There is much to be wary of in the energy bill that passed the House, but its national renewable energy standard, or RES, deserves the support of Kansas’ congressional delegation. That point got some welcome emphasis last week at the Kansas Wind and Renewable Energy Conference in Topeka, where Gov. Mark Parkinson encouraged attendees to lobby lawmakers accordingly. “Please do not assume that because your congressperson or senator comes before your group or your community and says they support wind power, that that means anything. If they’re not voting for an RES, they’re not supporting wind power. That’s the bottom line,” said Parkinson. Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., supported an RES in a committee earlier this year, but a full Senate vote is pending. Kansas Republican Reps. Todd Tiahrt, Jerry Moran and Lynn Jenkins voted against the energy bill in June, and have expressed concerns about higher energy costs.
“The view of China in the U.S. Congress — that China is going to try to leapfrog us by out-polluting us — is out of date,” columnist Thomas Friedman wrote. “It’s going to try to out-green us. Right now, China is focused on low-cost manufacturing of solar, wind and batteries and building the world’s biggest market for these products.” Friedman warned that in addition to buying toys from China, “you will buy your next electric car, solar panels, batteries and energy-efficiency software from China.”
Even if you don’t believe global warming is real, here is what columnist Thomas Friedman says is indisputable: “The world is on track to add another 2.5 billion people by 2050, and many will be aspiring to live American-like, high-energy lifestyles. In such a world, renewable energy — where the variable cost of your fuel, sun or wind, is zero — will be in huge demand.” Yet Friedman noted that America is allowing other countries to become leaders in developing alternative energy. “China has decided that clean-tech is going to be the next great global industry and is now creating a massive domestic market for solar and wind, which will give it a great export platform,” Friedman wrote, adding how “if you like importing oil from Saudi Arabia, you’re going to love importing solar panels from China.”
There is a double standard in how the energy industry is punished for killing birds, Robert Bryce, a green energy critic, wrote in a Wall Street Journal commentary. He noted how oil companies have been fined hundreds of thousands of dollars for birds killed by oil spills or faulty power lines. Yet wind farms kill thousands more birds each year, many of which are endangered, and wind companies are never fined. For example, a 2008 study estimated that the wind farm at Altamont Pass, Calif., kills about 10,000 birds each year — nearly all protected by the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, Bryce wrote. However, the Wind Energy Association argues that bird kills by wind turbines are a “very small fraction of those caused by other commonly accepted human activities and structures — house cats kill an estimated 1 billion birds annually.”
In a recent address at the Glass Association of North America’s fall conference in Kansas City, Mo., Gov. Mark Parkinson stepped up his endorsement of the national renewable energy standard, currently part of the House-passed energy bill. He said, “Most people watching (the cap-and-trade bill) believe it will not pass the Senate.” If it fails, he added, “We’re encouraging our delegation to work with delegations around the country and revive just the RES portion of the current cap-and-trade bill.” A national RES, he said, “would really catapult renewable energy to the next level.” The national RES in the House bill would require electric utilities to meet 20 percent of their electricity demand through renewable energy sources and energy efficiency by 2020.
The federal stimulus devoted $2.4 billion to pilot projects aimed at capturing carbon dioxide emissions and making coal-fired power plants “cleaner.” Such plants account for a third of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions. “Yet carbon capture and storage remains the elusive holy grail of the coal industry, an idea that could contain the damage inflicted by coal-burning power plants but a technology that remains expensive, energy intensive and largely untested,” a Washington Post article noted. “Even optimists say it will not be commercially available for another six to 10 years. Pessimists say it might take much longer, and may never be ready for widespread use without attaching a punishingly high price to carbon.”
In the debate over climate change and energy security, nuclear power gets barely a mention. But it has its attractions, argues John Dendahl, a Rocky Mountain Foundation senior fellow, in the Denver Post: “Among those are a half-century safety record unequaled by any major industry in history, zero carbon emissions, low operating expenses, no dependence on bad guys for fuel — and continuous output 24/7.” He also called it a “myth” that nuclear plants’ radioactive waste defies safe disposal, pointing to the safety record over the past 10 years of New Mexico’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant.
“If you watched the debate on Friday, you didn’t see people who’ve thought hard about a crucial issue, and are trying to do the right thing,” columnist Paul Krugman wrote about House members who voted against the cap-and-trade legislation (which included Kansas’ three GOP House members). “What you saw, instead, were people who show no sign of being interested in the truth. They don’t like the political and policy implications of climate change, so they’ve decided not to believe in it — and they’ll grab any argument, no matter how disreputable, that feeds their denial.” In addition to being wrong about science, opposing lawmakers also misrepresented the results of studies of the bill’s economic impact, which all suggest that the cost will be relatively low, Krugman wrote.
