News Updates: lobbying $$$ over coal, and revolutionary new CO2 mapping technique (with cool video clip)

April 16, 2008

Your daily fix of coal and Kansas. First - whoa baby. Lobbying in KS over the Sunflower power plants has gone a little bonkers. Most sources report the total number to be over $789,000 (Wichita Eagle). Harris News also offers a more specific look at the costs. Keep in mind, though - in Kansas, you don’t have to report a lot of lobbying expenses. Ie, you don’t have to report the salaries paid to lobbyists. If those numbers were added in, we’d probably be looking at well - well - over a million dollars.

Second. The second Holcomb bill, SB 148, reached the Governor’s desk. She is expected to veto it just as she did the first Holcomb bill, SB 327. (For info on those bills’ content, see CEP’s FAQs on the Kansas Coal Controversy.)

Third, Kansas tries to figure out how to prepare for cap-and-trade (LJWorld).

Revolutionary carbon dioxide mapping techniques. HOW COOL IS THIS. Researchers from Purdue University have developed Vulcan, a revolutionary mapping technique whose purpose is to quantify North American fossil fuel carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. It can track these emissions on the scale of individual factories, power plants, roadways, and neighborhoods, and can quantify them in terms of fuel type, economic sub-sector, and county-state identification.

How exactly will this technology matter to Kansas? Probably in lots of ways, but right off the top of my head - it can be used to help in greenhouse gas inventories, cap and trade scenarios, etc. It can also provide outside verification of the fossil fuel carbon dioxide emissions that various industries report, under carbon regulation.

In some discussions you hear in the state, there seems to be a misperception that carbon dioxide can’t be tracked. In fact, emissions of fossil fuel carbon dioxide - such as that released from power plants and transportation sources - can indeed be tracked.

Watch the following short YouTube video. Don’t expect to understand all the details, and don’t worry - the gist will be pretty clear. The CO2 patterns over Kansas show up very clearly in most of the maps.