose serious long-term costs on many aspects of our state economy. According to a Union of Concerned Scientists report, “Climate Change in Pennsylvania,” if emissions continue unabated, by mid-century temperatures will likely exceed 90 degrees for 50 to 60 days in the summer in much of southwest Pennsylvania. Prized hardwoods, including black cherry, sugar maple and American beech, likely would decline or even vanish. Snowmobiling and skiing would become pastimes of the past. Yields of native Concord grapes, sweet corn and a number of apple varieties likely would decrease considerably as temperatures rose and pests became more virulent.

A strong climate bill – that would cut air pollution, make polluters pay for their emissions and provide incentives for businesses to develop cleaner ways to produce energy – would stimulate renewable power and the ancillary businesses already springing up across our state.

Pennsylvania has the manufacturing know-how to become a world leader in clean energy production. From Erie to Philadelphia, innovative companies are moving to supply the clean-energy economy with wind power, castings and gears for wind turbines themselves, “smart grid” power system controls, clean diesel locomotives and much more.

Foreign capital is being drawn in. The Spanish wind-energy company Gamesa has invested $84 million in Philadelphia, siting two manufacturing facilities and two offices in the state and creating nearly 1,000 jobs. More recently, the German company Flabeg chose Allegheny County for its first U.S. solar-mirror production facility, expected to provide 300 new jobs.

In arguing against climate legislation, the coal companies create a false choice – between a do-nothing path and abandoning coal. Coal will unavoidably be a big piece of our energy portfolio to start. But our goal must be ultimately to leave as much of it in the ground as possible. That may not be good for the coal companies. But it will be good for the American environment and economy, which is to say the American family and worker. We owe our children nothing less.

- Don Goldstein is a professor of economics at Allegheny College in Meadville.

By Scott Rothschild of The Lawrence Journal World

Is coal-fired production of electricity on the rise or is it flaming out?

A recent report by The Associated Press described a nationwide wave of coal-burning power plant construction.

And that fits in with the plan by Hays-based Sunflower Electric Power Corp. to build an 895-megawatt unit in southwestern Kansas.

“Coal isn’t on the wane,” Earl Watkins, president and chief executive officer of Sunflower Electric, said this month after a public hearing in Garden City on the proposed plant.

Environmentalists, however, say the premise of the AP report is inaccurate.

“The coal plants that are being built today were permitted years ago when the outlook for coal was much more favorable than current conditions,” said Stephanie Cole, a spokeswoman for the Kansas chapter of the Sierra Club.

“Building a new coal plant today could be equated to making an investment in rotary dial landline telephones. Coal is yesterday’s fuel source,” Cole said.

Sunflower Electric is seeking a permit from the Kansas Department of Health and Environment for the project. Most of the electricity will be owned by Colorado-based Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association for sale to out-of-state customers.

“There are some 16 coal plants in various stages of construction right now,” Watkins said. “There are another eight to 10 that have just recently been permitted by other utilities across the country.

“Coal projects that are built for speculation are dropping off the table because no one wants to make that type of an investment without knowing they have a need,” Watkins said. “But all of the participants of this project are going to be displacing lost resources, like us, or displacing higher cost market prices, so they have got a revenue stream there.”

Coal-burning has been under fire for producing climate-changing carbon dioxide emissions. President Barack Obama’s administration has proposed regulating CO2. But the AP recently reported that the nation is seeing the largest increase in coal-fired plants in two decades.

More than 30 coal plants have been built since 2008 or are under construction at a cost of $35 billion, AP reported. Once on line, the plants will produce enough electricity to power 15.6 million homes, the equivalent to all the homes in California and Arizona, the report said.

In addition, the plants will generate 125 million tons of greenhouse gases each year, the equivalent of putting 22 million more automobiles on the road.

But Scott Allegrucci, director of the Great Plains Alliance for Clean Energy in Kansas, has a different view of the coal landscape, both nationally and in Kansas.

The number of plants recently built and being built now represent just a fraction of the 151 total plants that the federal government had forecast several years ago. Allegrucci says that shows “coal as an electricity fuel is on the wane.”

And while most of the coal plants have been canceled or put on hold, renewable energy sources have been developed at a record pace.

