By John Hanna, Associated Press, via ABC News Money

Associated Press, via Wichita Eagle online

TOPEKA, Kan. - A western Kansas utility’s push to build a new coal-fired power plant could touch off a battle over water.

Hays-based Sunflower Electric Power Corp. estimates that its new plant in Finney County in southwest Kansas will consume 3.9 billion gallons of water a year.

Most of the electricity generated by Sunflower’s new plant initially would flow to a partner utility in Colorado. That’s leading critics to suggest Kansas will be exporting water.

Farmers who previously held the rights to the water Sunflower wants to use would have been allowed to consume significantly more water.

Eventually, the project will need a water-use permit from the Kansas Department of Agriculture.
Read more: http://www.kansas.com/2010/09/06/1480522/water-also-an-issue-with-western.html#ixzz0ylbUdYVu

Talks Run Hot ‘n’ Coal

Nuke Plant Eyed

By Andy Vuong for The Denver Post

WESTMINSTER — Amid growing criticism about its heavy reliance on coal-fired power, the state’s second-largest utility is considering the prospect of building a nuclear power plant in southeastern Colorado.

Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association’s board of directors voted recently to have its staff study nuclear as a possibility for the site in Prowers County near Holly.

The company secured the site and necessary water rights for a plant that could either be coal-fired or nuclear. Tri-State would need a partner on a nuclear plant because of high construction costs. The staff was directed to pursue potential partners.

Right now, coal-fired power plants provide 70 percent of the company’s generation. Going nuclear could blunt some of the criticism about coal’s high carbon emissions, while likely opening up an entirely new battleground.

At Tri-State’s annual meeting at its headquarters in Westminster, board chairman Harold Thompson said the utility is dealing with rising energy costs and a tighter regulatory environment as it prepares for the future.

“We’re at a crossroads here, in more ways than one,” Thompson said.

Environmentalists and some of Tri-State’s member electric co-operatives have questioned its proposal to build two new coal-fired units, at a cost of $3.6 billion, at an existing power plant in Kansas. The concerns come in the face of the nation’s booming green movement and prospects of a carbon tax.

Colorado regulators have zeroed in on the utility since the proposed 1,400-megawatt expansion — in partnership with Sunflower Electric Power Corp. of Hays, Kan. — was shelved because of an air permit denial in October. That ruling by the state of Kansas came over concerns about carbon dioxide emissions. Tri-State and Sunflower have appealed.

Unlike Xcel Energy, Colorado’s largest utility, Tri-State is not rate-regulated by the Colorado Public Utilities Commission. Tri-State sells power to rural electric cooperatives.

The PUC oversees only Tri-State’s construction of new plants or transmission lines in the state. But at the request of PUC chairman Ron Binz, Tri-State has agreed to a public hearing, expected to occur within the next two months, to discuss how the company plans to meet consumer electric needs going forward.

“Part of the logic behind us exploring their resource plan with them is we want to be fully equipped when and if they come before us with a proposal to build a power plant or a transmission line,” Binz said.

Incoming GM to be on hot seat

Tri-State’s backup plan for the Kansas plant is the Prowers County project, dubbed the Colorado Power Project. The company said it secured water rights in 2007 and plans to eventually construct a plant at the site even if the Kansas clean-coal project gains approval.

Tri-State’s incoming general manager Ken Anderson, currently a senior vice president, will be on the hot seat once he takes over in July. He said he is committed to coal because of its relatively low cost, but is open to other sources of power.

“We own coal, we have faith in coal, we know about its reliability,” he said. “It’s still the proper resource decision for the nature of resources that we need.”

The company said it has to continue to rely on coal because its rural customers require a constant load and renewables aren’t suitable for base-load generation and natural gas prices are too volatile.

Tri-State sells wholesale power to 44 member rural utilities in Colorado, Nebraska, New Mexico and Wyoming. Its members serve 1.4 million people, with 62 percent in Colorado.

Tri-State doesn’t answer to shareholders or financial regulators. It is owned by its member cooperatives, which, in turn, are owned by their customers. Each cooperative has a seat on Tri-State’s board.

The wholesale power provider’s detractors have decried its reliance on coal.

“There’s been a lot of concern that these big coal investments are going to turn out to be much more expensive than Tri-State has been saying,” said Ned Farquhar, an official with environmental advocacy group Natural Resources Defense Council. “Coal-plant costs have been going up almost geometrically around the world.”

Forty-two of Tri-State’s members are locked into contracts to buy power from the utility through 2050, and two have contracts through 2040.

