Climate and energy

Just felt like a “z” this morning. Not an “s”. No reazon.

Wind power. Did the wind stop blowing in Texas and lead to a recent major power failure for interruptible users (usually big users who agree to have their power cut off in times of need)… or did baseload providers fall down on the job? (Houston Chronicle). Quotable: “the state’s grid operators say a problem they could normally handle was complicated when a number of traditional power plant operators failed to provide the amount of electricity to the grid as promised.”

It appears several power providers didn’t perform as expected, according to a spokeswoman for the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, the state’s quasi-public grid operator, but names won’t be revealed at this point.

Coal and Kansas. (Agh.) Sunflower Electric responds very strongly to Westar’s announcement that Westar will reduce greenhouse gas emissions and put off construction of new coal plants as long as possible (press release, pulled off PrimeNewsWire). Southeast KS tries to figure out if the technology is there yet for them to mine their “dirty” coal resource (Pittsburgh Morning Sun). Not that “clean coal” exists, in terms of a technology free of significant environmental impacts.

Duane Schrag of the Salina Journal steps back and looks at the big energy picture in Kansas. Amongst the drama, sometimes it helps to just calmly take stock. He notes that immediately following the denial of the Holcomb permit, there were lots of predictions about the negative impact this would have on transmission and wind development, as well as baseload resources in Kansas. His findings were that, since the denial:

ITC Great Plains has said it plans to build transmission lines to Spearville, with or without the Holcomb plant expansion.

Wind farm development continues. In recent weeks a study was requested for a 600 megawatt wind farm in Finney County.

The Kansas Corporation Commission posted a statewide map of the average retail price of electricity in 2006. Western Kansas — in particular, the western third — enjoys some of the lowest rates in the state.

Westar Energy, the state’s largest utility and one that uses coal-fired generation for nearly 80 percent of its power, published a comprehensive energy plan explaining why it is delaying for as long as possible the construction of new coal-fueled generation.

Research. Xcel Energy is experimenting with battery back-ups for wind power, so as wind power keeps increasing in the energy mix, the natural ebb and flow of wind can be more easily mitigated (Finance-commerce.com). Topeka-based Mother Earth News (super-cool resource for homesteaders and gardeners) offers an update on the public and scientific discussion of global warming. I can summarize: (1) is it still going on? Yep. And (2) are human actions, such as burning fossil fuels, still a part of the issue? Yep, yep. And finally, an article for those paying attention to the evolution (hee hee) of the creation care movement.

Editorials. For serious, KC Star encourages KCPL to develop wind power, as they had already committed to do in their agreement with Sierra Club (the one that allowed them to construct a new coal-fired power plant), although they put off the investment in 2008 due to other financial commitments. (For more details on the Sierra Club deal, check out slide 7 of the powerpoint presentation that KCPL representative Paul Snider gave at the CEP Take Charge forums). KCPL said you betcha.

KCStar also urged caution on adding nuclear power to the state’s fuel mix, pointing out that there are still a lot of unanswered questions about what to do with the waste, as well as the true costs of building new nuclear plants.

For funny, Richard Crowson of the Wichita Eagle asked readers to help come up with a caption for his following image:

Although I don’t mean to imply that respiratory problems are funny. I just enjoy it when people take on issues in creative and interesting ways. Here’s a selection of the runner-up captions -

Jason Griffin: “Where seldom is heard a discouraging word and the skies are…are…oh, forget it.”
Bill Hess: “It’s to the stars through greenhouse gases!”
Karen Wallace: “Is this what they mean by a state coal-ition???”*
Burt Parry: “Add aspirator per coal plant.”
Kim Dunakey: “Rough road to the stars my foot. Just line the right pockets and the road becomes an 8-lane expressway.”

* my favorite

— Maril Hazlett, www.climateandenergy.org