The Kansas House was one vote short today of passing a new coal-plant bill with the 84 votes needed to override another veto by Gov. Kathleen Sebelius. Rep. Sheryl Spalding, R-Overland Park, was absent, though she voted against the earlier coal bill. The close vote means that the plant supporters are in striking distance and that the issue isn’t likely to be over this session until the closing gavel.
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34 Comments
With all this Global Cooling (According to the UN), we will need more coal plants to prevent the next ice age.
Instead of trashing the plants, maybe they’ll soon be known as the Sun’s “little helpers.”
Show your link for cooling.
http://www.wunderground.com/climate/
El Nino causes short-term warming.
1998 had warming from a record warm El Nino.
La Nina causes short-term cooling.
A decrease in solar causes cooling.
2007 had cooling from a La Nina, and a solar minimum.
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/2007
“The unusual warmth in 2007 is noteworthy because it occurs at a time when solar irradiance is at a minimum and the equatorial Pacific Ocean is in the cool phase of its natural El Niño-La Niña cycle.”
2007 tied the very warm 1998.
Why was 2007 as warm as 1998? Because human-added GHG’s are causing a gradual, long-term warming trend.
And the lies, ignorance, stupidities, etc from AGW deniers cannot change that fact.
Only one more arm to twist?
Shouldnt be a problem for the party of thuggery….
I’m sure SOMEBODY will be made an offer they cant refuse.
Of course, they could always use a carrot instead of a stick.
If votes change, I’d look for money changing hands and someone’s district suddenly getting what they want, but had been held hostage for all session.
I mean, not like millions for Cessna, or anything like THAT!
That’s my guess, KFG.
“Rep. Sheryl Spalding, R-Overland Park, was absent, though she voted against the earlier coal bill”
Holding out for a higher price?
Yeah one more arm to twist.
And all you GW supporters need to stop using fossil fuels immediately.
Or are you expecting someone else to do what you are unwilling to do?
A one vote decision in a legislative body of 125 people is just about always an illusion.
There are people who would have voted against the Holcomb plants but want to preserve a “pro jobs” stance with their benefactors.
There are legislators who voted to mollify their perceived green constituents who want to take credit for being both pro-environment and pro-business.
The bottom line is the Holcomb plants are dead for now. And the whole issue will have to be replayed from Square One again. Sometimes that’s legislative progress.
If there were a Republic Party governor in office the one-vote edge might well have gone the other way.
I don’t think the air and water issues of the Holcomb plants counterbalances the perceived economic benefits of those plants. But I can understand why some western Kansas legislators might think so. Eastern Kansas legislators frequently vote on Western Kansas issues merely for quid pro quo votes on other issues.
The smart money realizes that this particular one-vote decision is far closer than the game indicated. If it weren’t Sheryl Spaulding it would have been somebody else.
It won’t be so close next time, after voters have their say!
To reiterate from my post on the Open Thread: The best legislature (Sunflower) money can buy.
Farmie is correct. This fight is just beginning.
“Yeah one more arm to twist.
“And all you GW supporters need to stop using fossil fuels immediately.
“Or are you expecting someone else to do what you are unwilling to do?”
The idea that someone should not oppose additional coal plants on the bases that they are unnecessary, a drain on natural resources in an area of the country that already is short of the needed resource, water, and yes, because it adds additional carbon into the atmosphere that we don’t need, unless they are willing to give up all fossil fuel generated energy is ludicrous.
So to review:
False dilemma. Childlike black or white logic.
Yep.
A straw man with a lobotomy.
Max does indeed = scroll over territory.
This whole debate has boiled down to a contest between the Speaker of the House and the President of the Senate against the Governor. The most frustrating thing about this is that there is no attempt to try and find middle ground.
We could move forward on this deal If Sunflower would:
• build one plant that would provide additional base load for Kansas,
• demonstrate that they have the financial strength to withstand pending carbon taxes,
• leave the regulatory exemptions out,
• prove the carbon capture technology they say they have works,
• agree to a three year delay on the second plant.
However, it is an all or all deal for them.
We are coming up on a time when we will need additional base load for Kansas consumers. I don’t know where or when it will be built, but we will have to permit a coal fired plant at some point. It would seem that we could meet the economic needs of western Kansas, use the newest technology, and expand our domestic supply of electricity with this suggested compromise.
A timimg question: How much time is left in the session? Does Sunflower have time to (a) get a new bill through, (b) get the veto and (c) get through an override vote?
” prove the carbon capture technology they say they have works,”
They can’t. That is why Neufeld backed away from his lies.
Coal plants are polluting the air in North Carolina and killing the trees in the Smoky Mountains…it’s heart breaking to see the damage done. The quality of the air there is one of the worst in the nation…and we want them here?
Stupidity knows no bounds.
Turn out the lights, the party is over.
Mary,
How do coal plants kill the trees in the Smoky Mountains?
Every Senator and Representative that has voted in favor of these plants now or in the past needs to get voted out.
Kansans do not want these plants.
Nathan – my guess would be by lowering the pH of the rain.
coal plants are nasty.
One of my pet peeves about certain types of energy producing plants.
Trees? Acid rain, nitrous oxide — and as AGW continues, bark beetles.
big coal needs to send more briefcases full of unmarked bills topeka’s way.
