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TechnoratiCoal Power Opponents Get New Weapon From Kansas
LOS ANGELES - Opponents of coal-fired power plants say they were given a new weapon last week when Kansas became the first state to reject a coal-fired power plant solely on the basis of the health risks created by carbon dioxide emissions.
A dozen states have rejected plans for 22 new coal-fired power projects in the past year-and-a-half, mainly because of concerns over carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. Kansas does not regulate carbon emissions and is believed to be the first state to tie CO2 to health risks and use that as the only stated reason for denying a required air permit, said Bruce Nilles of the Sierra Club.
Growing public awareness of climate change and the unknown cost of mitigating CO2 if and when a national carbon cap-and-trade system is established have forced regulators and utilities to rethink a planned boom for coal plants.
"Today, the political climate has changed. There is a lot more activism and with all the uncertainties around carbon regulation, we're seeing a real slowdown in the building of coal plants," said Bill Durbin, head of global gas and power research at consultant Wood Mackenzie.
Coal's dominant role as a fuel for 50 percent of U.S. electric production is much less certain than just a year ago, said Durbin.
"If you had asked me that question a year ago, I would have said of course not because we need more coal-fired power plants to meet the growing energy needs," Durbin said.
Joe Lucas, executive director of the coal lobby Americans for Balanced Energy Choices (ABEC), said the U.S. needs for energy will prevail over "short-sighted" opposition to coal power.
"If coal's on the run, then a lot of Americans need to get prepared to sit around in the dark," Lucas said.
In his decision, Kansas health and environment secretary Roderick Brembyin cited an April U.S. Supreme Court ruling, which found that CO2 was an air pollutant under the Clean Air Act.
The Kansas action and Supreme Court decision will be used as precedents in future fights with King Coal, Nilles said.
Coal-burning power plants make more than 85 percent of the greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming. Coal-fired power plants are the leading emitters of CO2.
Lucas said the long-reaching impact of the Kansas decision may be diminished because Bremby went against his own staff's recommendation. Even with the Supreme Court decision, new coal-fired projects can prevail in lawsuits expected after many state-level decisions, he said.
The developer of the rejected Kansas plant is planning an appeal, as are some Kansas lawmakers.
When the Sierra Club intensified its fight against coal power in 2003 and 2004, it looked like 2007 would be a major year for coal power construction. Those plants have been pushed back to 2011 and 2012, said Nilles.
By that time, Nilles confidently predicts, a national CO2 regulation scheme should be in place, helping make coal-fired power plants cost-prohibitive.
"Our assessment is the window to build these things is closing rapidly. The coal industry knows that. They want to get their permits and get steel in the ground before Congress acts," said Nilles.
The states where projects have been shelved are Texas, Florida, North Carolina, Delaware, Kentucky, Illinois, Oklahoma, Iowa, North Dakota, Idaho and Arizona, according to a list compiled by the Kansas governor's office, using a federal government study.
For additional analysis on carbon markets and climate change policy, please join the online Reuters carbon community at http://www.reutersinteractive.com/carbon.
© 2007 Reuters
20 Comments so far
Show AllWmC,
If dubya said in the campaign for 2000 that CO2 was a pollutant, he was correct. Bad science would be his renege on that and to ignore it as a pollutant for the next 7 years.
CO2 is clearly a pollutant and the primary cause of global warming. It does not, however, directly threaten health to increase atmospheric concentration in the short term.
Thinking about it in the long term, it is a direct threat to health because of the increase in tropical diseases in the US, reduction in biodiversity, etc. (I am hereby retracting the view expressed in my earlier post.)
Bill
Just to clarify: I was referring to the coal power plants when I said that the power plants were intended for selling energy out of state. Sorry for the confusion.
There are other safer forms of energy that have proved capable of producing enough power to light all of Kansas. How about an increase in solar power? As for the natives of Kansas: Try reading the book "What's the matter with Kansas?". Kansas, however, isn't the only State that harbors block heads. For a different perspective, try living in Humboldt County, Ca. Talk about rude, cold, clannish, and hypocritical. I've lived all over the U.S., but the worst place I ever lived in was Arcata and Eureka, Ca. Liberals can be just as narrow minded and self-righteous.
"Hey PJD, could you explain that bit about environmentalists fighting against wind power?"
Yes, go here,
http://www.protectpendleton.com/index.htm
or here:
http://www.stopillwind.org/
http://www.wind-watch.org
etc...etc...
And they are winning. Cape wind was denied a permit by the local Cape cod governing agency, protect pendleton managed to stop a small wind development in West Vrginia.
