Governor, utilities promise to rely less on fossil fuels / LJWorld.com

Archive for Saturday, May 26, 2007

May 26, 2007

According to the Kansas Energy Office, these are the wind projects in operation and their capacity to produce energy:

¢ Jeffrey Energy Center in Pottawatomie County: 1.5 megawatts.

¢ Gray County Wind Farm: 112 megawatts.

¢ Elk River Wind Facility in Butler County: 150 megawatts.

¢ Spearville Wind Energy Facility in Ford County: 100.4 megawatts.

Topeka — Gov. Kathleen Sebelius and leaders of the state's major electric utilities Friday vowed to decrease energy use and reliance on fossil fuels.

Sebelius had set a goal of using conservation and energy efficiencies to reduce energy consumption 10 percent by 2020.

She also has set goals of increasing wind-generated power to 10 percent of total electric use in Kansas by 2010 and 20 percent by 2020.

Agreeing to those goals Friday were chief executives of Westar Energy, Midwest Energy Inc., Sunflower Electric Power Corp., Great Plains Energy and Empire District Electric Co.

During a news conference, Bill Moore, Westar's incoming chief executive officer, said he was pleased with the voluntary and cooperative attitude "instead of mandates."

Lt. Gov. Mark Parkinson described the accord between state officials and the companies as historic and unique.

He said that in many states, political leaders and utility companies are fighting each other. "We're not doing that here in Kansas," Parkinson said.

Environmentalists applauded the goals, but said more was needed.

"Compared to where we were two years ago, the governor's goal of 10 percent in 2010 and 20 percent in 2020 is laudable and welcome," said Craig Volland, a spokesman for the Kansas chapter of the Sierra Club.

About 3 percent of electricity in Kansas is generated by wind turbines, officials said. Experts say Kansas is one of the top states for potential wind power but ranks 10th in wind generating capacity.

Volland said the goals should be higher because many proposed wind farms in development in Kansas would already achieve the goals.

And environmentalists said that the coal-fired power plant proposed by Sunflower Electric in western Kansas would undo all the progress being made on conservation and renewable energy.

"It will be like an 800-pound gorilla out there," Volland said.

State officials are considering a permit to allow Hays-based Sunflower to add two 700-megawatt coal-burning units next to its existing 350-megawatt plant in Holcomb. A megawatt equals 1 million watts and can power between 400 and 900 homes annually.

Environmentalists have filed a lawsuit against the project, saying the plants will worsen air pollution in the region.

"We believe it will severely exacerbate problems," said Dave Kirkbride of Wichita, a member of the executive committee of the state Sierra Club.

Parkinson, who is leading Sebelius' energy initiative, said coal power was important to an integrated energy policy, but declined to weigh in on the Sunflower proposal, saying the permit was being examined by the Kansas Department of Health and Environment.

"We'll just have to wait and see what they do with it," he said.

But Earl Watkins, chief executive officer and president of Sunflower Electric, said the plant would be much cleaner-burning than old coal plants. And, he said, the project would entail the construction of much-needed electric transmission lines that would also be used to move wind-generated power.

"That will allow us to actually develop and utilize the wind resources," he said.

Sebelius emphasized that educating Kansans about energy efficient appliances, lights and insulation would go a long way toward reducing consumption.

"We're essentially lazy consumers in this part of the country because energy costs have been cheap, relatively," Sebelius said.

But she said Kansans are eager to be better stewards by reducing energy use.

Discussion

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26 May 2007
at 6:16 a.m.

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LogicMan (Anonymous) says…

And it's time to build a big, new nuclear powerplant somewhere in N.E. Kansas — maybe at the Wolf Creek site, but closer to KC is better. Maybe the Leavenworth area. We'll need it soon for charging up our plug-in hybrid and all-electric cars!
26 May 2007
at 7:15 a.m.

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drewfuss (Anonymous) says…

More wind power, More wind power!
26 May 2007
at 10:56 a.m.

