To the editor

Gov. Sebelius and others say we need to reduce reliance on coal plants and encourage development of wind farms.

Sounds good on the surface but sets us up for considerable trouble and discord.

Why is that?

Because when the wind isn’t blowing strongly enough (about half the time) we would still need coal-fired power plants. Thus we would still need to maintain and have them ready. An idle plant isn’t making money; it’s costing money. Who wants to pay for idle power plants? I don’t think the investors in those power plants will want to.

According to Department of Energy figures, Kansas gets about 75 percent of its power from coal plants. So we can see that for 37.5 percent of the time we can cut coal use some by keeping those boilers warm, (and polluting) which they are not designed for.

Are we to believe the governor wants us to pay for wind farms and transmission lines to connect them to the grid and only save small amounts of carbon emissions at double the cost to consumers?

There is a workable solution that should be welcome by both consumers and utility companies because it resolves the above situation.

It’s not a coal-or-no-coal proposition. It’s a third way called community energy. It solves far more of the energy, economic and environmental problems than wind power can, and it can do so without polluting our atmosphere or polluting our pristine horizons with wind turbines.

Les Blevins,

Lawrence