WE Blog

I’m normally pro-business but not when business trumps our Kansas environmental safety. These two new power plants added to an existing third power plant already near Holcomb, Kansas will threaten our Kansas underground aquifer water supply.

THESE POWER PLANTS WILL GULP WATER FROM THE FORMERLY PRISTINE UNDERGROUND OGALLALA WATER AQUIFER. Plus they are threatening to build ethanol production plants on the site … more water gulping.

Ogallala underground water drifts generally westward providing much of the water to the Ninnescah River and the Equus Beds aquifer both of which provide water for Wichita’s water supply.

If these power plants are approved, eventually Wichita and other central Kansas municipalities will be drinking recycled sewage effluent from surface rivers such as the Arkansas River.

A REALLY BAD DEAL FOR WICHITA AND SOUTHERN KANSAS.

Ooooooops!

Talk about 180 degrees mistaken.

“don’t see or hear discussion about carbon, I see it about water.”

was supposed to be…

” don’t see or hear discussion about water, I see it about carbon.”

The water needs to be a bigger issue.

Anyone in the leg. that votes for this un needed, water gulping, give away to fossil fuels should be bounced out of office in November.

Because if they even TOUCH the issue of water, they open the door to criticism of big ag, irrigation, and especially, their baby ethanol plants.

They dont WANT the water issue even MENTIONED.

But good for you all for getting it on the water issue.

Five kansans down, millions to go…

They must think they have the votes for an outright override.

And one of my insiders at the capital has noted that the sebelius folks are saying if she vetoes it and they override, she gets to have clean hands and say “well I tried”.

Yeah, right. I think a wink and a nod from the governor’s office told them to go ahead if they have the overrride votes.

JR is right. Anyone who votes for this naked power play should be bounced out of office. But try telling that to the hillbillies who put folks like neufeld, huelskamp, ostmeyer, and morris in office in the first place.

Randy, it should be YOUR FELLOW VOTERS AT WORK!

Or maybe YOUR CORPORATE DOLLARS at work, courtesy of Sunflower Electric.

I’m for the Sunflower Coal Plants. We need to plan ahead for the energy to maintain our state and grow it. Global warming and carbon credits is a bunch of bunk to me.

Time to replace all those Republicans at the state level, they could care less what the average Joe says about his state.

We need to look at hemp production in Western Ks. for an economic stimulus to the region. If it can be used for fuel, and consumes little water, it sounds like an ideal crop out there.

hey george?

Were you aware that the Wolf creek nuclear plant was offline for several days recently?

I didn’t notice any shortages of power or blackouts.

I don’t hear of any in Colorado either. That is where the power from Holcomb is supposedly needed. But the ski lifts are already running uninterrupted.

How is it that is is dark where you are george? And how will building a water gulping, carbon spewing dinosaur plant help light your way?

Starting to think George is Always in the Dark!

I wonder if the new state AG can do anything in court as the coal plant and the ethanol plants being bad public policy from the standpoint of water consumption in an area that can’t afford it?

Isn’t the water the public’s procession?

(I’m definitely not a lawyer-person)

“Thinking for [sic] our future” is CON speak for lining one’s pockets with special-interest money.

We’ve been burning coal for fuel since the 1820’s, but to the CON’s, it’s the “future.”

Pay no attention to wind and solar . . .

“The House Energy and Utilities Committee on Tuesday voted to reduce the percentage of the state’s overall energy portfolio coming from coal-fueled power. The approved amendment would require utility companies to generate 10 percent of their energy from renewable sources by 2010 and 25 percent by 2025.”

———–

I think the above is a pretty big deal. Why do we have to read the Topeka paper’s website to find it out?

I’m not sure the goal is not over-reaching, but it certainly refutes CapnAmerica’s implication that no attention is being paid to alternative energy.

I’d be more inclined toward wind/solar if there were more viable storage systems for it.

I could even see muscle power for some applications. One of the Discovery channels has a show about alternative energies. Noticed where they had the bicycle where at a liesurly pace could power a laptop (I know, that’s been around since the 60s, but you had to really crank it just to get a 25 watter to glow dimly). And the leg attachment that can be used to power such things as pacemakers and medical auto-injectors (whatever they’re called!). I’d like to see the ecological footprint of something like that opposed to the footprint of batteries used, including disposal.

should be bounced out of office in November.

