As promised, Kansas Governor decision. Earlier this year they began Kathleen Sebelius vetoed a bill that working to write a bill guaranteeing would have allowed t wo coal-fired power Holcomb’s construction. The bill would plants to be built by Sunflower Electric need to be veto-proof since the legislature Power Corp. in the southwest part of would reverse the decision of Kansas the state. environment secretary, Rod Bremby.
Within days of her veto last month, A key objection to Bremby’s decision however, a new proposal emerged from a was that it cited the plants’ potential legislative committee, which would limit CO2 emissions as a reason to reject the the plants’ carbondioxide emissions and air permit. Critics of his decision said encourage increased use of wind energy. the state has no specific rules on CO2
The new proposal also included the emissions. Under the bill that Sebelius same provisions Sebelius opposed, vetoed, the state’s air-quality laws would including language stripping the state’s have been amended so agency officials secretary of health and environment of such as Bremby could not reject a permit some power. on similar grounds. Instead, new coal-
Theflashpointforconflictis Sunflower’s fired plants would have to meet carbon proposed $3.6 billion, 1,400 MW dioxide emission standards established Holcomb power plant, a two-unit coal- under the legislation, or face a $3-a-ton fired station. Last autumn the project tax on emissions. The bill would have set looked dead after the Kansas Department CO emissions limits at or a little higher
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of Health and the Environment refused than the emissions expected from the to grant an air permit. proposed Holcomb plant.
But the project developer, with the Sunflower officials estimated the new help of state legislators, sought to plants would produce 11 million tons of sidestep that executive department CO ayear.
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Sebelius earlier this year offered that Sunflower build a single 660 MW plant. That plant would sequester CO once the
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technology becomes available. Sunflower rejected the proposal, saying the only way it could build any new capacity was to size the plant so that wholesale buyers in Colorado and Texas could take part of the capacity. Tri-State Generation and Transmission of Colorado and Golden Spread Electric Cooperative of Texas both are considered key to arranging project financing.
In her veto of the earlier bill, the governor objected to provisions limiting the secretary’s power to deny air quality permits for such projects and blocking him from writing new emissions standards without the Legislature’s approval.
Bremby said that rather than impose CO limits he plans to encouage utilities
2 to voluntarily cut emissions. Earlier this year he signed the first such agreement with Westar Energy Inc.— David Wagman
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