The stunning rejection last week of a proposed coal-fired power plant by Kansas regulators was a watershed moment.
And it’s not just because it’s the first time a plant was nixed solely because of the greenhouse gases it was projected to emit.
The rejection crystallizes the very difficult choices that will have to be made as the world attempts to wean itself of cheap coal-fired electricity and get a handle on carbon dioxide emissions.
In Colorado, we’ll have a front-row seat to the drama. Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association, based in Westminster, is a partner in the $3.6 billion Kansas project that was denied.
The electrical cooperative was counting on power from the project in Holcomb, Kan., to play a big role during the next two decades in providing power for its members, which include 19 systems in Colorado.
The electricity generated by the coal-fired plants would have provided energy for rural Colorado, where a large portion of users are industrial or agricultural. That’s important because while residential users tend to push up use at key times, like late afternoon, commercial customers have a more steady demand.
The demand curve of rural customers is best served by a source like coal, said Lee Boughey, Tri-State spokesman. Furthermore, other power generation sources, such as natural gas, are much more expensive. Already, rates have increased 8 percent each year for the past five years.
“If you take coal off the table, it creates a really challenging situation for utilities,” said Tri-State’s Boughey. “There’s a dose of pragmatism that is really needed.”
Others in this debate think it’s more pragmatic to focus on different energy sources instead of pushing more coal-fired plants.
The proposed twin 700-megawatt generators in Kansas had garnered attention around the country — a lot of it negative. The plants would have produced a projected 11 million tons of carbon dioxide each year. That’s nearly as much as a coalition of eight Northeastern states was hoping to keep out of the atmosphere over the next two decades by instituting a cap and trade program. The states objected vociferously to the Holcomb plant.
John Nielsen, energy policy director at Western Resource Advocates, said he sees the denial as an opportunity for Tri-State to look at other energy options.
Nielsen said Tri-State and other rural electrical cooperatives ought to be more aggressive about developing alternative energy sources.
Consumers have a role as well. Serious energy conservation has never been a priority and it has to be part of the answer.
We’ll need innovation from utility executives and courage from federal lawmakers who must find a way to write national energy policy that promotes alternative energy sources.
This nation for a long time has relied on relatively cheap electricity from coal-fired plants. Changing that means reworking the economic assumptions that the plants were built on. And that’s not going to be easy.