“So, since November 2008, not a single new coal plant has broken ground for construction, but record amounts of wind, solar, and other renewables are coming online,” Allegrucci said.

And he notes that in the Kansas proposal, Tri-State Generation and Transmission, which will buy most of the power from the proposed Kansas plant, hasn’t made a concrete commitment to the project, describing the plant as an option in Tri-State’s long range plans.

Another factor not mentioned in reports of coal’s rise is that some coal plants are being mothballed, said the Sierra Club’s Cole.

“Today we’re seeing more utilities announce retirement plans for existing coal plants than we are seeing utilities announcing plans to build new coal plants,” Cole said.

By David Roberts of Grist

A few days ago, I offered a brief overview of the U.S. power sector. In a second post, I discussed why America still has a large fleet of filthy old coal plants with no modern pollution controls. (Of the roughly 310 GW of coal plant capacity in the U.S., about 150 GW operates with pollution scrubbers.)

The EPA effectively went into deep freeze under George W. Bush, so there’s a lot of catching up to do to keep the Clean Air Act and other environmental laws in line with the best science. Lisa Jackson’s EPA is working furiously on just that. They’ve got several irons in the fire right now. Coal-dominated utilities are terrified.

Here are the two most significant (non-CO2) regulations on the EPA’s plate right now.

1. National Emission Standard for Hazardous Air Pollutants (NESHAPs)

By March of next year, EPA will release (court-mandated) new standards governing hazardous pollutants like mercury and acid gases under Section 112 of the Clean Air Act. These standards have been a looong time coming. (Frank O’Donnell tells the tale; see also “The Hidden Human and Environmental Costs of Regulatory Delay” from the Center for Progressive Reform.) Two significant things about them:

• The standards apply to all coal-fired power plants, old as well as new.
• These are MACT — maximum achievable control technology — standards, which means all plants will have to match the performance of the top-performing 12 percent. There are some options with mercury, but with acid gases that basically means installing wet scrubbers, which are extremely expensive. All power plants must be in compliance by 2015, which is a fairly short window.

Note: Natural-gas power plants emit no HAPs — no mercury, no acid gases. Obviously regulations on HAPs will differentially advantage gas.

2. The Clean Air Transport Rule (CATR)

The recently released CATR regulates sulfur dioxide (SO2) and nitrogen oxides (NOx). It’s designed to protect states (mostly Eastern states) from pollution that blows across state lines. EPA says the rule will reduce power plant SO2 emissions 71 percent over 2005 levels by 2014, and NOx emissions 52 percent. CATR is a revision of the Bush administration’s Clean Air Interstate Rule (CAIR), key parts of which were invalidated in court.

Note: Natural-gas power plants emit no SO2 and much less NOx than coal plants. Again, these regulations will advantage gas.

Both NESHAPs and CATR serve to force uncontrolled plants to install SO2 scrubbers. Some will find it cheaper to shut down than to make the considerable investment. Exactly how many? That depends on some educated guesses about how old is too old, or how inefficient is too inefficient, for an upgrade to be worth the expense. It also depends importantly on the ongoing price of natural gas, coal’s primary near-term competitor.

According to a report by consultancy ICF International [PDF] …

… approximately 50 percent of the unscrubbed plants or roughly 50 GW of coal fueled generating capacity is “at risk” for retirement across the U.S. in the near- mid-term.

Here’s the projected effect of the regulations according to a similar report from Bernstein Research [PDF]:

In terms of politics, obviously it matters where the effects of the regulations will be concentrated. Here’s where the at-risk plants are, from ICF.

As you can see, the vast bulk of the at-risk plants are in the Central and Southeast areas. Once again: climate politics in a nutshell.

Another way to look at the effects of the regulations is in terms of energy generation. This is from ICF:

In order to meet electric demand, the system would need to replace the roughly 250,000 GWh per year of this retired capacity from the “at risk” coal power plants.

And from Bernstein:

This brings us to the crucial question: Can the regions affected by the new EPA regulations replace the coal energy they’re going to lose with something else in time to keep all the lights on? What can or will displace coal? I’ll take a look at that question soon.

By Darren Goode of The Hill

The Environmental Protection Agency is continuing to roll out more 
greenhouse gas emission rules amid stalled debate in Congress and 
numerous legal challenges to the agency’s broader effort to regulate 
the heat-trapping pollutants.