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theBike45 (Anonymous) says…

Whether Kansas has a lot of wind or not is totally irrelevant to the issue of whether it makes sense to try to capture it for power. The wind, as everyone knows , is nreliable, uncontrollable, unpredictable and constantly varies in strength, everything a grid operator hates in a power source (the AWEA, the American Wind Energy Association has actually produced a pamphlet proclaiming that wind is “reliable.” The AWEA is about as reliable as their crappy wind). The wind people chaacterize windfarms often as ” A 300 megawatt facility.” This is basically fraudulent advertising - they knowthe typical US wind turbine can produce no more than 21% of its capacity on average - that “300 megawatt facility” will be lucky to generate 64 megawatts of actual power and I can almost guarantee that it will do so when least needed. You see, because hot day and cold nights are asociated with stationary highs and peak demand and NO wind, wind has no ability whatsoever to function as a regular power geenrator. In Texas during 2006 during peak demand periods the wind turbines were operating at an insignificant 2.5% of capacity. What this implies is that wind costs a whole lot more than the wind industry will admit.
Peak demand is going up, and will go up, around 2% per year for the next 20 years. Wind power capacity has no ability whatsoever to meet peak demand, hence increase in peak demand every year can only be met by building more power plants that can produce reliable power. Wind turbines thus have to be duplicated. Denmark has errected , per capita, more wind turbines over the past 10 years than any other country, per capita. Yet they have not been able to reduce emissions one iota thru the use of wind, and have never been able to shut down one single coal or gas plant. They have the highest carbon emissions in Western Europe. And they are running very large financial deficits because of their govt subsidies of wind.
26 May 2007
at 12:40 p.m.

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davidnta (Anonymous) says…

I agree with wind and solar power, but I would also like to see research done on the possibility for nuclear energy. It's been decades since the last nuclear power plant was built, and technology has progressed to addressed the concerns many people have about nuclear energy. We need to be energy independent and self-sufficient.
26 May 2007
at 6:58 p.m.

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snowWI (Anonymous) says…

Kansas needs more wind power and needs to modernize the existing coal plants with state of the art pollution control devices. The Jaffrey Energy Center is one of the dirtiest power plants in the entire country. Westar needs to install pollution control devices on the old coal power plants or decommision them after a period of time. The plant in Lawrence was built in the 1950s.
26 May 2007
at 7:08 p.m.

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Wilbur_Nether (Anonymous) says…

Logicman reasoned that “…it's time to build a big, new nuclear powerplant…closer to KC is better.”

I can't figure out for the life of me why proximity to the Kansas City metro area is at all important.
26 May 2007
at 8:55 p.m.

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LogicMan (Anonymous) says…

“I can't figure out for the life of me why proximity to the Kansas City metro area is at all important.”

Power transmission conductors (a.k.a. wires or cables) have electrical resistance, so the farther electricity is transferred, the higher the overall losses. A rule-of-thumb is 600 miles maximum, but all the future electric cars will have huge demand and every little bit will count. Plus folk aren't too keen on new transmission lines, so keeping the runs short makes sense. But putting such a powerplant outside the perimeter of a city also makes sense, as does keeping it on the Kansas side for economic and political reasons. So the rural edge of Leavenworth, or S.W. of KC, and near water is where I'd be looking.

If/when conventional fuels go away, every city will need much more electrical capacity, so many of these plants will be needed to charge vehicles' batteries, run heat pumps, etc.

On the wind power comment(s) — wind is great, except as stated above, it is intermittent. Grid-connected wind turbines cause conventional peaking plants to reduce their fuel use when the wind is blowing fast enough; fuel is still a relatively minor portion of the overall cost to provide reliable service. Each situation must be evaluated carefully, and occasionally large-scale wind makes sense. Without the generous tax breaks and these just-asking-for-fraud 'green tags', I doubt many wind farms would be built.

But wind farms in southwestern Kansas, and feeding to Colorado/the western grid, makes sense to me right now, especially if they can throttle-back their coal-fired plants in the Denver/Colorado Springs corridor on bad brown-cloud days.

28 May 2007
at 8:39 a.m.

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KawValleyKid (Nick Yoho) says…

Here is a thought.Build a big ole nuke plant right next to the big ole biological warfare lab Roberts wants homeland security to build here.Then we can paint a big ole target around it.

The bike 45 tells us whats wrong with wind but offers nothing better.