Sunflower Electric Power seems likely to get a permit to build a coal-fired generating plant in Holcomb. Gov. Mark Parkinson said he would support a scaled-down coal plant months ago. Rod Bremby, secretary of the Kansas Department of Health and Environment, who denied a permit for a larger plant, resigned last week. The Republicans who favored the operation have never been stronger in the Legislature.
It all adds up to trainloads of coal chugging into Kansas every day in the not-so-distant future.
Or does it?
Now that they own all of the responsibility for making wise long-term decisions, will Gov. Sam Brownback and his super majorities in the House and Senate put their signatures on this deal to pollute Kansas air to produce electric power to be sold to Colorado and Texas consumers?
And do the out-of-state co-operatives that were going to provide most of the huge investment still want to take the risk? The investment was always iffy because a tax on carbon could price the power produced out of the market — and a tax on carbon remains the most effective way to limit the emission of carbon dioxide and slow climate change.
The evidence against people-produced greenhouse gases continues to mount. It may grow so massive that even today’s doubters become convinced. And it will take decades to pay off the bonds issued to build a coal plant at Holcomb.
Stay tuned.
— Emerson Lynn, jr.
