It’s not over until it’s over? In the latest round over the proposed coal-fired power complex near Holcomb, the Sierra Club has filed a lawsuit against the Kansas Department of Health and Environment in an attempt to force a formal hearing on Sunflower Electric Corp.’s application for an air permit.
And Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association, the Colorado partner in the proposed plants, announced Thursday that it was delaying one of the two units it planned to build at the Holcomb site, instead pursuing natural gas and renewable energy.
Are we seeing a shift in momentum on this issue? With more dire news on global warming last week, the political pressure is sure to mount on the Sebelius administration to block the plants or ensure they don’t contribute to greenhouse gases.
Posted by Randy Scholfield
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21 Comments
Never was a fan of Coal Fire plants myself. The Sierra Club hates all kind of energy producing plants anyway. They even cite the wind turbines as bird killers.
Perhaps a new plant Casino can be built on Holcomb soil with energy produced by sliding slot levers and spinning roulette wheels.
The alternative they are talking about, that is, burning natural gas most likely from the Hugoton, Kansas sources, while burning cleaner than coal, WILL MOST LIKELY RAISE OUR RESIDENTIAL NATURAL GAS PRICES SKY HIGH.
Bad alternative in my opinion.
Would still use a lot of our underground aquifer water of which we are in short supply.
They are also talking about alternative, renewable energy sources. Suddenly its become fashionable to think green. And it’s about time.
Unfortunately, what’s “green” in other places might not be “green” in Kansas if the manufacturing process uses lots of our underground aquifer water. Would be better if they would use effluent from our large sewage treatment plants.
There is some interesting movement on this issue, since it turns out that the Governor will be the one making the decision to approve/not approve the Holcomb. Some well-placed folks (Walt Chappell among them) have been meeting with members of Sibelius’ staff to propose a green alternative based on wind and photovoltaic. This would also create many more jobs, more widely dispersed, than the mere 250 that would be created in Holcomb.
The important thing to remember: Kansas only gets 10% of the electricity generated from the burning of the coal. The other 90% of the electricity goes back to Wyoming, where the coal comes from, and to Colorado and New Mexico. They get the energy, while we get the pollution and drained aquifier. Lousy bargain. Considering that Kansas is #3 in terms of harvestable wind power, it’s an even worse bargain.
CF2K will be the first to acknowledge that no single source of renewable energy can compete with fossil fuels for efficiency and output. But the future is in diversifying energy sources, not in going with only one, whose destructive effects are well known and understood. The Holcomb plant would drain (I think) nine billion gallons of water out of the Olalla Aquifier. Not good.
If this plant is built, it will be the largest single-point emission source of carbon in the United States.
Cosmo posted a link yesterday to a 300-page report on alternative energy and energy efficiencies.
http://www.oilendgame.com/ReadTheBook.html
The think tank that put out this report, Rocky Mountain Institute, is not a left-wing organization. It does consulting work for industry and the military. The report’s foreword was written by George Schultz, hardly a left-winger. Schultz was a member of Eisenhower’s Council of Economic Advisors, he was dean of the conservative University of Chicago School of Business, served as Labor and later Treasury Secretary under Nixon, was Secretary of State under Reagan, and was president of Bechtel, the giant construction company that built most of the post-WII oil refineries in the Middle East.
He was also a key issues strategist for GWB in 2000, as a neoconservative.
The Rocky Mountain institute strongly supports market-driven alternative-energy and conservation solutions that provide profitable opportunities. RMI’s founder, Amory Lovins has lectured at the National Defense University, the Naval War College, and the Naval Postgraduate School. He was awarded a MacArthur “genius grant” for his far-sighted ideas and research.
WE editors and readers of WEBlog should read this report, as I am currently doing thanks to Cosmo’s post.
“The Sierra Club hates all kind of energy producing plants anyway. They even cite the wind turbines as bird killers.”
FYI – Charles Benjamin, lobbyist for Sierra Club, worked to enact legislation to facilitate siting of wind power facilities. Southwind Sierra has been pushing wind for years.
Thanks, Ben.
That’s the typical “post-and-run” style of the Mamzer.
Make the false claim based on nothing first, and then respond in hurt outrage (”you’re making fun of a cripple?”) when he’s called on it.
As proof, he’ll drege up some editorial from the Cato Institute or the WSJournal long on opinion and short on fact . . .
You don’t have to be a tree-hugging liberal to hate the Holcomb plant.
8 billion gallons of water a year drained from the aquifer.
They get the power–we get the mercury, the ash and its polluting salts, the acid rain, the CO2 wafted over us.
Yeah, great deal.
Actually, the Sierra Club cites the bird killing theme when it conveniences them. They used it in the ANWR project and several power projects around the country to hold up production of Wind Turbines. They usually align themselves long enough with groups like Audubon Society or some Environmental group to file a lawsuit, then step back on the other side of the alternative energy line to promote it.