You and who’s army JR? Although you post on a liberal oriented blog, don’t forget you also live in a red state.

Covert–

Are you a new poster or an old one?

Hey George,
Buddy don’t lose heart because of the ridicule and generally juvenile comments directed at you just because you haven’t succumb to the mass hysteria of the ‘Global warming and all carbon is bad’ chicken little club those guys belong to. They simply hate anybody expressing any common sense on the subject, and that won’t follow along in lockstep or that even question the subject.
These blogs would be a better more interesting place if the those guys would trade the carbon in their bodies in for carbon credits. They’d probably get a little less than most as their seems little contained in their heads.

A few more details on the discussion item from
our statehouse. Of note, testimony was heard that most of the power generated, would, in fact be used in Kansas:

COAL FIRED PLANTS
The Senate Utilities committee endorsed an energy bill Monday that would allow two coal power plants in southwest Kansas but stripped out proposals that would impose the state’s first limits on carbon dioxide emissions. The committee’s 6-2 vote sent the measure to the full Senate for debate, probably later this week.
The committee also removed provisions imposing energy efficiency standards for new state and public school buildings and banning coal-fired “merchant” power plants. A merchant plant is one that produces energy as a commodity, to be sold in the marketplace to any buyer willing to pay the price. “Merchant” differentiates them from power plants operated by traditional, regulated, electric utilities. Regulated plants operate under a different set of rules. They are obligated to sell to all buyers, usually at a price approved by a regulatory body. In return for assuming this obligation they receive a sort of guarantee that the approved price can provide their stockholders with a rate of return commensurate with the risk/return of comparable investments. This difference in rules means that although the technology employed by merchant power plants and power plants operated by regulated utilities and the products they sell may be similar or even identical, they are quite different entities not only legally but economically.
Tuesday the House Utilities committee did the same thing. After four hours of debate on the bill and 28 proposed amendments, the committee, by voice vote, sent the measure to the full House for consideration. The House panel did include an energy portfolio that requires state utility companies to generate 10% of their energy from renewable sources by 2010 and 25% by 2025. Public utility companies, under the House proposal, would be eligible for a 1% return on any investment made to comply with that standard. That 1% would most likely come in the form of higher electric rates.
As this “600 Pound Gorilla” issue of the 2008 session is debated, it is clear that this is not a partisan issue, but rather more of a western Kansas versus eastern Kansas fight.
Committee members said the CO2 rules — and a proposed carbon tax for noncomplying utilities — would have prevented the bill’s passage. Sen. Janis Lee, of Kensington, the committee’s top Democrat, said that there is no interest in the legislature or in Kansas for mitigating CO2. Critics, including the governor, argued the rules in the bill were far too lax, but some conservative legislators and anti-tax groups opposed enacting any rules or carbon tax. The governor criticized the rewritten bill, saying that the bill is moving in the wrong direction away from a need to reduce and limit massive amounts of new carbon in the atmosphere.
If a bill passes both houses in the new form, Sebelius is almost certain to veto it, though she hasn’t yet said so. The governor opposes provisions allowing Sunflower Electric Power to build the two new coal-fired power plants next to an existing plant outside Holcomb in Finney County. The $3.6 billion project has been blocked since October by the Kansas secretary of health and environment.
