WE Blog

I think Kathy and Rod has done a diservice to our state in denying cleaner coal energy. We won’t need to have so called emmissions control, if there is no Kansas in the future. Why live in a backward state? However, I like Podunk Ks.but believe we need more energy for our future and less regulation.

george
Posted May 25, 2008 at 8:15 am | Permalink

I think Kathy and Rod has done a diservice to our state in denying cleaner coal energy. We won’t need to have so called emmissions control, if there is no Kansas in the future.

George, it’s “HAVE done a DISSERVICE”. That would address your remark about living in a backward state.

George, where do you think the power the 2 new power plants will generate will go?

I have said it before and I will again: IF Sunflower has faith in their experimental microalgae then let them show it. Buil their bienergy plant at their EXISTING Holcomb coal plant. Develop that technology and prove the Neufeld’s claims can be made true. THEN - and ONLY then - come back with an expansion proposal.

Then we can also look at the water question. People like George want Kansas to be a desert; others of us do not.

They need to build a couple of big Nukes and get a move on. Lets start the new trend. Apparently there are now about 9 on the drawing boards….lets get the new Pebble Beds in operation.

Just for China to remain at a steady state they are building 4 Coal plants PER WEEK. So they will be building over 200 each year. Whatever little smidgin we do will be of use only to news editors.

Ben: Right on. Kansas was once known as the “Great American Desert” until the vast Ogallala underground water aquifer was discovered lying relatively deep under the ground … but not so deep that pumps couldn’t draw it up for use as drinking water and for crop irrigation.

I always thought it was ironic that pioneer farmers came to western Kansas and lived in mud and straw hovels with large families to try to scratch out a living from the dry soil. I suppose it was in the 1890’s or so that western Kansans realized a lot of excellent water existed deep under the surface of western and central Kansas … and Nebraska, Oklahoma and Texas.

In fact the so-called “Worlds largest hand-dug well” in Greensburg, Kansas, was publicized across America in “Ripley’s Believe It or Not” comic strip in the 1930’s or 40’s. It was dug by Greensburg citizens back in the 1890’s to reach the always flowing underground Ogallala water for municipal use and for the two railroads, the Santa Fe spur line and the Rock Island main line, then passing through Greensburg. The Santa Fe spur line was pulled back to Pratt by 1900 so today only the old Chicago to California main line of the Rock Island railroad still passes through Greensburg. (Under a new name, of course.)

Even with this vast availability of water in western Kansas, it was mainly used to irrigate sugar beets that were grown out in the vicinity of Garden City up to World War II in addition to municipal drinking water.

But the amount of irrigated water was not enough to stop the massive and destructive dust storms in western Kansas in the mid-1930’s. My parents had the misfortune to purchase a gasoline service station in Satanta, Kansas, in 1935 to convert to a Phillips 66 station, perhaps in cooperation with Frank Phillips (I can’t remember the whole story.) But by 1936, my mother recalled the massive dust storms ended that particular venture. She said the primary foods on the menu of a local Satanta restaurant was cabbage and turnips.

Unfortunately, today in the 21st century BIG INDUSTRY has discovered this underground source of water and with no feelings for the future of the State of Kansas is determined to pump out the remaining pools of Ogallala water.

Since the Ogallala just barely recharges over hundreds and even thousands of years, Kansans will soon be left with drawing their drinking water from recycled, regurgitated sewage effluent plus salt and agricultural pollutants that are put into our surface runoff rivers such as the Arkansas River here in Wichita/river city.

Bottled water anyone?

I’d like to see some wealthy entrepeneurs like the guys who own google buy up these power companies, and slowely incorporate wind power as the demand rises. It wouldn’t cut back the use of fossil fuels, so those states would not be destroyed, but it would prevent us from being even more dependant on them.