Three of the nation’s largest investment banks unveiled new standards Monday that require utilities seeking financing to prove that new coal-fired plants would make economic sense even with tough federal caps on carbon dioxide.
The Wall Street Journal reported that the move by Citigroup Inc., Morgan Stanley and JPMorgan Chase & Co. reflects Wall Street’s belief that Congress will approve “sometime in the next few years†some kind of cap-and-trade system on greenhouse gases. The banks will ask utilities wanting to build new coal plants to first explore energy efficiency and renewable energy options. The new financing rules could “hurt coal-dependent utilities that haven’t begun factoring a future price of C02 emissions into their planning. But they could help utilities that have.â€
The Holcomb plant debate is taking place against the backdrop of sweeping federal regulatory and financial changes that can’t be ignored.
41 Comments
Let the record show Kansas was in the lead in the path AWAY from fossil fuels.
The initial decision NOT to build an un needed coal fire plant at Holcomb was the correct one for the correct reasons. Even the Wall Street bean counters know it. Now they have said so.
Do you hear them Sunflower electric?
Carbon credits, and greenhouse gases will grow into a monster. With many trying to do the unpolitical correct thing to save the world. Net results more taxes, regulations and nanny state barriers. There is no global warming. We need the Sunflower coal plants.
“There is no global warming”
Where did yuou get your science degrees?
“We need the Sunflower coal plants.”
To power which Western Kansas Metropolis? Or for the thousands of jobs that are NOT not moving there? Or to finally handle that pesky problem of too much water? Or for Colorado to continue its NIMBY philosophy?
I don’t think building coal powered power plant in Colorado is a lost art. Do you?
We need wind power – ESPECIALLY in the Great Plains. The ignorant non-scientists like McGinn claim that the wind is not reliable but studies and experience show they are dead wrong. While it might not be windy at a specific spot from time to time it IS windy elsewhere. That is way we look at wind FARMS rather than isolated turbines.
Let the farmers and ranchers benefit from lease payments and still use the land under and around them. This has been shown to be good for consumare, land-owners, and the environment.
I’m trying to get a wind turbine on my house but because of the current rules, Westar wont allow me to feed power back into the “grid” if i produce too much unless I have a 2nd meeter along with some other equipment. On top of that, they will only buy my power at 1/4 or less what they charge me.
The KCC needs to force Westar to adopt the same rules the California electric companies have. They are forced to buy any power produced by anyone and they must buy it at the same rate and they can do that all over the existing lines, no need for additional meters or equipment.
Don’t underestimate our State Repub. legislatures, they can ignore anything!
Tony – even without that think about just running your AC with ‘local’ power and what that would do to your over-all bill. Consider that it really tends to be windy during those hot summer days.
That said I agree – we should be able to reverse-meter.
Ben,
You can do it, but as it stands, the rules say you can do one or the other. I would have to have an automatic transfer switch setup inbetween the wind generator, incomming westar power and the house. So, it would be me using either my turbine or westar. Those ATS’s are very expensive, hence the problem.
I have written the KCC requesting these changes, but so far no dice.
I agree Tony. My thought was a separate line connecting only to the AC. And perhaps a separate outlet to charge your plug-in hybrid. (Yea, I know, they don’t exist. My point is that this is doable with ‘off-the-shelf’ technology)
Tony, just go ahead and do the turbine, why do you need money back to do it?? it is right thing to do. I think all green companies should be for Non-profit anyway. it is just the right thing to do??
you get savings from not paying for electricity. and the feeling of doing your part.
I think all green companies should be for Non-profit anyway.
That is stupid.
There’s nothing inherently wrong with profit.
It’s a good thing.
Where we get into trouble and have is when profit is the ONLY thing.
If even the ledger jockeys on Wall Street are starting to figure in other things, I call the outlook hopeful.
OK let me get this right, all companies are evil, except the ones that are making enviroment products?
If that is what you want to believe BG then go right ahead.
Heh. Gster. You forgot all those water sucking ethanol plants that will use the 15 PERCENT of the power of Holcomb that will stay in Kansas…
I see sunflower is NOW investigating burning some biomass at Holcomb. There is a company in little Lane county that is behind it.
But as I understand it, there isnt enough biomass generated out here, and the technology, much like the alge technology they snookered the WE with, really isnt usable yet.
I commend them for being open to using new technology. But I comdemn them for pretending it is USEABLE technology now, when it isnt.