Sebelius also opposes sections in the bill that are intended to limit the secretary’s ability to deny air-quality permits for other power plants that may be proposed in the future, saying that, “it strips the secretary of emergency authority to protect the environment and the health of Kansans.” Both chambers’ versions strip the state’s top environmental regulator of the power to regulate emissions beyond what the federal government presently allows.
Senator Jay Emler, R-Lindsborg, Utilities Committee Chairman, has said he, Lee and their House counterparts who wrote the bill along with Sunflower lobbyists, included the CO2 rules and proposed carbon tax in the bill hoping to get the support of two-thirds majorities in both chambers that would allow them to override a Sebelius veto.
The House Energy and Utilities committee planned to discuss its own version of the legislation Tuesday. It initially scheduled debate for last Friday, but postponed debate under orders from House Speaker Melvin Neufeld. Neufeld, an Ingalls Republican, said the House version — identical to the Senate committee’s original bill — didn’t have enough support and needed to be rewritten.
Both House and Senate bills were drafted by the same four legislators, the chairmen of the House and Senate utilities committees and the two ranking Democrats. The bills were described by the authors as a compromise between proponents and opponents of the coal plant proposal. As drafted, the bills would have made Kansas among a handful of states working to limit carbon dioxide emissions, which scientists link to global warming. Those rules would apply to new power plants, no matter what kind of fuel they used to turn their electric-generating turbines. For new coal-fired power plants, the CO2 allowed would be less than the emissions of any existing Kansas plant in pounds per megawatt hour and the amount allowed would drop 20% after a new plant has been in operation a year. However, utilities would have been able to “offset” — lower their emissions on paper — if they’ve invested in a wind farm since 2000 or in technology to capture and store CO2 emissions, or if they develop conservation or beautification programs. A “carbon tax” of $3 for every ton of excess emissions would be levied on any utility failing to meet the emissions standards.
Opponents of the bill were not satisfied with the environmental concessions placed in the bills. They argued that the rules would have been so generous that Sunflower’s new plants would be treated as if they produced zero CO2 emissions, even though their projected output is 11 million tons a year — still less per megawatt hour than any existing Kansas plant.
The question has also been asked why Kansas wants to host a pollution source when the state is unlikely to get much energy benefit.l Although Hays-based Sunflower Electric is behind the coal plant deal, one of the 700-megawatt plants will be owned by a Colorado company, Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association. Under the plan, Tri-State would transport the electricity back to Colorado for its customers. And the second plant will be co-owned by Golden Spread Electric Cooperative of Texas and Sunflower, with all that electricity going out-of-state except for 200 megawatts for Kansans. Merchant plants may sell power to electric utilities, consumer cooperatives, or large industrial users of electricity under current regulations. The common perception is that merchant plant power will be exported out of the state, but most of the power will be consumed in the State.
Some environmentalists in Kansas have said the reason Tri-State wants to build the two coal plants in Kansas is that it would never be able to win the necessary permits for more coal-burning facilities in the more environmentally tuned political climate of Colorado. This claim is supported by the fact that a 750-megawatt coal-fired plant owned by Xcel Energy that is under construction in Pueblo, Colo. went forward after Xcel agreed to a host of environmental concessions, including adding more stringent pollution controls. In addition, Xcel recently vowed to replace two older, coal-burning plants in Colorado with a more efficient natural gas facility, reduce electricity demand by nearly 700 megawatts through enhanced energy efficiency, and add 1,050 megawatts of renewable generation.

