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TechnoratiKansas Rejection of Coal Plant Fires Up Backlash
OVERLAND PARK, Kansas - If there is one lesson Kansas officials have learned by rejecting a proposed expansion of a coal-fired power plant last month, it is this: Hell hath no fury like business interests scorned.
Six weeks ago Kansas Secretary of Health and Environment Rod Bremby made Kansas the first U.S. state to reject a coal-fired power plant solely because of health risks associated with carbon dioxide emissions. Since then, the state has become ground zero for a nationwide battle pitting environmental concerns against powerful economic and political interests.
Kansas is now facing lawsuits from Sunflower Electric Power Corp and industry groups while angry state lawmakers are determined to overturn the denial of the $3.6 billion power plant project, with some even threatening to dismantle the state department of health and environment.
The energy industry also is pouring money into the state to try to overturn the October 18 ruling, which killed Sunflower's plan to add two 700-megawatt units to its operations in western Kansas, a cash-strapped rural area.
"Everybody agrees that motherhood, apple pie and caring about the environment are fantastic," said Bob Kreutzer, head of the newly formed Kansans for Affordable Energy. "But we've got to make sure we always have electricity and that is why we need big power plants."
Coal-fired power plants make roughly half the electricity generated in the United States, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. But in the past 18 months, about a dozen states including Texas, Florida and Oklahoma also have rejected plans for 22 new coal-fired power plants.
Unlike Kansas' health and emissions concerns, those states cited mainly technical reasons for the rejections as officials increasingly acknowledge growing public concerns about climate change.
Environment groups seized on the Kansas decision as a potent precedent they hope will influence more states to reject new coal-fired power plants, whose emissions globally are among the biggest man-made sources of greenhouse gases.
SUNFLOWER GOES TO COURT
Business groups and a Republican-led contingent of state legislators are working to nullify the decision, saying the Sunflower project would create jobs, provide badly needed energy for the area, and keep electricity rates in check.
Sunflower filed lawsuits on November 16 in both state and county courts seeking to overturn the decision. Sunflower's supporters, which include business, political and industry leaders, say neither the federal Environmental Protection Agency nor state statutes consider CO2 a pollutant. They also say neither the state, Bremby nor the governor has the authority under state law to limit an unregulated emission.
Similar lawsuits were filed by at least two business groups and a Colorado wholesale electricity supplier.
The debate also has played out in television and newspapers ads around the state -- with one series claiming leaders in Iran, Russia, and elsewhere will benefit from the ruling because the state will have to import more natural gas. Opposing ads rejected the claims as unfounded.
Sen. Sam Brownback, a Republican who dropped out of the race for president in October, has weighed in, calling the Kansas decision part of a "partisan political agenda."
Others echoed the charge, saying Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, a Democrat, is using the climate change issue to angle for higher political office.
Sebelius has defended the decision and said instead of building the new coal-fired facilities, which would produce 11 million tons of carbon dioxide a year, she supports alternative sources, such as wind energy.
"Carbon has a huge impact on the atmosphere and global warming is very real," Sebelius said in an "open letter to Kansans."
Regardless of what happens in Kansas, the tide is shifting away from traditional coal-based power despite the fact coal is cheap and plentiful, said Dietrich Earnhart, director of the Center for Environmental Policy at the University of Kansas.
"People are concerned about global warming," Earnhart said.
"At the state and regional level leaders are feeling if the federal government is not going to do something then they will do something," Earnhart said. "There is a reason that Al Gore won a Nobel Prize."
(Editing by Bill Trott)
© Reuters 2007
12 Comments so far
Show AllSame fight here in good old Great Falls, Montana! They want to build a polluting monster here, but the vast majority of people don't want it. It's gettin' real ugly, but we're up to the task. Nuthin' we like better than whippin' corporate ass! Stay tuned.
I live in Kansas, and I hope outsiders are willing to help us speak out and perhaps boycott certain elements of the Corporatocracy. It's an uphill battle, but a lot of us out here are sick and tired of having greedy, small-minded capitalists bulldozing everything we hold near and dear for the golden calf of "jobs" -- lousy jobs at that. We need some serious alternative energy and eco-tourism jobs here if we're going to break the grip of the Sunflower Electrics and Cargills, etc.
Despite having read the optimistic Sen. Bernie Sanders post the other day, its again obvious how far we are from a consensus on CO2 reduction.
Gov. Sebelius is probably geting the full neocon "evil liberal treehugger scare monger..." treatment. We still don't "get it".
I guess it will be market supply/demand forces that eventually reduce CO2 generation. The consumers are going to disappear. Maybe the folks in the water and climate blessed US northwest and northeast and similar Canadian regions will survive, but much of the rest of the world is toast.
A few more comments here in evolution to a real story.