Schizophrenic behavior I would say.
This is a prefect example of why we are facing energy crisis in this country.
Can’t build a coal powerplant because of environmental issues.
Can’t build a Nuclear plant because of hysteria.
Can’t build Hydro power because of the fish.
You can’t build enough wind power and solar power to provide the energy consumption demands.
They are great supplements and I support both.
But we need POWER.
Gosh, GS sure doesnt have much to say on this thread. I guess the last time she got her butt kicked by cosmos and I and some others must have cured her on shilling for the “family business”. heheheeh
Mark Schooley,
Thank you for the excellent description of OilEndGame.
I also suggest reading their ‘General Energy Policy’,http://www.rmi.org/sitepages/pid306.phpand ‘Natural Capitalism’, ‘Small Is Profitable’, etc at bottom of that page.
Republican,
Can you provide *ANY* examples of the “schizophrenic behavior” that you claim the Sierra Club exhibits? NO…? Heh… whatever.http://www.sierraclub.com/globalwarming/cleanenergy/factsheet/wind.asp
Nathan,
Aren’t you a EE student? Perhaps someday you’ll learn that SAVING energy is CHEAPER than producing it? See RMI links above.
ksfarmgrrl,
GSheridan used the very brief power shortages in TX as a (bogus) reason to build the Holcomb coal plants.
TXU cancelled 8 of the 11 new coal plants they had INSISTED needed to be built. Now, TXU is boasting about being “green”.http://www.texasenergyfuture.com/benefits/index.php
And… if TXU had focused on efficiency and renewables a few years ago, they wouldn’t NEED to build the other 3 coal plants.
Many TXU customers will now get a rate cut. If the Holcomb coal plants are built, their customers will get a rate INCREASE.
Cosmos,My statement stands as it is about the Sierra Club. The duty to disprove it is up to you, not me.
Republican,
Are you so clueless (etc, etc, etc…) that you actually BELIEVE that it’s MY “DUTY” to “DISPROVE” your false, bogus, BS claims?
Either back up your claim about the Sierra Club… OR admit that it’s BS.
It’s YOUR choice. YOU either DEFEND it, or you ADMIT it’s bogus.
Or… you can just slink away… which will prove your claim is BS.
Nope Cosmos, it’s just like a court of law. You make a claim that my assertion is false, you have to prove it.
Or…you can just slink away…which will prove your claim is BS. :)
Jeez, Khan you are so full of crap.
You make a false claim and it is up to everyone else to prove you lied?
Okay, try this one – Republican wears women’s under garments and enjoys flash guys at the park on Sunday afternoons.
Prove that wrong, Khan.
Both sides are right on this one:
http://kansas.sierraclub.org/Issues/WindpowerPosition.htm
I know Tom, no one believes me. I do careful research before I make a statement. Alternative Energy companies that want to erect WindPower stations have been effectively hamstrung by the Audubon Society and Sierra Club. They want the companies to go in debt before they even start up and make profit. They will offer no plan that is economically viable for the company, such as conducting bird studies by universities or other societies. They want a paid up front testing.
They are blocking the the process of alternative energy.
Tom,
The Sierra Club is consistent, not “schizophrenic”, re protecting birds and other wildlife.
Republican,
“a court of law”?
What an ODD coincidence. That’s the same thing “JM” said about climate scientists re AGW.
Republican… this is blog, NOT “a court of law”.
Republican made some claims at 11:55 AM.http://blogs.kansas.com/weblog/2007/04/sunflower_coalf.html#comment-65801750
Republican either has the FACTS to support the claims he made earlier, and can QUICKLY post them… or he doesn’t.
Please excuse me for not wasting any more time here tonight.
The last sentence in this column seems to sum up the Sierra Club’s position on wind versus coal-fired power.
http://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/200701/birds.asp“Efforts to make turbines safer for birds seem to be working. According to a 2003 study of 4,700 turbines located outside California, each killed 2.3 birds per year. That’s a tiny number compared with the hundreds of millions of birds that fall prey to cats every year, or the 4 million, at minimum, that collide with communication towers.
And it pales in comparison to the number of birds and other creatures that would be killed by catastrophic global warming.”
http://kansas.sierraclub.org/Issues/WindpowerPosition.htm“Wind power in Kansas can be a positive force in our efforts to fight global warming. With close monitoring turbines siting can be done in an environmentally benign manner.”
‘Sierra Club’s Position on the New TradeWind Energy Wind Farm’http://kansas.sierraclub.org/Wind/TradeWind.htm“Based on what we know now, any environmental impacts should be small in comparison to the benefits the wind farm will convey in limiting damage to wildlife in Kansas and elsewhere from global warming.”