You’d like to think that when the U.S. House passes a bill described as “historic,” it would be with a sizable majority. Not so the energy bill that passed today 219-212. “This is a revolution,” said co-sponsoring Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass. The action keeps House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s promise to pass the bill by the Fourth of July, but so many questions remain as it moves to the Senate. Among them: Will it cost $175 per household (by 2020, according to CBO)? Or $3,100 per household (as the GOP contends, citing MIT data)? No surprise that Kansas Republican Reps. Todd Tiahrt, Jerry Moran and Lynn Jenkins voted “no” while Democrat Dennis Moore voted “yes.”
Even Kansans mad about the approval of a coal-fired plant in western Kansas should be pleased by the deal reached to build ultra high-voltage power lines from Wichita to Dodge City by 2013. Both Prairie Wind Transmission and ITC Great Plains, which had been competing for the $800 million project, have agreed to work on the 765 kilovolt transmission lines, which would be the first west of the Mississippi River. “We absolutely must have a way to move the great wind energy source that we have in western Kansas to eastern Kansas and beyond,” said Gov. Mark Parkinson, in announcing the deal. Regulatory and cost hurdles remain, but the deal further demonstrates that Kansas is ready to get on with its goal of becoming a wind energy powerhouse.
Meanwhile, a new government climate status report released Tuesday warned that global warming’s serious effects are already here and getting worse.
“Scientists agree that CO2 emissions around the world could lead to rising temperatures with serious long-term environmental consequences. But that is not a reason to enact a U.S. cap-and-trade system until there is a global agreement on CO2 reduction,” wrote Harvard University economist Martin Feldstein. “The proposed legislation would have a trivially small effect on global warming while imposing substantial costs on all American households.”
New Kansas Gov. Mark Parkinson offered a deal to Sunflower Electric Power Corp. of Kansas, the company that had been lobbying for two coal-fired power plants for well over a year. Parkinson is allowing Sunflower to build one of those coal plants. With this settlement Kansas has given up its place as a national leader on clean energy. Under former Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, Kansas was well-positioned to make contributions to slow global warming. This agreement is a significant setback. The concessions made to the coal industry will greatly outweigh any so-called benefits for the state. The new coal plant actually increases Kansas’ contributions to global warming. While the country is moving away from polluting fossil fuels, Kansas has opened the door for outdated, dirty technology other states are rejecting. The agreement appears to invite Sunflower Electric to build another coal plant in two years. This is not a compromise, but a giveaway to the coal industry Kansans have stood up against. — Bruce Nilles, Sierra Club, for the Huffington Post
The number of planned coal plants across America has plummeted from 150 to 60 in the past five years. Last year 5,465 megawatts of new electricity were announced, but more than twice that capacity was subtracted because of cancellations or delays. Environmentalists, though thrilled, know they still have a long way to go. Renewable resources can’t yet begin to replace coal as providers of power. But a deal struck in Kansas on May 4, ending 19 months of impasse between Sunflower Electric Power Corp. and the state government, shows under what conditions coal may be able to survive. Two coal-fired plants had been planned by Sunflower. It will now build just one, which will use new clean technology, offset carbon dioxide emissions and develop wind energy on the side. In return, the Kansas Department of Health and Environment cannot impose any greenhouse-gas regulations that are tougher than those emerging from Washington. Suddenly, that seems a pretty high bar. — the Economist magazine
Hooray for Hutchinson for landing a new wind turbine plant that is expected to employ 400 people. Germany-based Siemens selected Hutchinson because of its central location, work force and transportation logistics. Turbine manufacturing is a natural fit for this region, but we’ve been slow in pursuing it. The Hutchinson plant is a great start at achieving Gov. Mark Parkinson’s vision of “a corridor of factories from Wichita to Salina” that will “make Kansas the renewable energy leader of the country.”
Columnist and best-selling author Thomas Friedman noted how opponents of a cap-and-trade tax on carbon have been singing the same tune: President Obama “is going to raise your taxes and sacrifice U.S. jobs to combat this global-warming charade.” Americans for Prosperity had a commentary on Saturday’s Opinion page that made such an argument. Friedman agrees that the cap-and-trade proposal has problems — but because it is too complicated, not because it raises taxes or because global warming isn’t a serious concern.
“Americans will be willing to pay a tax for their children to be less threatened, breathe cleaner air and live in a more sustainable world with a stronger America,” Friedman wrote. “They are much less likely to support a firm in London trading offsets from an electric bill in Boston with a derivatives firm in New York in order to help fund an aluminum smelter in Beijing, which is what cap-and-trade is all about. People won’t support what they can’t explain.”
