The Kansas Department of Health and Environment became the first government agency in the United States to reject an air permit for a coal fired electricity generating plant , saying that greenhouse gas threatens public health and the environment. The Thursday decision by Rod Bremby, secretary of health and environment prevents Sunflower Electric Power, a rural electric cooperative, from starting work on a proposed $3.6 billion project to build two 700 megawatt coal fired power plants in Holcomb, a town in western Kansas. One unit would have supplied power to parts of Kansas while the other would have supplied fast growing eastern Colorado. Sunflower Electric already operates a smaller coal fired power plant in Holcomb. The new power plants would have been an extension of the existing facility.
The decision draws support from the opinion given by Kansas Attorney General Paul Morrison who has said that the states' top health regulator can reject an application to build the plants, even if they meet all state and federal environmental regulations!
The proposed plants would have produced eleven million tons of carbon dioxide annually which is now recognized as one of the most important greenhouse gases contributing to climate change.
However the plants are not without supporters. Amongst others it is backed by the speaker of the state House, Melvin Neufeld. The backers of the project repeated the usual arguments as to how without the power plants the citizens of the state would lose access to low cost energy and that the loss of the proposed $3.6 billion investment would affect economic development and cost jobs. If the state went ahead with the plants, they argue, it would create more permanent jobs, bring in more tax revenue and also lead to the extension of transmission lines across the state which could be used for power generated by renewable energy sources, such as wind power. But the plants were strongly opposed by environmental groups and the residents of half a dozen eastern counties from Topeka to Kansas City. These counties have enough voters to influence statewide elections and that perhaps explains in part why they succeeded.
Sunflower on its part had proposed building an eco-friendly ethanol plant as well and also an $86 million facility, using the still experimental algae process to capture the carbon dioxide generated by the power plants.
Sunflower Electric disagrees with the decision as it feels the permit process should be based only on the company's adherence to existing environmental regulations and not on any other consideration. Along with the state lawmakers it is planning to challenge the rejection of the permit by the state's environmental regulator. Utility companies across the nation are troubled by the decision as it is likely to be used as a precedent elsewhere. Whatever be the final outcome, it shows that at last some states are waking up to the challenge of climate change and are willing to do something about it.