Topeka — The state's largest utility on Monday announced the adoption of a "climate change policy" and vowed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
"The electric utility industry is facing important issues, and we recognize the need for companies to be proactive in addressing climate concerns," Bill Moore, Westar's president and chief executive officer, said.
Westar serves nearly 700,000 Kansans and owns the state's largest coal-burning plants, which produce carbon dioxide, a major cause of climate change.
Craig Volland, a spokesman for the Kansas chapter of the Sierra Club, said Westar's announcement was "impressive." But, Volland added, Westar also was staking out self-protecting positions in anticipation of national regulations on CO2 emissions.
"If you read between the lines, they are concerned that U.S. utilities should not be singled out to carry the whole burden to reduce greenhouse gasses," he said.
In addition to vowing to intensify efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, Westar also states it "will support public policies and initiatives that recognize and correct for possible extreme financial consequences that could result from the imposition of greenhouse gas regulations."
Westar officials said they will work on the issue locally but that responses to climate change require global solutions.
"While some areas such as public policy and technology are still developing, we can take action by incorporating, where sensible, proven renewable energy resources and by educating our customers about energy efficiency and its role in reducing environmental impact," Moore said.
But Westar has fought attempts to require utility companies to offer energy efficiency programs to customers.
Last month, Westar proposed a plan to increase energy efficiency and reduce emissions at the Jeffrey Energy Center near St. Marys, which is the company's largest and most polluting plant. That plan is being reviewed by state officials.
And in February, the utility requested proposals for a 500 megawatt of renewable energy.
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Ragingbear (anonymous) says…
Great. How much more of a "fuel surcharge" is this gonna cost us?
consumer1 (anonymous) says…
Westar also states it "will support public policies and initiatives that recognize and correct for possible extreme financial consequences that could result from the imposition of greenhouse gas regulations."So cutting into their $600,000,000.00 profit margin could cause financial impact to the inflated salaries the CEO already recieves. Hey, no problem, the watchdog committee will take care of us. errr I mean them.
Matthew (anonymous) says…
Sunflower Electric is claiming that their three proposed coal 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 to around 160 jobs from coal-burning in primarily Finney County. Wind farms will pay each struggling small family farm, $3,000/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, than coal would cost around 5.1 cents per kilowatt hour, compared with 3.3 cents for wind.
Wind won't require the projected 8 billion gallons of rapidly shrinking Ogallala Aquifer water that Sunflower would use, it won't emit many thousands of tons of Greenhouse CO2 into our already overheated and increasingly unstable atmosphere. "Scientific American", late 2006 stated, "there's no such thing as clean coal". Three new coal plants would rapidly exacerbate havoc with global warming, hurricanes, parched crops, and 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 Attorney Generals have written KDHE imploring them to support our state's clean and abundant wind resources instead. Sustainable, healthy economies are unalterably based on a healthy environment.
Rich Wenzel
snowWI (anonymous) says…
Excellent points RIch.
I am all for reducing emissions at the existing power plants and upgrading them with better technologies. The plants should be as clean as possible considering such a large percentage of the population of Kansas lives near all of these coal power plants.
Also, how long will Westar continue to operate ancient power plants that are already nearly 60 years old. I mean even "new" coal power plants would be much cleaner than the dinosaurs that are in operation right now.
As far as rate increases, I have no idea what you are talking about. The electricity rates in this part of the country are dirt cheap compared with other areas. However, the cheap electricity rates come at a high environmental and health risk price tag that is not factored in.