State lawmakers are expected to vote today on another attempt to force approval of a coal-fired power plant expansion near Holcomb. The only suspense is whether proponents will have the two-thirds support needed to override a promised veto by Gov. Kathleen Sebelius or her successor, Lt. Gov. Mark Parkinson. But it is ironic and myopic that this same week U.S. House Democrats released a plan to fast-track legislation to cap and reduce greenhouse-gas emissions. Also this week, the Energy Information Administration released its Annual Energy Outlook, predicting that concerns about emissions could lead to limited additions of new coal-fired plants and that few, if any, such additions are needed to meet U.S. energy needs between 2013 and 2025.
Seeking to convince the world that the United States finally is serious about slashing Earth-threatening carbon emissions, President Barack Obama is urging Congress to fast-track his plan for a carbon cap-and-trade system. Obama’s ambitious goal would require all Americans to abandon wanton consumption and adopt a green way of life that would reduce our nation’s carbon emissions 15 percent from 2005 levels by 2012 and 80 percent by 2050. Opponents of cap-and-trade legislation dubiously argue that such a system will destroy the U.S. economy — a mind-boggling assertion when you consider the huge number of jobs it will create. The new administration is duty-bound to bring the United States into line with the rest of the world in embracing Kyoto and preparing for Copenhagen. — Wayne Madsen, Online Journal
Key congressional committees are expected to begin debating legislation that would impose mandatory limits on greenhouse-gas emissions. The proposed legislation would create a European-style market-based system that caps the maximum allowable amounts of carbon dioxide from power plants, manufacturers and vehicles. If companies emit more than their cap allows, they must buy “carbon permits” on the market from companies that have extra ones. This “cap-and-trade” system is designed to give companies an incentive to reduce emissions, but unknowing consumers would be “taxed” through higher home energy bills and the rising costs of fuel, food and consumer products. It’s time we developed a fair system by first recognizing that greenhouse gas controls must be implemented globally: No one nation can do much on its own to reduce climate change. — Mark J. Perry, finance professor at the University of Michigan at Flint
The Kansas House fired the first shot of the session Thursday in the coal war with Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, giving first-round approval to a bill that would green-light the Holcomb plant expansion among other energy initiatives. House Speaker Mike O’Neal, R-Hutchinson, thinks he has the votes to override Sebelius, should she veto the plant expansion for a fourth time. Maybe he does. But O’Neal and other coal proponents are disregarding reality in pushing the plants when the Obama administration is proposing to tax and regulate carbon emissions, other states are halting or shelving new coal plants, and financing has frozen for other large projects.
The Environmental Protection Agency has moved closer to regulating carbon dioxide emissions from coal-fired power plants. Just before it left office, the Bush administration declared that the EPA would not limit emissions, even though the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2007 that carbon dioxide should be considered a pollutant. But on Wednesday new EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson ordered a review of that memorandum. John Stowell, a vice president for Duke Energy, said he wasn’t surprised by the announcement and that industry officials expect the federal government to impose a cap on greenhouse-gas emissions, which would significantly increase the cost of the plants.
Meanwhile, Great Plains Alliance for Clean Energy, a Topeka-based group that opposes the building of two new coal plants near Holcomb, released a survey this week showing that, by 64 to 18 percent, Kansans prefer expanding renewable energy production, such as wind power, to building coal plants.
While the Kansas Legislature is still pushing to build new coal-fired power plants near Holcomb, other states are moving in the opposite direction. So far this year, states that have scrapped or put on hold plans for coal plants include Montana, Arizona, Pennsylvania, Ohio, South Dakota, New Mexico and Nevada. Even conservative GOP Gov. Mark Sanford of South Carolina came out last week against a proposed coal plant in his state, though regulators upheld a permit given to the utility.
NV Energy shelved its Nevada proposal last week because it expects some form of a carbon tax to pass Congress by the end of 2010. CEO Michael Yackira told the Las Vegas Sun that without knowing the cost of a potential carbon tax system, it was too risky for the company and ratepayers to invest in a plant whose energy might become increasingly expensive over the years.
A new “guidance document” issued by the Kansas Department of Health and Environment counters the false claims that Kansas isn’t open for business and that it is suffering from “regulatory uncertainty.” Gov. Kathleen Sebelius said, “For the past year we’ve seen legislators, lobbyists and even the Chamber of Commerce run a fear campaign, telling businesses they’re in jeopardy because KDHE denied one single permit.” Since January 2003, KDHE has issued more than 3,400 air-quality permits and denied only one — the Holcomb coal-fired power plant in 2007. The document makes clear that only proposed coal plants will face restrictions on carbon dioxide emissions in the state permitting process, which should reassure all other businesses and industries. The reasons for singling out these plants are because of their large amount of greenhouse gas emissions and because they typically last 30 to 50 years.
