Dozens of engineers, operators and executives from utilities and related companies were in Lawrence last week to take part in an open house at the Lawrence Energy Center, 1250 N. 1800 Road. The plant, which went online in 1938, was being recognized as Plant

With opposition rallying against another utility’s plans for building new coal-fired plants in western Kansas, and public concerns mounting about overall global warming, leaders at Westar Energy know that the political, regulatory and public-opinion winds are blowing against anything that might put a smudge on the environment.

No wonder they’ve spent at least $22.4 million upgrading Lawrence Energy Center, their 69-year-old coal-fired power plant at the northern edge of Lawrence.

“We want to do the right thing,” said John Bridson, executive director of the Lawrence Energy Center, whose equipment, storage areas and buffer zones cover 600 acres at 1250 N. 1800 Road. “We want to be here for a long time.”

The power plant, with 120 employees, is being equipped so that its production won’t have to go anywhere, especially as energy demands rise amid tightened political and regulatory environments as they relate to burning fossil fuels.

Scrubbers are in place. Conveyors and crushers have been replaced. Special safety equipment – including “explosion-proof” electrical circuits – allow employees to focus more attention on getting the most out of the plant’s coal supply, which contains less sulfur than the coal that had been used until nine years ago.

“It’s a corporate goal, or mission – we will be environmentally friendly, and be good stewards – so we strive for that every day,” Bridson said. “We’ve been looking at new technologies to keep us on the cutting edge of being clean.”

Such efforts should come as no surprise, said Mark Collett, president of the Rocky Mountain Coal Mining Institute.

“We have a plant out west, where I live : that was shut down recently. They just shut it down,” said Collett, who works as vice president for product development at Salt Lake City-based Roberts & Schaefer Co., a provider of engineering and construction services for mineral and energy companies. “And in this world of increasing energy needs, to shut down a power plant is a real travesty.

“But if they won’t adopt the right environmental measures : then that’s what they’re left with.”

Collett and others were in Lawrence last week to honor the Lawrence Energy Center as the best coal-fired plant operating among about 150 others that burn coal from the Powder River Basin in Wyoming.

David Johnson, executive director of the Electric Power Conference, an annual event for the industry, said that coal currently fuels generation for half of the electricity used in North America.

Coal has been critical for economic growth since the Industrial Revolution, he said, and not even recent pushes for alternative fuels, renewable energy and other materials would be unable to douse the influence and prevalence of coal.

Reducing carbon dioxide emissions appears to be the next major issue for utilities, and Johnson and others are confident that solutions will be found soon.

“The industry is facing the issues, and I have every faith that technology will prevail,” he said.