Climate and energy

Reprinted in full from Harris News:

Ruling’s effect on Sunflower plans unclear

By Chris Green

TOPEKA — Some opponents of a plan to build two coal-fired power plants in southwest Kansas said Friday that a new federal ruling could create a further hurdle for the stalled project.

Critics of the utility’s $3.6 billion expansion plans hailed a decision from an Environmental Protection Agency appeals board that blocked — for now — a federal permit for the Bonanza coal plant in Utah.

In making its ruling on Thursday, the appeals panel said the EPA’s Denver office must explain why it declined to limit carbon dioxide emissions in issuing a permit for the plant, which is on an Indian reservation.

State and national environmentalists said the move seems to signal that CO2 emissions of all new coal plant projects now will be considered when federal or state officials decide whether they should receive permits.

Stephanie Cole, a spokeswoman for Kansas Sierra Club, said the decision would put Sunflower’s plans for new coal plants on shakier footing.

“It’s our belief that this is just one more reason why Sunflower and its partners should not be moving forward with a multi-billion dollar project with increasing financial and regulatory uncertainty,” Cole said.

However, a spokeswoman for Sunflower Electric Power Corp. couldn’t say Friday whether the ruling would have have any effect on the utility’s Holcomb expansion project.

“We constantly evaluate the political and economic conditions that may affect our project,” Sunflower spokeswoman Cindy Hertel said. “Our environmental personnel have not had the opportunity to review the decision regarding the Utah coal plant as to whether or not it will impact us.”

Hertel said the Hays-based, nonprofit utility, made up of six rural electric cooperatives it provides power to, would continue to pursue the project as long as it remained in the best interest of Kansas rate payers.

A spokesman for Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association of Colorado, the largest partner in the expansion project, could not be reached for comment. Tri-State plans to purchase power from one of the $3.6 billion project’s two generators and is paying development fees to Sunflower.

Permits on hold

Sunflower’s construction plans have been on hold since last year, when Health and Environment Secretary Rod Bremby blocked air-quality permits for the project over concerns about the plants’ CO2 emissions.

Bremby said he couldn’t ignore mounting evidence that the plants would emit 11 million tons of CO2 each year that would contribute to global warming.

But Sunflower and its supporters argue that they followed all existing laws in pursuing the permits and that Bremby overstepped his bounds in blocking them. They point out that there are no existing state or federal limits on the greenhouse gas.

The utility and its partners are pursuing a legal challenge to overturn Bremby’s decision, which could wind up before the Kansas Supreme Court early next year.

Legislative supporters could also make another run at clearing the way for the plants when they reconvene in January, after being thwarted by Gov. Kathleen Sebelius’ vetoes this past spring.

A spokesman for the Kansas Department of Health and Environment declined to comment on the EPA appeals board ruling. KDHE spokesman Mike Heideman said the agency couldn’t comment because of Sunflower’s pending legal challenge of the agency’s permitting decision.

But Bruce Nilles, director of the Sierra Club’s national coal campaign, said he believes that Thursday’s EPA decision decreases the odds that Sunflower’s project will ever receive permits.

Not a blow?

State officials must follow the EPA’s rules in awarding permits, Nilles said. Under the new ruling, he said he doesn’t believe Sunflower could win permit approval until state officials have given the project’s potential CO2 emissions additional consideration.

He said he also believes that the board’s move paves the way for President-elect Barack Obama to immediately limit CO2 emissions through Clean Air Act — without any additional action from Congress.

“It has an immediate and nationwide impact and really lays the groundwork for even more action on global warming on day one of the Obama Administration,” Nilles said.

But an industry group that backs expanded use of coal power counters that environmentalists may be reading way too much into one decision.

Joe Lucas, a spokesman for the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity, said the ruling only shows how difficult it is to site new electric generators these days. He said that’s because of continued uncertainty about how greenhouse gas emissions will be regulated.

He said that coal plants elsewhere are still receiving permits, including one in Arkansas earlier this month.

“I know there will be people who will try to spin this as a blow against coal that it is not,” Lucas said.

Nancy Jackson, executive director of The Land Institute’s Climate and Energy Project, said the supporters of new coal-fired generation may view the Utah decision as largely irrelevant.

She said, from their point of view, the EPA has again taken a pass on limiting CO2. But opponents see a victory in the decision, one that “presses pause” on all new coal plants, she said.

“We all know carbon dioxide will soon be regulated,” Jackson said. “The Bonanza decision is a significant and decisive step in that direction.”