The agency Thursday proposed two rules aimed at helping businesses get 
permits for large new and expanded facilities that would fall under 
emission restrictions that take effect in January.

EPA wants to mandate that permitting programs in 13 states make
 changes to cover greenhouse gas emissions, while other states must
 review their existing permitting authority and tell the agency if such 
emissions are not covered.

The agency is also proposing a federal plan to implement a new
 permitting program for these heat-trapping emissions to cover large
 facilities that would be regulated beginning next year.

 This is intended as a temporary measure until states revise their own 
plans and assume permitting oversight.

“States are best-suited to issue permits to sources of GHG emissions
 and have long-standing experience working together with industrial 
facilities,” according to an EPA press release.

EPA is holding a public hearing on this proposed rule Aug. 25, and 
hopes to finalize both proposals before Jan. 2.

The Clean Air Act requires states to develop implementation plans that 
EPA must approve that include requirements for issuing air permits. 
Since these would be first-time federal requirements for greenhouse
 gas emissions under the Clean Air Act, states might need to modify 
their plans.

The proposed rules also essentially allow EPA to force permitting 
oversight in states that do not comply with the agency’s greenhouse 
gas regulations.

 “Today’s rules will help ensure that these sources will be able to get 
those permits regardless of where they are located,” according to
 EPA’s press release.

Texas recently joined 16 other court challenges to EPA’s “tailoring”
 rule — which was finalized in June and is intended to limit greenhouse
 gas limits to larger facilities.

 Alabama, North Dakota, South Dakota, Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour
(R), South Carolina and Nebraska filed a joint petition July 30
 challenging the rule. The Louisiana Department of Environmental
 Quality filed a separate lawsuit.

Industry groups challenging the rule 
include the American Forest and Paper Association, National 
Association of Manufacturers, the American Iron and Steel Institute 
and the Portland Cement Association.

Sierra Club filed a legal challenge despite its support for the intent 
of the rule and the timeline for regulating greenhouse gas emissions 
from stationary sources. The group is concerned about the precedent it could 
set for other pollutants.

The Center for Biological Diversity has also challenged it, arguing it
 exempts too many polluters.

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.

From OklahomaLovesGreen.com

Bokoshe, Oklahoma and its residents are legally being poisoned. This poison is in the air, in the water, and settles on everything that happens to be near. It isn’t a pesticide or nuclear waste – though it is just as destructive as the former, and nearly as dangerous as the latter. This poison is known as coal fly ash. It is the residue left from burning coal in coal-burning power plants, and it is regularly dumped in a pit far too close to the town for safety.

Fly ash has been dumped in the vicinity of Bokoshe since 1991, and is currently carried out in other locations across the state, many of them close to towns and residential areas. This practice is an unsafe and hazardous, as fly ash contains dangerous amounts of mercury, lead, and arsenic, all three of which are toxic heavy metals. Fly ash also contains levels of radioactive uranium and thorium that, while neither are dangerous in whole, unburned coal, are concentrated up to ten times in fly ash, thus increasing the danger of being anywhere near it. The fly ash is carried offsite by unwashed trucks and the dust clouds that they stir up, along with heavy wind and rain. The fly ash can be breathed into a person’s lungs, whereupon tiny hooks in the particles keep them in the person’s lungs, eventually coating the lungs in the ash. There is no way to remove the dust, and it is known to increase the problems of asthma and induce other respiratory conditions. Fly ash can also be washed into the water, after which both people and livestock ingest it, and carry the heavy metals contained within the fly ash into their systems.
The citizens of Bokoshe haven’t just taken all of these problems as a simple fact of life; rather, they have been making a stand to fight the companies who continue to dump this dangerous product in their vicinity. Susan Holmes, an area resident and the web director of “In the Air we Breathe”, a website that talks about Bokoshe and the problems that it faces with the recurring fly ash dump, said that while they have managed to prevent a new site from being opened near them, there is still much more that needs to be done in order to help the town and stop the rampant pollution in the area. “It’s gonna take a lawsuit, you know it is – and it shouldn’t. It’s been dumping illegally for seven years; out of compliance, and is still allowed to continue. It should have been shut down,” Holmes said.