Not only is Kansas not getting as much private investment in wind energy as other states that have mandates for alternative energy production, but it could get less federal funding than those states from the stimulus bill. States, unlike Kansas, that require a certain percentage of renewable energy use, have specific energy-efficient building codes or encourage utilities to conserve would get first priority for federal money under the stimulus plan approved by the House, the Lawrence Journal-World reported. “We’re sorting out what the potential requirements are and where we would land, and basically we wouldn’t land very well at this point,” said Susan Duffy, executive director of the Kansas Corporation Commission. Gov. Kathleen Sebelius has a proposal before the Legislature to make mandatory a currently voluntary program to have 20 percent of the state’s energy come from renewable resources by 2020.
Maybe the Obama administration won’t be hostile to coal after all. Steven Chu, President-elect Barack Obama’s chosen energy secretary, called more coal-fired power plants “my worst nightmare” two years ago. But in a Senate hearing this week he said coal is a “great national resource” and expressed optimism that his agency could help develop technology to capture and store coal plants’ greenhouse-gas emissions. He also said he would oppose a “hard moratorium” on the building of coal plants that lacked carbon-capture technology.
The cheaper gas gets, the more people are calling for an increase in the gas tax, to limit consumption, promote energy independence and fund the development of fuel-efficient vehicles and other energy alternatives. A New York Times editorial mentioned the possibilities of either a variable consumption tax (so the price would never go below $4 or $5 a gallon, say) or a variable tariff on imported oil, to signal to automakers and drivers “that the era of cheap gasoline is not going to last.” “Car Talk” co-host Ray Magliozzi recently called on “all nonwussy politicians” to stand with his proposal for a 50-cent gas-tax increase to fund infrastructure improvements and new energy technology. “The other thing that the gas-tax revenue could fund is high-speed train infrastructure between major cities,” he said. “And who would build all of the new high-tech, high-speed trains we’d need? GM and Ford! We’d help them start a mass-transit division, convert some of those factories from building inefficient gas hogs to building high-speed trains.” The timing certainly makes sense, with some saying that gas is headed below $1 a gallon. But finding “nonwussy politicians” will be a challenge.
John McCain’s plan focuses on encouraging energy production, while Barack Obama offers only limited support for boosting domestic production of oil and natural gas. Worse, Obama wants to increase taxes on energy companies, a sure path to reducing domestic energy production and raising costs. Similarly, McCain’s plan recognizes the vital importance of coal, which we use to produce half our electricity, to America’s energy future. We are frequently called the “Saudi Arabia” of coal because we have 29 percent of world coal reserves. By contrast, the Obama campaign has sent at best conflicting signals on coal. McCain also endorses increased nuclear energy production, a subject on which Obama waffles. McCain’s emphasis on providing incentives for increasing domestic production and choice of a running mate who has successfully carried through energy initiatives contrast favorably with the Obama-Biden plan’s vague promises. – Andrew P. Morriss, professor of law and business and professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Barack Obama’s strategy is more sound and promises better environmental stewardship. Obama says “use it or lose it” to companies that aren’t using their drilling rights. Obama is aware of the challenges, and he has pledged to help companies overcome these obstacles. In contrast, John McCain’s plan would open more of the continental shelf to drilling than would Obama’s, but he wouldn’t pressure oil companies to work harder to explore and develop resources on already leased properties. Obama calls for investing $150 billion over 10 years in renewable energy technologies. The heart of McCain’s plan for renewables calls for “rationalizing the current patchwork of temporary tax credits” for energy sources like solar, wind and hydro. Obama’s plan, while no panacea for an oil-addicted America, breaks more boldly with lackluster policies of recent presidents. – Matthew R. Auer, professor at Indiana University
If some Kansans are enthusiastic about the Kansas Energy Council’s proposal to lower the state’s maximum highway speed limit from 70 to 65 mph, they seem to be keeping it to themselves. At a Wichita hearing last week on the council’s 15 policy recommendations, speakers argued for personal freedom and against lowering the speed limit – which “would be like in the 1850s Kansas passing a law that said you couldn’t gallop a horse,” as Wichitan Terry Morris so colorfully put it. Even if the lower speed limit is a nonstarter in these fast-paced times, Kansans should weigh in through Friday on the council’s other ideas to promote alternative energy and pursue fewer carbon emissions.