…and does anyone REALLY belive BG caucused with the democrats last night?
heh. Heheh. HEHEHEHEH. HEE HEE HE HEEEEEEEEEE.
Hardly.
Where we get into trouble and have is when profit is the ONLY thing.
-J R
The Wall Street folks are ONLY looking at their wallet. Would you invest in an industry that is facing increasing legislative uncertainty?
Whether or not you you are a believer or a denier, it is easy to justify discretion when it comes to investing in an unfavored fuel source.
If public opinion ever decides that Coal plants are not so bad given the alternatives, then the investment money will swing back like a screen door.
BG
If you would have read what I wrote above you would know what i was talking about, if I connect a wind turbine to my house and do not have it run independently from my Westar feed, than it is considered illegal by Westar. You have to have either one or the other, you cant run both at your house but not at the same time. The reliability of the Wind is not enough to run my entire house 100% off of wind. I have to be able to switch back and forth or possibly supplement the wind with westar power. Also, if the wind turbine creates more power than what I would use, there has to be a way of discharging the extra electricity safely. Yes, I an just dump it into the ground but cretin conditions could occur that could actually shot me or my neighbor. The Ideal solution is to feed it back to the grid, which you cant do unless you have a separate meter, with lots of extra equipment which makes infeasible.
farmgrl I did, I’m “I”
I’m one of those dumb asses that made everybody wait by switching to “D” this year. but anyway believe what you want.
Tony sorry, I thought they had battery systems that got charged when extra electrity was present and also had systems that stop making Electrity when not needed after batteries were full..
KFG- You’re right. Ethanol’s really a Great thing, if you’re a large corn farmer, or probably any sized corn farmer the way the prices are raising.
Maybe I could sell my Libby’s canned or frozen stuff and make a buck??
Tony – it would be interesting to see what it would take to build such a system – wind/solar/battery. Just run the AC and car re-charge without interacting with Westar.
Tony, you could call it an emergency generator and get a farm credit for the Wind Turbine.
Then use a step down transformer to transfer electricity to battery re-charging station for battery powered cars. :)
“Maybe I could sell my Libby’s canned or frozen stuff and make a buck??”
hee hee heeeee Gster. My CHICKENS wont eat that stuff, so maybe burning for fuel is the answer.
And really, Trego county gets as many or more days of sunshine as more traditional “sunshine” states.
Why dont we talk about solar in Kansas?
And if sebelius and/or the republican dominated legislature are so damn concerned about alternative energy, why DONT they require utilities to allow co-gen?
Co-gen is co-generation, or the term used for allowing customers to run their meters backwards if they generate power.
The technology to allow it is available. Some other states have been doing it for years.
And wtf? I had to modify this post because workpress said I couldnt use the correct spelling of Tejas? too close to a three letter word with X in it?
This new blog is a pain in the (censored)
Ben, Regular
Its possible to build such a system, and I have investigated it for one of my business ventures, but I cant seem to make it cost effective to build it for a home use. The batteries are expensive and the AC/DC converter/transformer and Automatic Transfer Switch are also expensive, at least 2k ea on ebay for used ones.
The farm credit is an interesting idea. Ben, would you know if that would actually work? That may make it a bit more cost effective.
Not in a city.
I discussed with a friend last night and we were wondering about using the “Community Wind” model K-State is looking at for rural areas. The idea is to place a number of turbines in an area to serve that area. She and I were speculating about doing this in industrial parks etc. It could also possibly be done in residential but zoning issues might be a problem.
rfl posted February 6, 2008 at 12:08 pm
“Would you invest in an industry that is facing increasing legislative uncertainty?”
Future carbon regulations are a certainty. The only unknown is how much they will raise costs.
“If public opinion ever decides that Coal plants are not so bad given the alternatives, then the investment money will swing back like a screen door.”
Solid climate science, not “public opinion”, is the reason for carbon regulations — that wont change in the future.
And there’s mercury and other harmful emissions from coal plants, methane released from coal mines, diesel trains that transport coal, etc.
Higher end-use energy efficiency is cheaper than building new coal plants. Wise utilities are investing in efficiency, and renewables
It took many years for the science to refute the blatant lies of the tobacco industry but it did. The same thing is slowly happening here.
Solid climate science, not “public opinion”, is the reason for carbon regulations — that wont change in the future.