So why dump known toxic material in rural areas with low populations? When they dump fly ash in a limited-income, low-population area, fly ash disposal corporations can do nearly as they please, with limited to no intervention, because towns as small as Bokoshe have no power to fight them off. There are other reasons, as well – by licensing dumping out to these corporations, coal power plants can make electricity cheaper, rather than having to charge higher rates in order to cover the disposal costs that it would take for them to treat fly ash as a hazardous waste product. If forced to regulate it as a hazardous waste product then the cost for using coal would be equalized with that of alternative clean energy, making cleaner energy a more viable alternative. And that is something that the coal industry does not want to happen.
Environmentalists across the country are attempting to fight the constant dumping by pushing for the EPA to classify fly ash as a hazardous waste, so that it will be handled and disposed of in a better manner. The heavy metal content of fly ash alone is enough to make the substance dangerous, and with the added factors of respiratory problems and the dangerous slicks that can be formed when fly ash gets wet, environmentalists claim that there is more than enough reasons to have it classed as a hazardous waste.
The way that fly ash is disposed of currently is judged on a state-by-state level, and Oklahoma’s regulations currently do not require fly ash to be handled as a hazardous waste. Instead, it is treated in the same manner as household garbage, simply taken to a specific landfill – in this case, fly ash pits – and dumped. There are currently seven of these fly ash pits across the state, with five of them located in a single county. Most of these sites are in the southeastern portion of the state; a rural area dotted with small towns. These small towns bear the brunt of the fly ash dumps from the coal-fire power plants, while large cities that have greater political clout have never encountered fly ash or its devastating effects.” It’s so important to quit making the rural areas the big cities’ dumping grounds. If they don’t want it, why would we?” Holmes said.
Bokoshe’s situation is not yet, a hopeless case, despite all the problems Bokoshe can be helped. By going to the EPA website and requesting that fly ash be classified as Subtitle C – that is, hazardous waste -, the ordinary citizen can play a part in one of the most important environmental reforms of the century. Both the Sierra Club and EarthJustice websites provide a simple link enabling the ordinary citizen to take this action.
For more information about Bokoshe and the problems the town faces with fly ash, go to In The Air We Breathe

The following was written by Jeff Jacobsen for his blog, Here I Stand

I can’t tell you how many times I have watched coal trains lumber across the Kansas Plains stretched out for miles like a monstrous strand of black licorice.  I’ve sat in my car or rested on my bike watching and waiting for them to pass, but, sadly, not thinking.  The time has come to do that.  Without much thought I have watched those trains and never really pondered from where that coal comes and how much damage that coal is doing to the air and water of our wondrous state.  Let’s clear the air.

All Kansans should be thinking very hard about the future of our state and coal’s role in it.  A permit for the construction of an 895 mega-watt coal plant near Holcomb in western Kansas is being considered.  A public comment phase runs through August 15.  Public hearings began Monday, August 2 in Overland Park.  Others hearings will be held in Salina on August 4 and Garden City on August 5.   The plant would be owned and operated by Sunflower Electric, but Tri-State Generation and Transmission in Colorado will have already claimed 85% of the energy for Colorado.  They have craftily done this by directing roughly $52 million to Sunflower Electric to carry on the fight for a permit.  The power would not be a revenue-generating export for Kansas and would have little effect on our bottom line.

If the Holcomb plant receives its permit, begins construction in 2016, as hoped, and goes on-line some years later, 3.4 million tons of coal would be burned every year.  That would require over 30,000 train cars annually, or one full train every day.  That is simply too much.  Estimates are that our country’s coal reserves could be in serious decline in as little as 20 years.

Coal for the plant in Holcomb would come from Wyoming.  According to the National Conference of State Legislators, Wyoming generated 803.6 million in severance revenue from the sale of coal.  By pursuing use of Kansas’ abundant natural gas resources and advancing our use of wind energy, we can stop shipping our money west.  In the process of putting more Kansans to work, we also can strengthen our economy and create better schools, libraries and overall public funding in areas we Kansans all need.