Now, there are certainly inappropriate sites for wind power. Much of the land in the masthead photo on the first web site is national wilderness or recreation area - no one is planning wind power there. The flint hills are also inappropriate - although the power going out of state is not a good reason to opppose wind power. Kansas is part of the United States and the world. Don't most of boeings kansas-made airplanes leave Kansas too?
However, anti-wind power groups are much more general in their opposition - they are also largly rich NIMBYists whose oppositon is largely only that the view from their second homes in the mountains may be affected a bit.
"Hey PJD, could you explain that bit about environmentalists fighting against wind power?"
Yes, go here:
http://www.protectpendleton.com/
http://www.wind-watch.org/
http://www.windstop.org/
The first group even managed to stop a wind development in West Virginia.
ther are certainly places where wind energy is inapropriate - and in fact no wind power is planned anywhere in the first websites masthead-photo much of which is national wilderness or national recreation area. in light of the wholesale destruction of large parts of the state to feed coal power plants is ludicrous. I suspect their NIMBY extremism has industry support.
Based on the comments above it appears to me that Americans need to be educated about the safety and waste created by nuclear power versus coal power generation.
gardentoad wrote "We could do a lot more by encouraging people to better insulate their homes & businesses"
How about converting to straw bail construction. You can't get better insulating than that plus it makes for a better build home than wood framing.
gardentoad wrote "switch to compact fluorescent bulbs"
Now you're talking about a whole new level of pollution. I would support compact fluorescent bulbs if some sort of recycling system were implemented to go along with them. As it is right now we are looking at massive ground water contamination with mercury in the near future.
gardentoad wrote "We should also do more exploration of small-scale energy production. Small wind turbines and/or solar panels scattered across the state on farms & houses would be less invasive than a huge tract with hundreds of turbines."
I agree with that statement even for nuclear power. There is no need to build one huge power plant to support an entire state when a small plant to support a single large city would be safer, cheaper and more maintainable. As far as solar, there is a product I've been watching that has exciting possibilities when they get the cost down and that is solar shingles. They look good on a home and if you could imagine a city with every home roofed by them you wouldn't need much of a power plant to support the high-energy needs required by industrial business.
By the way outside of the needs for heating/cooling and washing/drying of cloths we would be better off using 12-volt electrical systems in our homes. Almost all electrical appliances now days can be and are being designed to run on a 12-volt system. As far as heating and cooling goes by switching to heating/cooling as needed by installing small heat/cool units in each room you can even get 12 volt systems for that. Outside of drying cloths, freezing food and medium/heavy duty power tools there's not really any reasons we don't use 12-volt electrical systems in our homes.
I'm a Kansas native. I won't speak to the emotional issues involving our beautiful state, just the environmental ones.
1. Wind power was fought because at the time it was proposed for the flint hills. Your bird sanctuaries analogy wasn't far off. This is one of the last stands of tallgrass prairie and several species would be threatened by huge wind turbines.
2. The power plants were never intended to provide energy to Kansas, they were to sell power to other states.
3. Even more environmentally kind than wind energy is conservation. We could do a lot more by encouraging people to better insulate their homes & businesses, switch to compact fluorescent bulbs, and purchase energy-efficient appliances.
4. We should also do more exploration of small-scale energy production. Small wind turbines and/or solar panels scattered across the state on farms & houses would be less invasive than a huge tract with hundreds of turbines.
Billy_y4:
Our pResident campaigned in 2000 on a platform of treating CO2 as a pollutant. Are you suggesting he was misinformed? Guilty of "bad science"?
"...judicious use of nuclear" means "paying billions for giving people cancer forever is okay as long as nuclear utilities can profit while taxpayers shoulder the enormous costs and liabilities involved in building the plant, storing radioactive wastes for all time, protecting it from terrorists, keeping fissionable material out of the nuclear weapons black market and decommissioning the plant afterwards".
I am about as opposed to new emitting coal plants as anyone but to call CO2 from a power plant a direct threat to health is over the top. NOx and SO2 are a direct threat but CO2?
This decision is not good science but I guess good science is not a strong argument in Kansas.
PJD Wrote:
"There needs to be a moratorium for all new coal electric plants now.
Wind, solar and and judicious use of nuclear are the future."
Agree.
"And as far being the recipients of "so much disrespectful exploitation by the Urban States of America", isn't it just the opposite? The farm belt thrives on ag-subsidies while the cities crumble. Outside of some of the deep-south, I've never seen a poor farmer in the US."
Disagree. There is a tremendous level of rural poverty here, quite a lot of it on-farm. Kansas is essentially an energy/resource colony, with much of the land owned by agribusiness or energy firms headquartered somewhere else.
leoman:
All experiences are subjective. I live in a university town -- so my experience here has been a bit different. Much of what you say is true, though, although I think you surrendered a bit to hyperbole. I'm not a big fan of sweeping generalizations. I moved here from Colorado, and frankly the only difference between the two places is that Colorado has mountains. Some people are forward looking, others are as reactionary as hell. This past election, we sent a very liberal democrat to the legislature, but she sure wasn't from Wichita (a big defense/military city).