The long-term deals restrict members from pursuing alternative power, although Tri-State amended the contracts last year to allow members to buy up to 5 percent of their power from renewable sources.

Wes Perrin, a board member at Tri-State customer San Miguel Power Association, which serves the Telluride area, said the utility should put more efforts into energy- efficiency programs to cut down on usage.

“I don’t think they share the concerns that the rest of us do about the harmful effects of carbon, although they understand it,” Perrin said.

Several initiatives undertaken

J.M. Shafer, Tri-State’s outgoing general manager, noted several initiatives that the utility is undertaking on the renewable front. Among them:

• Considering bids this year for up to 100 megawatts of renewable power. The company received 46 proposals, and a decision will probably come in the third quarter.

• Partnering in a proposed concentrating solar power project in New Mexico.

• Joining the National Renewable Cooperative Organization as a founding member to focus on the development and deployment of renewable energy by electric cooperatives.

Tri-State is required by Colorado law to boost its renewable generation to 10 percent by 2020.

Shafer, 64, and Anderson, 48, said the main factor the company considers when deciding on a new generation source is cost. Despite criticism to the contrary, Shafer said Tri-State factors in the possibility of a carbon tax into its cost projections.

Asked for specifics, the company was vague, stating that it uses a carbon tax estimate of anywhere from $5 to $50 per ton, and beyond.

“If it ever reaches a point where coal becomes more expensive than some other resource, that will be our recommendation,” said Shafer.

Nuclear could be a possibility

That’s where nuclear could be a possibility because maintenance and fuel costs have dropped an estimated 30 percent since 1995. Also, nuclear plants emit little, if any, greenhouse gas.

But nuclear plants are expensive to build, far exceeding the construction costs of traditional coal and natural-gas-fired plants. The price tag on a 1,000-megawatt nuclear plant is estimated at roughly $2 billion. And it could take a decade or more to go through the necessary permitting process and complete construction.

Concerns also exist over the proper storage of nuclear waste and the safety hazards of using radioactive materials to generate power. Nuclear power plants generate 20 percent of the nation’s power, but no new nuclear plant has come online in the U.S. in more than a decade.

Colorado’s only nuclear plant, Fort St. Vrain in Weld County, shut down in the 1990s because of operational problems.

Told of Tri-State’s plan to consider nuclear power, Perrin, an energy consultant, said he was “conflicted.”

“I see the benefits of it, and I see the dangers of it,” he said.

He said a nuclear plant faces a stiff uphill battle, but added, “We know that carbon is our biggest problem right now, and it wins that race.”

Andy Vuong: 303-954-1209 oravuong@denverpost.com

Read more:Talk runs hot ‘n’ coal – The Denver Posthttp://www.denverpost.com/search/ci_8818169#ixzz0yUGpleba

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.

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 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

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 Michael Stand of The Salina Journal

In 2007, Kansas was temporarily in the world spotlight when Rod Bremby, secretary of the Kansas Department of Health and Environment, denied a permit to Sunflower Electric to build a new coal-fired generating plant in southwest Kansas.

The decision was so widely watched because it was the first time a permit had been denied because of the carbon dioxide a plant would emit; it declared carbon dioxide a health hazard.

Sunflower is once again looking to expand its generating capacity at Holcomb, this time seeking to build a far smaller, 895 megawatt plant, instead of the twin 700-MW plants it wanted to build a few years ago.

A public hearing on the proposal is scheduled for Wednesday at the Kansas Highway Patrol training center. The hearing will begin at 2 p.m., with a break from 5 to 6:30, then resume until everyone has an opportunity to speak.

During the 2008 legislative session, Gov. Kathleen Sebelius vetoed three different bills seeking to overturn Bremby’s ruling, but after she resigned to become U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services, Gov. Mark Parkinson met with Sunflower officials and reached a compromise.

Included in that compromise, said Clare Gustin, Sunflower’s executive manager for external affairs, was a much smaller expansion, as well as a commitment from Sunflower to develop more renewable energy sources.

The plant is a joint project between Sunflower and Colorado-based Tri-State Generation and Transmission Cooperative.

Among those opposing the plant expansion is Scott Allegrucci, executive director of the Great Plains Alliance for Clean Energy.

Allegrucci says that while the new proposal is significantly smaller — and will create less carbon dioxide — most of the objections to the earlier proposal still hold.

This isn’t exporting wheat

Allegrucci says the bulk of the power generated by the new plant will be used in Colorado, with Sunflower customers getting just 10 percent.

