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.

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.

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.

By Scott Rothschild of The Lawrence Journal-World

TOPEKA — A measure tucked into the state budget could prevent Kansas from implementing Environmental Protection Agency rules on greenhouse gases.

The proposal was shepherded through by Sen. Tim Huelskamp, R-Fowler, during the final days of the legislative session that ended last week.

“Instead of supporting sound science and common sense, the EPA has chosen to take the radical path of attempting to regulate carbon dioxide and methane,” said Huelskamp, who also is running for the 1st District congressional seat, currently occupied by Jerry Moran.

“I’m determined to do what is best for our Kansas economy, and that is to oppose the EPA implementation of their cap-and-trade regulatory scheme at every possible opportunity,” he said.

The amendment to the appropriations bill would prohibit any state agency from spending state funds “to plan, draft, propose, promulgate, finalize or implement any rules and regulations pursuant to the Clean Air Act involving the greenhouse gases identified” in the EPA’s endangerment finding.

EPA has declared that climate-changing greenhouse gases endanger human health and welfare and need to be regulated. Those gases include carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons and sulfur hexafluoride.

The Kansas Department of Health and Environment, which enforces environmental rules, is the target of the amendment, and a major issue before KDHE is a pending permit for an 895-megawatt coal-fired electric power plant in southwest Kansas, known as the Sunflower Electric Power Project.

In 2007, KDHE Secretary Roderick Bremby denied the permit for the project, citing the effects of the proposal’s potential carbon dioxide emissions on health and environment.

In 2008 and 2009, Sunflower Electric and Colorado-based Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association, which would own most of the power from the project, pushed through legislation to overturn Bremby’s decision. Then-Gov. Kathleen Sebelius vetoed that legislation several times.

When Mark Parkinson became governor in 2009, after Sebelius’ departure to join President Barack Obama’s Cabinet, Parkinson made a deal with Sunflower and Tri-State to build a smaller project.

The amendment to the budget bill is now in the hands of Parkinson, who can let it become law or apply a line-item veto to it. Parkinson’s office said the governor has not yet received the appropriations bill but that once he does he will thoroughly consider every proviso before taking any action.

Environmentalists are unhappy with the amendment but, ironically, they are not asking for Parkinson to veto it.

Given Parkinson’s deal-making with Sunflower on the coal plant, they don’t see much help coming from the Statehouse.

“At this point, we’re not inclined to use the legislative process to combat these special interests anymore,” said Stephanie Cole, a spokeswoman for the Kansas chapter of the Sierra Club. “The legislative process is being abused. We will focus on the Sunflower project in the courts.”

Scott Allegrucci, director of the Great Plains Alliance for Clean Energy, said the provision wouldn’t stand up in court and probably would invite more scrutiny from the EPA on Kansas environmental regulation.

“We might consider more direct oversight by EPA a much more responsible and dependable pathway to regulatory certainty in Kansas,” Allegrucci said.

EPA’s Regional Administrator Karl Brooks has already written a letter to Parkinson and Bremby expressing concerns about any provision that would block federal rules.

In that letter, Brooks warns that if a state doesn’t follow federal pollution laws, the EPA will exercise its authority to make sure that projects seeking permits adhere to federal requirements.