Sunflowers whole purpose in building the plants as early as possible is so they can grandfather the plants as already built, thus beat the emmissions laws coming soon.

All one has to do is look at what’s happening in California to understand the earth is going through a warming period. Without controls in place, there will be no growing in Kansas. Canada will be the new tornado belt.

“Global warming and carbon credits is a bunch of bunk to me.”

Yea, and nicotine is not addictive and cigarattes are good for you!

AmWay – we scientists HAVE delineated a number of alternatives. Unfortunately the deniers keep crowding them out.

And Boxlock – I’ll find a lot more common sense from my fellow scientists than I’ll find in the denial crowd.

“AmWay – we scientists HAVE delineated a number of alternatives.”

Well I’m not seeing any. Still the same old gas station down the street. Same power plants. I do drive a hybrid Honda, BTW. Hybrid should be MANDATORY until an alternative emerges at the car dealership level.

(Yep, as a conservative I said mandatory. Might as well, some states are mandating ONLY energy INefficient ethanol.)

Ben, what are you doing now? That is an honest question, not loaded. I applaud your education, and anything you can constructively contribute to to the discussion.
Certainly one of the reasons I come back so ’snotty’ is because; first, that’s the way visitors and regulars to this blog are treated that aren’t in complete lockstep with the prevailing opinion. Second, most everybody in the global warming crowd here seems to be pontificating but doing NOTHING. I get so tired of the rhetoric, yet those spouting off are doing no more than anybody else. There are limits to what folks can do to reduce their personal carbon foot print and I’m not going to be made to feel guilty because I am living, eating, heating my home, driving my car or anything else necessary for life in today’s, not some dream world, existence. I want to see them walk the walk not just talk. Then I’ll listen.
I am not against wind energy but this country is blessed with large deposits of coal and the wind doesn’t blow all the time. Those holier than ‘thou global warmests’ want Westar and anybody else to take the extra risks and cost on wind energy but they won’t take any risk or absorb any of the additional cost. There is ideal, and there is practical, and most of what I read from those here are in a ideal dream world of their own construction. Maybe someday we can produce energy without harmful byproducts but until then we have to live. And talk down Exxon if you will but try and get along without them and their kind, you know our lives as we know them now would end. Example, legislate that no petroleum products can be used in the cultivation of agricultural food products. Man, that would make a significant reduction in carbon released and put everyone on the globe in full employment just trying to survive, which most wouldn’t. That’s what I mean by having to be practical.
Carry on,

I was not referring to you specifically, or even necessarily, with my comment of expecting things out of Westar and others without compensation for risks and costs associated with alternate forms of energy Ben.
You obviously are not one of the unrealistic GW fanatics either.
I will look forward to reading what you have to say.

re: Wichita and the Equus Beds – I think I read about an agreement in the 40s that Wichita wouldn’t take water from the beds. Of course, Wichita could give a damn about the rest of the area, eh?

re: Pristine Aquifers/purification – our well gets water right from an aquifer, no purification needed.

To try to be clearer in my thoughts on this. Part of what is driving the Holcomb plant is a feeling of desperation, particularly in parts of western Kansas, to reverse or at least slow down economic losses due to depopulation. The problem is, as ksfarmgrrl has pointed out, is that the most valuable economic resources that western Kansas has are the natural resources necessary to support an agricultural economy, and none are more important than water. There is a problem with the viewpoint of “we are desperate for any industry to come here and build” without thought to what that industry might do the the resources that your economy is based on. Farming corn for ethanol or to feed hogs in low rainfall western Kansas, or building coal plants to sell energy to a region growing in population and already stealing our water, is, to my view, economic self mutilation.

But again, make no mistake, the race to self-inflict these serious wounds are not unique too Republicans. Short term chamber of commerce thinking is a disease that has infested both parties.

ksagnostic, I know all I need to know within the content of this blog. You are ineffectual at doing anything except pontificating on the subject as if you can effect GW in any way, and seem to speak like you are above those who know that neither you or they truly can. If you believe me wrong tell me how you, and then I, can make any significant change in our contribution or lack there of to this cause.

Thanks Ben,
Got’a run, meeting to go to be back later, maybe then I can ask you one or two specific questions on alternatives to fossil fuel, efficiencies, and conservation.
Later,

Go ahead Jr, put me on the spot.
You’ve got about as big a mouth as anyone on these threads from the little I’ve read, and so far as I can tell all you ever do, can do, is talk. Nothing else. Let’s see what you’ve got that is so helpful. I am relatively new, I don’t have any idea what what “energy saving tips” you’ve posted. I want to read something that actually makes a difference though besides changing a few light bulbs, adding a little insulation, driving reasonable cars, most people have already done that. And don’t try to convince me sitting around all day long posting on blogs, as you seem to do, is helping. Let me see you try and live your life without fossil fuels, what a joke. All you ever do is complain about what others are doing, or how one company or another is raping the world when in fact they make your existence possible, which may be their only crime.
PS: Anybody that reads the news or listens to the radio knew Wolf Creek was off line temporarily. That’s why we need excess capacity, so we don’t notice it. And we are needing more all the time.

J R – in the defense of capacity need I would note that we swap electricity back and forth as units go off-line for whatever reasons. That is also critical with wind farms – when one area is calm others are windy so we swap around.

boxlock – we could do away with fossil fuels if we made a concerted effort. Nuclear, wind, solar, efficiencies, conservation. Hydrogen comes into the picture as a medium for carrying energy produced by one of the above methods.