-Cosmos
Solid climate science can not say at a 100% confidence level that global warming is caused by anthropogenic emissions. Such an achievement must be accomplished before such a guarantee has any credibility.
Why is Cosmos so certain that the 95% confidence shared by IPCC scientists that global warming is caused by anthropogenic emissions will continue indefinitely?
If the rug gets pulled out from under the consensus through socio-economic pressures, public opinion will change no matter what “most plausible explanation” a group of scientists come up with.
ksfarmgrrl,
Running your electric meter backwards is “net metering”.
Cogeneration is producing electricity and using the waste heat. It’s also called combined heat and power, CHP.
Trigeneration uses the waste heat to provide cooling, aka CCHP, combined cooling, heating, and power generation.
Distributed generation is multiple small sources connected together, instead of using large central plants.
http://www.smallisprofitable.org/
“Solid climate science can not say at a 100% confidence level that global warming is caused by anthropogenic emissions. Such an achievement must be accomplished before such a guarantee has any credibility.”
Nonsense. If other causes are either eliminated or their contribution accounted for, the probability increases for anthropogenic emissions, particularly if there is a correlation between such increases and temperature change, and there is.
No one in a scientific field (outside of some applied fields anyway) that I am aware of talks about a need for “100% certainty”. However, theories with strong observational evidence are very hard to overturn except in the face of contrasting opposing evidence that makes the prevailing theory unworkable. That has not happened in climate science. Making a list for of those who are skeptical of the consensus in some, indeed any, way (particularly when the reasons for skepticism are contradictory from one name on the list to another) is obviously self serving politics, and even policy makers tend to notice such a contrast after awhile.
rfl posted February 6, 2008 at 2:31 pm
“If the rug gets pulled out from under the consensus through socio-economic pressures, public opinion will change no matter what “most plausible explanation” a group of scientists come up with.”
How would “socio-economic pressures” change peer-reviewed science?
If people don’t like carbon taxes, will that change the properties of CO2, methane, and other GHG’s?
If people don’t like the high costs of building bridges, can they reduce gravity, so the bridges can be built cheaper?
You have to do at least 2 things to change the consensus re AGW.
1) Show that human-added GHG’s do not cause warming.
2) List the natural factor(s) that have caused the observed warming, which is explained by human-added GHG’s.
The consensus would not change, just the policy reaction thereto. Kind of a “how much is too much” approach, I’d expect, Cosmos, should rfl’s hypothesis come to fruition.
The tobacco industry tried mightily to maintain their lies. they constantly said “Medical science can not say at a 100% confidence level that desease is caused by smoking and chewing” Their lies eventually wore out. The same will happen with today’s ’skeptic’ lies constantly put forth by the energy industries.
Vaughn Tolle,
I don’t think it’ll be a “how much is too much” approach. It’s more likely that people will realize the huge problems climate change will cause, and push for sharp reductions in GHG’s.
We could’ve easily made gradual reductions in GHG’s, if we had started earlier — now we need more dramatic cuts.
Ben,
Speaking of tobacco-science, and deniers, here’s an interesting fossil-fuel scientific(sic) climate conference,
‘What if you held a conference, and no (real) scientists came?’
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2008/01/what-if-you-held-a-conference-and-no-real-scientists-came/
Cosmos, I certainly defer to your expertise. I can tell you that I heard the utility folks in Tejas call it co-gen, but net metering makes more sense.
Whatever it’s called, I think if Sebelius and the repub legislature in ks are so damn concerned about energy, they should pass legislation to allow it.
And WHY TF is wordpress bouncing the correct spelling of tejas?
ksfarmgrrl,
Maybe it’s a new term, and they use co-gen as short for cooperative generation? That would make sense — the utilities and users generate power.
Hey Wall street?
A little self affirmation for your new found vision?
Look at the posts here.
Ideas, visions, specualtion and lively discussion.
The very essence of American invention and entrepeneurship I would say.
THIS is why addressing global warming proactively is an economic winner and a potential boom for America.
Maybe cosmos, like I said, I defer.
And I repeat, if governor “leadership” wants to green up her record and reputation for her national ambitions, she ought to push the legislature to make it legal in Kansas.
I wonder if that would make up the small percentage of the Holcomb power that is needed in Ks? Let the rest of the states pollute their own nests if they need the power so much.
Why do the jobs go there and the pollutions is generated here?
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