Kansas, the so called heartland is showing more than heart they are showing that there are still some intelligent people out there. The people in Massachusetts helping the shut down a nuke plant in Vermont. Hell we have a movement against big business who are trying to shut down the human race. Most of these megakillers are still looking for the magic technological bullet that will save all and we can continue on the way we are going with ever more growth and ever more and greater GDP as the bankers advise until the Earth is black with hydrocarbons before it turns red like Mars. How about that amount of money into renewables? No we can't do that stupid that against the structure as it is designed.
But there really there isn't any quick fix. I am a filmmaker and have worked on the environmental change issues since 1978 so I have a fair amount of experience to speak. While LED lightbulbs is good and 40 MPG for cars is better it is not the at least the 80MPG that is necessary and refits for all existing cars rather than exporting them to the developing world which is presently being done and will pick up speed as restrictions rise in the western world. We continue to export the problem from the USA to other countries as if we don't share this world with other people. And while Jesse jackson talks of the black people of the world, his particular crusade its the people of the entire world at issue.
It was GE that killed the electric car not long ago who in Congress complained about that? Whether health care, big business, environment, energy alternatives, toxicity in the environment or any and all of these it comes down to who has the courage to talk about all of them rather than focusing on the head of a pin the one important issue. You want to hear about health care? The advance of environmentally based health problems by a toxic environment and air related pandemics is what we are looking at in the next few years with rising temperatures. The candidates are discussing universal health care? Try that on for the globe and all the sicknesses the policies of the USA have caused, three percent of the world's population the USA produces seventy three percent of global toxicity.You wonder where cancer comes from?
The people of the USA have been so ill informed as to what a change would really do and mean to this country and the change in leadership, they have forgotten that no one could be worse than George Bush. . . No one not even the dog catcher, at least the dog catcher has compassion for animals!
The real problem is not Kucinich as president, the problem is that he puts his emphasis on the wrong problem at the wrong time. The problem is getting him to address a credible platform of ideas. I say to him while impeachment is necessary, it is unlikely. There is not enough time and the issues most pressing are again avoided, like the environment and those really important issues before the congress now like kids health care! The issue of this election will affect the environment, economy and the future of the USA as no others. Yet if more than 50% of eligible voters cast their votes it will be a miracle because of regressive US election laws. It is compulsory for every one to vote in Australia. None of the candidates are really talking on the major points of the environment in association with the economy or health care and reform laws for elections.
The environmental news coming out is not new but it is very grave and keeps being pushed to more urgency as new research comes to light. If any one reading this comment cares to look at the website of NASA, the research papers of James Hansen in particular that were published long before Gore was on the scene and many since, they would understand that we really can not deal with much more than one degree to two and half degrees Fahrenheit of warming at its maximum to ward off the most serious effects of industrial societies pollution and to offset this growing catastrophe.
At about two and half degrees warming which is presently in the pipeline we will be dealing with about 550 ppm of carbon in the atmosphere, a rate actually above the tipping point of one and half degrees warming. This is the absolute figure to avoid the major positive feedback loops that are starting and scheduled to kick in by 2020 or earlier if nothing is done quickly. Positive feedback are starting now with Methane now being released on the tundra into the atmosphere a four times addition to greenhouse gasses and causing the poles and glaciers to melt more rapidly, or has no one noticed?
The below scenario excerpted from the climate articles here on commondreams tell us clearly without rapid change runaway climate change and their feedback loops are in reach within 10 to 30 years if nothing is done rapidly. The positive feedback loops will melt the remainder of the glaciers and perhaps dump Greenland into the sea as well. Also, the melting of additional ice-shelf's at the poles. That means perhaps a 3 to 30 foot ocean rise by the end of this century, but the process is beginning now and in 20 years or less without rapid change in economic direction the human race will reach a point of no return. The so called news and other media continue to bend the information toward the global economic agenda thus minimizing its importance. India for example is less concerned about climate change than they are about economic production thanks to the G8, although their neighbor Bangladesh is slipping into the sea . Still in India, there are several moves in the direction of smaller is better concepts of reality.
There will be sufficient human displacement of people on this planet to bring American citizens into a nightmare scenario that makes the present Mexican border problem a walk in the park. What about the transfer of health risks as a result of this problem? Not to mention water and food related issues and the economy, always the economy.
Yet is seems the political discussion rests on the complete list of talking points in isolation, such as Clinton's health package and its cost, rather than what is really at stake which is human survival. These folks on the stage wanting to be president rarely talk to the complete interrelated package of all these issues and more. The media reduces the public debate to its most simplistic level and all here are arguing about one issue or another rather than the entire package which a true leader must address. The media keeps the public dumbed down for obvious reasons they represent the money people. As a result we become unable to talk about moving radically to deal with climate change the first and major issue which affects all other issues and is completely related to economic change.