An interesting idea I have kicked around: IF I can run a reactor hot enough water will split spontaneously without going through electricity. This is due to the entropy factor exceeding the enthalpy factor and yielding a negative free energy:

dG = dH – TdS

The science works for that – however the engineers and especially the materials guys will have some work to do.

Dubai is in the process of building a 100% renewable energy operated city. Guess the Mid-East will have to lead, and the West follow.

“ksagnostic, I know all I need to know within the content of this blog. You are ineffectual at doing anything except pontificating on the subject as if you can effect GW in any way, and seem to speak like you are above those who know that neither you or they truly can.”

Thank you Mr. Kettle. Also, I have known no one in the scientific fields who have discussed global warming indicate that there is “nothing that we can do”. That is an empty and baseless assertion on your part. Increasing gas milage and decreasing automobile emissions, both of which are technologically feasible now, would both quite effectively reduce the amount of green house gas emissions if they were to become widespread.

As Ben has pointed out, if we made a concentrated effort, there is no reason to assume that we couldn’t make substantial changes in our technology that would reduce the carbon and greenhouse gas output of our current civilization. And indeed, there is no reason to assume that the R & D effort would not be an economic stimulus rather than a drag.

American Way posted February 13, 2008 at 10:13 pm

” “The power for the Holcomb plant is not FOR Kansas!”
JR

That is contrary to the testimony provided to the Kansas State Legislature and KDHE.”

American Way, facts please.

1) How many MW’s will the 2 proposed plants generate? 700 MW’s each?

2) How many of those MW’s, from each plant, will be sold to Kansans?

Bonus question: How much would it cost to provide the same (if any) MW’s sold to Kansans, with higher energy efficiency (Negawatts) and renewables?

Eagle Editors

Today (14 Feb.) the Kansas state Senate sent a Valentine to Sunflower electric.

The love offering came in the form of a veto proof vote to allow Sunflower to build a coal fire plant that will steal Kansas water and pollute Kansas air to provide electricity that has not been demonstrated as necessary for Colorado.

I call upon the Eagle. I want a list of every single state Senator and how they voted on this bill. Those who voted for this bill are unfit to serve in office and must be removed in November. They have demonstrated that they do not have the interest of the State of Kansas as their first order of business. Let ‘em go work for Sunflower.

You know? Since they already are?

‘carrying energy’ – what I mean here is that I tap an energy source (wind, nuclear, etc) and use that to split water. The H2 thus produced is then used somewhere as a secondary energy ’source’. Thus, although I might be ‘using H2′ as an energy source I am really using nuclear or wind or …

Socialists and Communitists don’t create, they destroy. They don’t create productive jobs, they create work camps and slavery. They justify anything they do including murder, lies, corruption, and destruction of everything because they are making it better.

(Socialism – A political and economic theroy of social organization based on the collective or government ownership and democratic management of the essential means for the production and distribution of goods).

We are now subsidizing (paying for something that is not economically viable) to burn our food for fuel. But it feels good doesn’t it? And of course we just need to do more to really make it work.

It has never worked but the answer for why was they just didn’t do it right or enough. Sound familiar?

They don’t do the math or even the work because they “feel” it is right instead of being right.

There are no figures on here as to the cost or even if the viability of so called “green”, how much it will produce and at what cost or if it even calculates. These people don’t have to, they just know, they just feel it is good. What is the percentage of C02 of the atmosphere? What are the benefits and what is C02 currently used for?

What the hell, they have a right to vote.

Never before though did their right to vote made it possible for it to not only do so much damage but even destroy most people’s lives.

I would be willing to bet almost everyone on here is a consumer and not one producer.

I hope the next generation are so mad at those that have worked so hard at this destruction, they come for you with the same uncaring attitude you have.

The Kansas governor has used the head of the KDHE and the attorney general (now former attorney general) promoting a lie, fraud and extortion for her own personal gain. Who is going to pay for the hundreds of millions of dollars for the delay of this and so many other projects?

She should resign immediately for her illegal activities for using her office and the offices of others for her own personal gain and for damaging the welfare of every Kansas citizen and the economy of the state of Kansas.

Take note Kansas Representatives and Senators.

Resign now Governor Sebilius you are a discrace to the state and to it’s hard working citizens.