To the editor:

Saturday’s editorial called for Kansas to lead energy innovation — a goal most Kansans would surely embrace. It also encouraged development of our native Kansas resources, again a laudable objective.

Kansas has the third-best wind resource in the nation, an excellent solar resource, one of the world’s largest natural gas fields and myriad oil wells that still produce. Our coal resource, in contrast — while critically valuable for many years — has dwindled and, because of its high sulfur content, is presently diseconomic. The Holcomb plants, for example, would send more than $90 million each year to Wyoming for fuel.

In fairness, last year the governor did offer a compromise on Holcomb that included carbon capture and sequestration — “clean coal technology.” But that choice was rejected as too expensive by the partners in the plants, who noted (as the Electric Policy Research Institute and Black & Veatch have asserted) that the technology will not be commercially available for 10 to 20 years.

Energy innovation in 2009 looks a lot more like smart grids, pioneering energy efficiency and maximizing our abundant wind resource. Wind offers zero fuel cost, requires no water, and produces no pollution, so carries no carbon liability.

Other states are racing to capitalize on wind: Oklahoma is building massive new transmission; Colorado, Arkansas and Ohio are welcoming wind manufacturing and thousands of jobs; Iowa, with inferior wind, has already installed double our capacity.

It would be great to lead. First, we have to catch up.

Nancy Jackson,
Eudora