The world does not have (much later) before a more aggressive approach to all the issues beginning with climate change now! Remember New Orleans? Within next 10 to 20 years is where it all hangs. If nothing is done very soon it will mark the beginning of the end for the human race. Those appear to be the facts and no technology will stop runaway climate change once it begins, indeed if we look at the melting poles the worst case is much more apparent than formerly believed . . .it has already begun!!
Perhaps it might be too late now, according to James Lovelock, in his view it has begun. James Hansen at NASA makes a very compelling case for the time frame for action within the time in office of the next president of the USA and so does the UN. I think anyone who really wishes to be informed should go to the websites of these people mentioned here or the IPCC. It is technical information but worth taking the time to inform yourself. The answer is to start working quickly for change and vote for those candidates who speak of change and another direction and who represent ideas rather than special interests. For example the best work would be to defeat the pro-business Clintons and elect Kucinich or Obama or possibly a joint ticket while we know they have an outside chance they are the best possibility for change.
But we all know business interests will prevail with Clinton capturing the vote and a pro-business vote is a vote against the environment. No one running on the democratic side could be worse than Bush. But anyone who can think understands that the business interests control the environmental agenda and most candidates. The republicans will continue the work of burying the planet as will pro-business democratic candidates most of whom have been bought, whether by health interests or anything else concerning big money.
The facts concerning climate science is what is important. What the environmental facts really suggest is economic depression in the West in the near term. But if we are really serious about saving the planet (no one wants to hear that if they are connected to big money) it means voting for economic and environmental legislation limiting pollution and green house gasses. . .in any event that is change!
But the environment, water, energy production these are the real issues of this election campaign but no one would dare mention them in association with change in economic direction for fear of defeat. A redirection and a retooling of the global economy and of America is in order and that is not a popular issue on Wall street or people invested in Wall street. . .most everyone in one way or another.
We have to change rapidly and move to a none-stop production of environmental invention and energy alternatives for the western world and developing nations rapidly. It also means rapid technology transfer for the developing world without delay, this may save us some time. A cut of 80% of the carbon emissions within the next 10 years is in order and it must be done beginning now and well on the way before 2012 the next date for Kyoto. Kyoto is a western world fabrication to tell us we can keep polluting while where figuring a way to deal with this crisis economically.
A change of the present direction of economic production and fast move in a different direction economically is required by anyone that can think and put simple figures in context of this crisis. The world is waiting for this move by the Americans and watch the dollar rise rapidly against other currencies once this plan would be announced if ever. This is why this upcoming election is so critical and the results of it will determine whether the human race survives. . . . It is that critical!
The economic change in direction could possibly reemploy a lot of people who have lost their work in the polluting industries. This is the challenge to America to remake itself after eight years of the Bush/Cheney regime. It is equivalent to a fight for survival that required the retooling of America at the outbreak of WW 2. It requires change in the so-called war on terror, a Bush fabrication advanced by the media which is a money centered mind conditioning creation and finally, it means leaving Iraq, and using those resources to fight the real enemy to survival, the western consumer, hydro carbon based, societies of the western world.
Who knows that might mean less of an investment in China and more of an investment the western world for a healthier environment? And the Chinese might follow that example as well.
Which candidate will say this to America? Which candidate will really tell the truth? If they did they wouldn't have a chance in this election because Americans don't want to hear that! Any one having the courage to really tell the truth would find themselves on the next train to Siberia; they would be shouted down by the crowds of people on the stump and many on this blog. saying what the hell do you know anyway? "This is too scary for me!"
But the economy is the issues and that is determined by the war in Iraq. The illegal Bush-war that Kucinich wants to impeach Bush/Chenney for creating but takes us into another direction and one not well thought out. He is focused on the lies of Bush rather than the future of the world.
The production of alternative energy will soak up the idle job market, indeed it is doing so now! With a shift to the priority of economic production and development directed at saving this world and its equilibrium, means in simple terms a crash economic change which is vitally necessary, without that we are done. If any one thinks that we can continue with an oil economy and business as usual with a consumer based society, they are living in the world of denial which so much of the western world occupies. The below is a light message compared with what the truth really is: from UN sources of information!
"The world needs to spend 1.6 percent of global economic output annually through 2030 to stabilize the carbon stock and meet the 3.6-degree Fahrenheit temperature target. Rich countries, the biggest carbon emitters, should lead the way and cut emissions at least 30 percent by 2020 and 80 percent by 2050. Developing nations should cut emissions 20 percent by 2050, the UNDP says."