There needs to be a moratorium for all new coal electric plants now.
Wind, solar and and judicious use of nuclear are the future.
And as far being the recipients of "so much disrespectful exploitation by the Urban States of America", isn't it just the opposite? The farm belt thrives on ag-subsidies while the cities crumble. Outside of some of the deep-south, I've never seen a poor farmer in the US.
I escaped from Kansas about 10 years ago after doing a stretch (living there) of 5 years in or near Wichita. Knowing from personal, painful experience, what a bunch of throwbacks its natives are, I'm still reeling from this news. A Kansas state official making the intelligent, progressive and against-the-grain move and possibly setting a trend toward a more enlightened national energy policy in so doing? Dorothy? If this is Kansas, what's with the Technicolor?
I guess the age of miracles continues. To the poster who explains the population's 'F__koff, please ... If you ain't FAMILY, you ain't shit!' attitude as the product of wholesale ridicule and extra-Kansan exploitation, I must admit I don't know if Kansans are being exploited.
But when necessity goaded me toward a sojourn there, I went with an open mind. It took a while, but eventually Kansans closed it decisively and forever.
I found them to be 'nice' alright. But nice in the 'Babbitt' sort of way. Tow the line, don't make trouble, bow to the status quo and all will be well. Better to not even know what 'facade' means. And if you have a problem with the way we do things, well, the highway still runs both ways, from what I hear.
That culture was earning its dour, reactionary, fundamentalist reputation at least by the time of the Border Wars. Deviation was severely punished back then when slavery was the issue. Nowadays, a less focused sort of conformity is enforced. I intended to be there less than a year, as I transitioned my life out of marriage and the Midwest and into singularity and the west coast.
But, before that year was up, I'd contracted the Epstein/Barr virus and with it chronic fatigue syndrome, accompanied by a crushing chronic sickness about half of the time. When you're on your own, that puts you in a serious fix. I found myself marooned i the sunflower state.
By the time sheer desperation drove me westward and away from its clinging miasma of closed minds and frigid hearts, a whole state with an inferiority complex and an engrained defense strategy constructed of a pathetic and inverted grandiosity that denied the existence or at least the relevance of the rest of the world, along with a clannish siege mentality that ostracized 'Outsiders' and made them get familiar with averted eyes and a studied indifference.
I can no longer think of Kansas without also thinking of Utah, both the sorts of places most people would happily avoid, vast and empty, and both saturated with an exclusionary religious zealotry that pronounced to the world: You are either IN or you're OUT; with us and with god.
Corrupt in their very spirits.
I finally came to find Kansas not laughable, but genuinely scary.
A nice place to be FROM ... as far from as I can arrange.
They either stop building coal fired oxygen thieves or we are genuinely doomed...
Having seen so many feedlots and wheat fields driving on US Highway 50 through Kansas, I hope Kansana are exploring methane generated power and biomass (from wheat stubble) generated power in addition to wind power.
The nuke industry has recently been increasing public acceptance of new nuke plants by making coal plants look even worse than they actually are. This may be what we are currently seeing in Kansas.
Well, speaking as a resident of Kansas (but not really a Kansan), I can tell you that, 1) I'm proud my state made this stand, and 2) it will probably not hold up. It's unlikely that anyone here would be too crazy about a nuclear plant. Kansans are not really conservatives in the George Bush sense, they're more like Goldwater conservatives (populist libertarians). The people here don't really want any influence from anyone, especially not some out-of-state megacorporations of the type that would be able to build a nuke plant. Outside of the few larger cities in the state, you'll find people who want to live without the input of the U.N., Washington, Topeka, environmentalists, anyone from either coast (but especially the east coast), and pretty much anyone else that makes any suggestion about how they ought to live. The state motto should be changed to "Leave me Alone!" It's sad, because most of them are extremely nice people, they just have been the butt of so many jokes and the recipients of so much disrespectful exploitation by the Urban States of America that they've come to regard everyone "not from around here" as The Enemy.
Being a conservative state, I would guess that what KANSANS want are nukes. I hope I'm wrong.
Hmm...
If this story had been about nuclear power, there would be about 50 comments by now.
Excellent news!
Kansas, of course has abundant wind energy resources. But unfortunately, NIMBY's who call themselves "environmentalists", are also putting up obstacles to wind energy, as they are in many other areas.
What do they want?
Hey PJD, could you explain that bit about environmentalists fighting against wind power?
I'd only believe it if the power company decided to surround bird sanctuaries with wind turbines, then I could see the enviros getting upset.