Kansas Jackass reports that newly installed Governor Parkinson will allow a coal plant in Holcomb:
At a just concluded press conference, Governor Mark Parkinson announced he has reached an agreement with Sunflower Electric Power Corporation that will allow for the construction of a brand new massive coal-fired power plant in Holcomb, Kansas.
Parkinson will allow air quality permit that had been blocked by Kansas Department of Heath and Human Services Secretary Rob Bremby to be issued and pave the way for the construction of one one 895 megawatt plant provided the Kansas Legislature passes a bill that provides for a laundry list of green energy law, including, but not limited to, workable net metering, revised renewable energy standards, and new energy efficiency standards.
For Sunflower's part, they only require the Legislature include in their legislation stipulations that make sure the Secretary of the Department of Health and Environment must be stripped of his power to ever again act as he did when he blocked the construction of the Holcomb plants in the first place.
Governor Sebelius blocked the construction of plants near Holcomb, citing their environmental effect, especially their impact on global warming. Most of the power from the plants would not go to Kansas, but to Colorado.
Parkinson is the former chairman of the Kansas Republican party, and switched parties to become Lieutenant Governor to Sebelius, who is now the Secretary of Health and Human Services. It isn't clear that Parkinson has really moved as far into the Democratic fold as I might like.
Coal is the past, and Kansas needs to prepare for the future. Governor Sebelius blazed the trail, and dragged the state toward a brighter, cleaner future. When Montana's Brian Schweitzer spoke at Washington Days shortly after Sebelius' nomination was announced, he quoted President Obama's observation that "change will not be easy. He said all will have to give something. In Kansas, you'll have to give your governor."
I just hope her replacement leaves something for her to come back to.
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Sebelius could have been our next Senator. But now she's gone and I have two wet soakers and a Republican in the Governor's mansion.
Tiahrt and Kinzer promised this was going to be a clean coal plant. How does a clean coal plant generate 6.6 million tons of C02?
"Clean coal" has been an amazing phrase. It started as a description of future coal power plants that would allow sequestration and processing of waste products. Over the last few years the bar for what exactly "Clean Coal" meant was scaled back, until now it just means "coal", mountaintop removal, c02, smog, ash pits, and all.
On the contrary, I feel like this is likely the best we could have gotten in the long run. The state house will almost certainly go red in 2010, as Parkinson has already said he won't run for re-election and there aren't any really great Dem prospects. When the Republicans control all of the cards, the plan they would come up with would be a lot worse and probably give the coal companies everything they'd asked for. Getting any concessions at all - and it seems that some of the concessions are fairly substantial, don't sleep on that green energy bill - is better than what they could have gotten by just waiting another 18 months.
Pinhead comments that The Pitch popularized today:
Past vs. Future... blah blah blah...
Did you know that you can purchase a wind turbine yourself? But, passivist eco-trendy non-thinking followers never seem to initiate things like investigation. I say: Do the numbers. Unless you personally are willing to invest on a wind turbine (yes, I mean on the scale of one for your house, dwelling, cave or whatever it might be), do not force the rest of us to pay for your 15th decendent's supposed health care problem that we caused by global climate change. Hey, there is another investigation. Do the numbers on global climate change. The world may be warming, but the question of man's influence is an entirely different ballgame. The best supercomputers in the world can only predict weather out maybe 3 days. A week and the predictions are shit. And you really think that modeling on decade long intervals is accurate? Predict the weather on your birthday a year from now. The mathmatics behind it is in the category of infinate order differential equations - otherwise known as chaos theory. The sad thing is that guys like you never seek the truth. Commentary from the ignorant seems to be popular these days.
Hey Mark! Shove off and get a life! We've been hearing this crap since the early 1990's. Yes, Climate Change is real and yes it is being caused by humans. Yes dirty coal is the number one contributor. 99.9% of the world's scientists agree on this as they have for some time now. There is no question about this whatsoever. Why don't you go out and vote for Ron Paul or some other Libertarian crackpot who has a problem dealing with reality. I've heard all the right-wing nonsense on "oh we can't possibly tell if humans are causing climate change" blah, blah, blah.... Frig-the -frig off! How about you go to your lab and hump a gerbil Mr. Science? Right now I'm thinking about a way to harness your hot air to generate enough biodegradable energy to fuel the planet.
Mark, weather and climate are two different subjects. Pay attention in grammar school next time.