The above is letting you down lightly is really not what the actual projections are. The world crisis will crash in on its regional global populations is what the information below is saying. There really is no place in this discussion for a 5.4 to 7.2 Fahrenheit degree rise in temperature. . . .this scenario painted with the these numbers below is a different planet closer to Mars not Earth. The news media play with numbers like the lottery. We can tolerate one degree and perhaps two and half degrees warming at the outside, . . .in the next 50 to 90 years. . .that's it!!!!! An additional 3 degrees to four degrees Fahrenheit is three more degrees greater than this climate and its creatures can sustain or endure without collapse!! This quoted from the recent UN assertions here in commondreams and from the real information by scientists not political organization:
"a temperature rise of between 5.4 and 7.2 degrees Fahrenheit (3 and 4 degrees Celsius) would displace 340 million people through flooding, droughts would diminish farm output, and retreating glaciers would cut off drinking water from as many as 1.8 billion people, the report says." this is an understatement and conservative.
The above report is economically associated and conservative as well as misleading!!! Forget this idea of 5.4 to 7.2 Fahrenheit of warming that is the Martian landscape because it allows for the runaway positive feedbacks to take hold. Whomever believes this world can sustain this degree of warming is either working for the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank or is gathering this information from the laboratory at XXON/Mobile or its publiscists!!??????
Meanwhile the group here is discussing who will give us better health care on a dying planet and impeachment of Bush a good way to avoid dealing with the truth. We can be suspect of anyone who says they have the truth. The need for understanding this current cast of characters wanting to be president is important. None of this group has the faintest idea of what we are really dealing with in terms of global warming numbers concerning the environment, and if they did they would not tell the public. They know it's bad and their advisers are telling them they can't deal with this issue to get elected by the masses.
The masses? Unless you have not heard, these are the people above who are worrying where their next bag of groceries comes from and the money to pay the rent! They really don't give a damn about the environmental issues. . And have no time for thinking about 10 to 20 years from today that has no realty attached to it for most Americans or the rest of the four and half billion people on this Earth in the same situation. . . .
Or, for the rest of the population working for and controlled by big business and big money. . .that is what this election is really about and if one thinks about the complexity of all these interrelated issues we know that we can not beat the odds business will win. That means the future for humanity is limited even for the one percent that has everything.
Sure elect Edwards, Obama, or Kucinich or any combination of most of the Democrats that are not funded by big business for this election. This is the reality of this time we still live on this, still beautiful planet.
IKE
This is encouraging. It's nice to see an article on Common Dreams about some intelligent, rational, concerned Kansans... to be reminded that there's much more to Kansas than the creation/evolution debate.
Thank you, Kansas and Gov. Sebelius, for standing up to these corporate thugs. And I hope the voters of Kansas will show their real stuff by retiring Sam Brownback next election.
Hell's fury is coming. The lady said NO. Not maybe,later,not here,I'm sick, have a headache, NO, NO, NO. These big,baudy, land grabbin', profit seekin',power brokers don't like hearing no. Don't like it, won't listen to it; the lady had every chance to get along and she said NO.
So they will be coming and bringing Hell with them and their congressmen, and lawyers, and judges,newspappers,TV and radio stations, injunctions and writs, bribes, threats and thugs. They have no choice. The tide rises until it doesn't and then it falls and the lady said NO.
She is going to need her friends. We need to be there when they get there with Hell's fury in tow. There are many wrongs to be righted before we have the government responding to the will of the people. The powers that gather in Kansas to force coal fired power are the same powers that we face when we try to end this war or renounce torture,add paper trails to voting machines, medicine for our sick or day care for our kids. We will need to face them and why not Kansas and why not now ?
I have used we and they without definition so I will let Kipling clear that up. " All the people like us are we-- And everyone else is they." The lady said NO and she needs all the people like us or they will use her as they will.
Good point reffin. Like CO2, everything in excess becomes a pollutant, maybe except beauty.
3.6 billion is a lot of money that could be put towards alternatives. This is great news because last I heard Texas alone was trying to move towards setting up over 10 new coal powered plants before regulations came to pass.
Speaking of regulations, how is CO2 not considered a pollutant? What is the EPA protecting?
funny here in las vegas the coal industry are pushing hard with radio and tv commericals to get more coal burning plants here as well as some ad boards ... what is up with all the coal burning business... also they are gonna build a coal burning plant around seligman arizona which will effect all the trees and health of the wild life. it's sickening, where the hell are those lovely senators? mr mccain doesn't give a shit.
War=Peace-----hope your're right. Always good to see any leadership taking stands, but the power of big energy should not be under-estimated. Don't you love how the Rethugs always tout "states rights" until the state takes them at their word, and does some of their own regulating? Ah then it's another story altogther.
Corporations will use every bit of their considerable clout to by-pass the people's will and anyone the people elects who stand in their way. We have so many battles ahead, I feel shell-shocked already.
thats some good news for a change..