To the editor:

Sunflower Electric is claiming that their three proposed coal-fired plants at Holcomb are a better choice for Kansans than wind farms, in terms of income, jobs and “rates.” What they are failing to mention, however, is that wind power would initially create around 350 permanent jobs spread across numbers of counties (in ever growing numbers), compared with around 160 jobs from coal-burning in primarily Finney County.

Wind farms will pay each struggling small family farm $3,000 per year per turbine. Wind power will create 2.8 times more Kansas jobs than coal, and if even conservative coal-burning health and environmental costs are finally recognized, then coal would cost around 5.1 cents per kilowatt hour, compared with 3.3 cents for wind.

Wind won’t require the projected eight billion gallons of rapidly shrinking Ogallala Aquifer water that Sunflower would use; it won’t emit many thousands of tons of carbon dioxide into our already overheated and increasingly unstable atmosphere. The Sunflower Electric ads also fail to mention that they own coal mines, and that three new coal plants would rapidly exacerbate havoc with global warming, hurricanes and parched crops and would create widespread serious health problems for Kansans.

Sunflower wants to avoid the upcoming congressional carbon taxes by installing such a massive facility now, but who will pay the price if they’re allowed to do so? Eight state attorneys general have written KDHE imploring them to support our state’s clean and abundant wind resources instead. Sustainable healthy economies are unalterably based on healthy ecologies.

Rich Wenzel,

Lawrence