According to information from the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory, 2, 700 MW of installed wind capacity at 44% capacity factor would create $7.2 million a year in direct payment to landowners, $7.8 million a year in PILOT revenue, 4,300 new jobs during construction with $508 million a year directly to local economies and 700 new permanent operation jobs generating $57 million a year.  Combine those figures with the already extensive employment that comes with the use of our natural gas, Kansas would be in the enviable position of generating all the power Kansans need and reaping the financial benefits.  These plants and wind generators could be up and running far sooner than any coal plant.

All the money involved pales though compared to the impact a move to cleaner energy would have on our state’s well being.  Coal pollutes.  Coal plants deplete our water resources.  Both contribute to the need for growing concern over our environmental future.  We cannot afford to turn our backs any longer to the realities of global warming.  A report from the Physicians for Social Responsibility has stated that coal pollutants like carbon dioxide, mercury, particulate matter and nitrous oxide will cause damaging effects on respiratory, cardiovascular and nervous systems.  The Holcomb plant would use 6,000 Olympic-sized swimming pools of water each year.  A drive through western Kansas should make anyone aware of how precious water is to the farmers and ranchers of the area.

Remember the hearings currently underway deal with the need for an air quality permit.  All the evidence given on both sides dealing with economic factors is meaningless.  That is just the barter being used to overwhelm our thought process.  Clean air is at issue right now.  There are cheaper, safer and more state beneficial options that would have immediate impacts.  None would be greater than the fact we would be assuring cleaner air for Kansans for decades to come.

In fairness, my daughter Kelly is at the forefront of this fight for clean energy with her work for the Great Plains Alliance for Clean Energy (GPACE.)  Thanks to her and others, we Kansans are becoming more and more aware of the impact a coal plant would have on our state.  Meanwhile, we continue to drag our feet over embracing cleaner and safer alternatives.  I know I’ll never again sit in my car or rest on my bike as a coal train lumbers past and not think of the impact that black matter has had on us all.

We are already deeply reliant on coal in eastern Kansas.  Sadly, those trains will keep coming.  Let’s just make sure they don’t make a stop in western Kansas.  Maybe someday they’ll just keep right on rolling through Kansas to other states not as farsighted as we can be here in Kansas.  Now that would really be a great way to clear the air.

For further information, please go to the GPACE website here.

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

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

My name is Kelly Jacobsen. I’m a native Kansan and I’m here today to show my support for the workers of Kansas by opposing the construction of this 895mw coal plant and urging the Kansas Department of Health and Environment and Sunflower Electric to consider a project that would utilize native Kansas resources.

If this project is permitted, Tri-State Generation and Transmission, the out-of-state owners of this coal plant, have said they do not anticipate construction starting until at least 2016. That means that there is no potential for work for at least six years. Not a single new coal plant has broken ground in the last twenty months. In this tough economic climate, these men and women don’t need a wink-and-a-smile deal saying they will have jobs in six years — they need jobs now.

Construction on the Emporia Energy Center, a peak natural gas plant, started within one year of permitting and The Renewable Energy Policy Project reports that Kansas could create 11,491 new manufacturing jobs in the renewable energy industry. Why should these workers wait six years for 1,500 temporary construction jobs and 50 permanent jobs at a coal plant when natural gas and wind have the potential to put more people to work sooner.

I want these workers to be able to take pride in the fact that their work will utilize homegrown fuels like natural gas and wind, instead of imported coal from Wyoming.

Not only would using native resources put these people to work faster, but it would also generate a source of tax revenue for the state of Kansas. In 2007, Kansas generated $132.3 million in severance revenue. In the same year, the state of Wyoming generated $803.6 million in severance revenue. Why should we continue to send our dollars to Wyoming when we could be better utilizing our Kansas native fuels to generate tax revenue which could create better schools, better libraries and better public funding in our state?

Finally, not only do I want these workers to be able to provide for their families, but I want them to be able to do it in a way that doesn’t put their families at higher risks for asthma, heart disease, lung disease, cancer, and stroke. According to a report from Physicians for Social Responsibility, coal pollutants, like carbon dioxide, mercury, particulate matter, and nitrous oxides will cause damaging effects on our respiratory, cardiovascular, and nervous systems.

Based on this information, I ask you to please deny this permit application. Thank you for your time.

Respectfully,

Kelly Jacobsen