Nathan
Posted April 4, 2008 at 4:28 pm | Permalink
Mary,
How do coal plants kill the trees in the Smoky Mountains?
now
that must really annoy bush.
how can he generate big lumber payoffs if the trees are dying from polution from his coal pals ??
ahhh
nevermind.
bush doesn’t think.
If the two additional Holcomb coal-fired power plants are approved by the Kansas legislature when they return in three weeks, the clock will start ticking rapidly towards returning Kansas to the GREAT AMERICAN DESERT.
The deep underground Ogallala water aquifer will DRAIN AT A FURIOUS RATE threatening the high quality drinking water under western Kansas all the way to Wichita. Wichita’s two sources of drinking water, the Equus Beds aquifer near Halstead and the Cheney reservoir fed by the north branch of the Ninnescah River, are both dependent on the Ogallala aquifer.
SO WHICH WILL IT BE … Wichita’s water supply OR build two new Holcomb coal-fired power plants to provide electricity to Denver and the front range cities?
Fish, with all due respect, Sheryl was attending her father’s funeral. She wasnt holding out for a highter price, although it sounds like some of YOUR delegation has the window open for new bets and cash donations.
No SHIT if we had a repuke governator, the plants would be half built already.
Link please to us needing more baseload power in Kansas? Any reason a stinky, water sucking coal plant cant be built in EASTERN Kansas to satisfy that “demand”?
Ben is exactly correct on this:
” prove the carbon capture technology they say they have works,”
They can’t. That is why Neufeld backed away from his lies.”
They dont HAVE workable technology ready. Maybe sometime in the future, but it is no more ready for production than switch grass ethanol. Nice thought, but not based in current reality.
If I were a legislator from western Kansas, I’d be positioning myself AND my community for largess. I’d switch my pro vote to a nay vote in exchange for a HUGE economic development project in my district.
Because the best way to shut up the whiners that this is needed development is to give them MONEY for REAL development. But.. who wants to bet the legislators from out here dont WANT real development.
Real development takes work and committment to do something other than create temporary construction jobs. And besides…
…real development doesnt pay NEARLY as well as big coal does for pushing their agenda.
And Mary is right about the trees. Dont even get me STARTED on mountaintop removal. If you think Hays and Russell raped Cedar Bluff, that is NOTHING compared to what mountaintop removal does.
3/4 of our electricity, in Kansas, is from coal.
I drive by various coal fired generating plants all the time.
They do not “smell” —
They are not “dirty” —
Please quit acting as if the coal industry has not made any progress over the years.
econ101 posted April 5, 2008 at 11:48 am
“I drive by various coal fired generating plants all the time.
They do not “smell” —
They are not “dirty” —”
Right… roll the video of young children happily running around in a beautiful, flower-filled meadow. /sarcasm OFF
http://kansas.sierraclub.org/Wind/Coal-MercuryFactSheet.htm
“Summary. Coal fired power plants are currently the largest single source of airborne mercury emissions in the United States. Airborne mercury emissions travel tens to hundreds of miles before depositing, primarily in rainfall, into lakes and streams where it accumulates in fish that may be eaten by people. This adds to uptake via seafood consumption.
The EPA recently announced that 1 in 6 women of childbearing age in the US have blood mercury levels that could be harmful to a fetus. Fish mercury levels in Kansas lakes have been increasing. …”
Cosmos
The modern, recently built coal fired plants are far cleaner than the older plants.
The industry has made great progress, in this regard.
You liberals want us to use lightbulbs, that contain mercury, but you want us to freeze in the winter and swelter in the summer, and never read at night, so that we can quit using coal!
Again, modern technology nearly eliminates all real pollutants from coal fired electric power.
econ101,
I apologize for not reading your “modern, recently built” typed between “various” and “coal”.
“I drive by various coal fired generating plants all the time.”
Next time, don’t use white text color, and zero font size. It’s hard to read.
And even the newest plants still release mercury, other toxins, soot, and of course, huge quantities of CO2. “Clean coal” does not exist.
A few random comments. According to my figures, the Holcomb coal-fired power plants will use about 10,000,000,000 gallons of water per year. That’s 10 billion gallons of water per year.
That does NOT include additional water that complex might gulp out of the Ogallala aquifer for an ethanol plant that has been suggested for the site or for irrigation of crops that might be grown on Sunflower’s site there.
If anybody knows better water usage figures, please state on this blog.
Some of the proponents of these power plants such as my friend, Senator Phil Journey, and state legislator Don Myers from Derby, keep saying, “Oh, well, most of the water will be recycled like in an automobile radiator.” Sorry, boys, that’s wrong.
“I drive by various coal fired generating plants all the time.”
Ya DO paulie?
Really?
WHERE? Surely you can share with us your personal encounters with coal fired plants given that you live and work in Wichita.
Some readers/bloggers might be familiar with the Gordon Evans Electrical Power Generating Plant east of Colwich, Kansas, a mile or two. Its my understanding that this plant burns natural gas and has no capability of burning coal. It puts electrical power on an “electrical power grid” so doesn’t generate electrical power specifically for Wichita nor for Abengoa’s ethanol manufacturing plant a mile or so west on the edge of Colwich.
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