He acknowledges that Kansas exports lots of stuff, such as wheat, but says this case is different.

“We’re not exporting power,” he said. “Sunflower isn’t making power and then selling it on the market — essentially we’re hosting a coal plant for an out-of-state utility … Tri-State doesn’t want to fight this fight in Colorado.”

And in spite of Gustin’s assurances that Sunflower is committed to developing renewable energy sources, Allegrucci says the expansion would make it more difficult for wind and solar projects to gain a foothold.

“An overbuild of this size would flood our grid with coal-generated electrons, making (renewables) that much less economically feasible,” he said.

Why not natural gas?

He also questions why Sunflower wants to use coal to power the generators, saying he thinks natural gas would be better for a number of reasons.

“We have natural gas in Kansas, and they could be using that and keeping the money in Kansas instead of buying coal from Montana,” Allegrucci said. “Even if gas prices go higher, at least the money would be staying in Kansas.”

Gustin says choosing coal over natural gas is a sound business decision. Utilities typically use coal for so-called “base load,” because coal-fired plants must run constantly, and use gas-fired plants — which can be turned off and on almost at will — to handle peak loads only, because gas is more expensive.

“We’re not just biased toward coal,” she said, adding that the expansion is a 30- to 40-year investment, and that the company thinks coal prices will be more stable over that time.

Who will buy the power?

Allegrucci also says the plant isn’t needed now, even by Tri-State, and that Tri-State’s own projections say it won’t need the power until 2026.

But Gustin says a contract Westar has to buy 174 MW of power from Aquila expires in 2018, and Westar will need to get that power from somewhere else.

Allegrucci also said it’s possible the federal government might step in to stop the plant expansion, even if state officials approve it.

In 2007, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the EPA could regulate carbon dioxide, and Allegrucci said the agency intends to start doing just that beginning in January.

Exactly how that regulation will unfold remains to be seen, Allegrucci said, adding that the EPA has already required one plant in Kentucky to use natural gas instead of coal, because it creates less carbon dioxide.

“Basically, Sunflower is racing to get their permit before January 2011,” he said.

KDHE News Release

The public comment period for Sunflower Electric Power Corp’s draft air quality construction permit is being restructured to accommodate changes Sunflower needs to make to its air pollution dispersion modeling data.

This week, it was determined by federal and state officials that the meteorological data Sunflower Electric used were not adjusted for differences in time zones prior to input into the dispersion model.  Modeling results simulate how the plant will impact ambient air in surrounding areas.  Sunflower has been advised this portion of the permit application will need to be revised and resubmitted. It is estimated it will take approximately 30 days to receive the revised information.

Kansas Department of Health Environment (KDHE) is committed to a public process which will include a second comment period on all aspects of the permit.  KDHE will issue an additional public notice subsequent to review of the modeling data and conduct one public hearing to receive comments on the new modeling data results as well as the entire draft permit. Details on the second comment period and final hearing will be announced at a later date.

The current public comment period is scheduled to end August 15 and KDHE encourages anyone with comments related to the permit to submit comments by this date. The public hearings scheduled for next week will continue as planned to receive comments on all aspects of the draft permit. KDHE believes it is important to hold these hearings to keep the process moving forward. The public comment period is part of the permitting process.

They public hearings will be held at the following locations:

• Overland Park – Monday, August 2 at 2 p.m. and 6:30 p.m.
  Blue Valley Northwest High School, 135th and Switzer, Overland Park
• Salina – Wednesday, August 4 at 2 p.m. and 6:30 p.m.
  Highway Patrol Training Center Auditorium, 2025 East Iron, Salina.
• Garden City – Thursday, August 5 at 2 p.m. and 6:30 p.m.
  801 Campus Drive, Garden City

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.

All comments should be submitted by e-mail to sunflowercomments@kdheks.gov , or in writing to: KDHE Bureau of Air, Attn.: Sunflower Comments, 1000 S.W. Jackson, Suite 310, Topeka, KS 66612-1366 or presented at the hearing.

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 through August 15. Copies of the draft permit and all supporting documentation can also be reviewed at the KDHE Northwest District Office, 2301 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.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the KDHE have been meeting with Sunflower regularly throughout the application process and will continue the meetings.

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As the state’s environmental protection and public health agency, KDHE promotes responsible choices to protect the health and environment for all Kansans.

Through education, direct services and the assessment of data and trends, coupled with policy development and enforcement, KDHE will improve health and quality of life. We prevent illness, injuries and foster a safe and sustainable environment for the people of Kansas.