Unfettered Letters

Greenbacks for fuel

Coal is dirty and produces sulfur dioxide and carbon dioxide? Nuclear power brings back memories of Three Mile Island and Chernobyl — danger, danger, danger? Oil — bad idea? Wind and solar are not that far advanced yet?
 
Let’s just burn money. It burns cleanly. It burns safe. It is not oily. And the best part is we can get it from the government for free.

Bill Coffman
Lee’s Summit

Coal is not clean

In recent months there has been debate about allowing new coal-powered generation in Kansas. The Department of Health and Environment has objected to Sunflower Electric’s two new coal plants, which has resulted in a legislative debate for the second straight year. As a public health scholar, I have been following the debate and think it is important that we choose energy solutions that are clean.

Coal is one of the dirtiest fossil fuels available for power. Coal power produces sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide, mercury, carbon dioxide and other toxic substances that lead to acid rain, smog, ozone and climate change.

Much of the “clean coal” propaganda is misleading. Coal is not clean. I believe the truth about coal-burning power plants should lead us to a different path for energy production in Kansas.

Emily Bullard
Mission

Government shouldn’t weatherize homes

Columnist Lewis Diuguid (3/30, Opinion, “Energy step one: Tighten up our homes, businesses”) compares President Obama’s green initiative to President Franklin Roosevelt’s push for hydroelectric power during the Great Depression and development of the coast-to-coast rail service in the 1800s. He praises the Obama stimulus package that would weatherize as many as 1 million homes and boost the value of homes and businesses.

Government programs like the railroads and hydroelectric plants benefited all Americans and generated revenue for the government. It is not a function of government to selectively benefit particular citizens and businesses by increasing value of their homes or businesses. After all, if green initiatives really do pay off, home and business owners will do the improvements without government stimulus.

There is no reason for the government to get involved in weatherizing homes and businesses.

David Blasiar Sr.
Overland Park

U.S. can’t afford ‘clean power’

It appears that Kevin Gunn (3/29, Opinion, “As I see it: We should seek new ways to make clean power”) doesn’t seem to have any better grasp of the energy situation than the Obama administration.

The alternative and renewable energy sources Gunn talks about (wind power, solar and methane gas) are years, if not a decade or more, away from being developed into workable alternatives and will be costly to develop and very expensive to implement and sustain. Then there is the question (as yet unanswered) as to how much of a negative impact these new “clean” power systems will have on our environment, not to mention our pocketbooks.

In a time of economic crisis, the American people cannot afford more costly energy sources.

F.D. Jordan
Kansas City

Wind power saves money

Michael Keller (3/24, Letters) writes that including a requirement for renewable energy in the Kansas Comprehensive Energy Plan is a bad idea because it will increase costs. The Texas Public Utilities Commission has stated that wind power is now its lowest-cost source of electricity. Their other primary source of electricity, natural gas plants, has produced steadily increasing prices for years as supplies of natural gas decline.

Kansas, and other states, need new sources of power. Your choices are new coal plants, new nuclear plants or wind plants. Numerous studies show that of those choices wind plants provide the lowest-cost electricity.

Don’t compare the cost of new wind power to fully amortized, 30- to 40-year-old coal plants. Compare fully amortized wind plants to fully amortized coal plants. What is the cost of the fuel for wind plants in 10 years when the turbines have paid for themselves?

Wind is free, while coal costs increase. The damage to the economy of climate change, caused by coal power, is in the trillions of dollars. Wind is the low-cost choice for power in Kansas.

Joe Spease
CEO, WindSoHy, LLC
Lenexa

Going ‘green’ leads to lean times

The front-page article “EPA ready to control greenhouse emissions; Proposed finding could widen regulatory agency’s reach, a move opposed by industry” (3/24, A-1) is alarming, to say the least. President Obama’s EPA is ready to say that carbon dioxide is basically poisonous, and all “greenhouse gas” emissions should be and will be regulated. Congress will also get involved with actual legislation. This is all in response to the Bush administration, which “sidestepped” the issue.

The problem is, it’s all a hoax. Carbon dioxide is a fraction of a fraction of all the elements in the atmosphere. Our activities on Earth cannot, and have not, affected its temperature. We all breathe in, and when we breathe out, it’s carbon dioxide. So our government is basically saying that humans poison the Earth by existence.

Make no mistake about the purpose of these rulings however. It’s about forcing “green” energy. But when the marketplace has no say in energy use, going “green” will only lead to lean times.

Dyrk Dugan
Overland Park

Renewable energy requirements

In the Kansas Comprehensive Energy Plan sent to the governor, there is a requirement for a set amount of renewable energy. That’s not a great idea, as it only serves to increase the cost of power to the consumer — pretty much of an indirect tax to support operations that are not necessarily competitive.

The situation in Texas illustrates the problem. Wind is generally at a maximum when electrical demand is at a minimum (late at night) with no clear evidence that the consumer’s bills are lower from all the mandated wind capacity. If the turbines are located in the right spot, they can be economical, but government dictates badly distort the market and lead to unintended consequences.

The ethanol debacle with corn prices is a pretty good example of what can happen.

A better approach: some form of relief to build the facilities, but no ongoing direct or indirect subsidies to support day-to-day operations. That would ease the burden of paying off the debt associated with building a new plant while keeping in play the competitive forces of the marketplace.

Quotas on renewable energy are a bad idea.

Michael F. Keller
Overland Park

No need for coal plants

Natural gas and wind are two abundant resources found in western Kansas. Why not use these resources to generate power and create jobs in Holcomb, Kan.? (2/27, Local, “Kansas House renews support for coal plants”)http://www.kansascity.com/115/story/1018062.html Why are some Kansas legislators promoting the importation of coal from other states?

Western Kansas already has the clean resources it needs to generate electricity.

Dave Peterson
Lenexa

Energy tax credits for homeowners

Are you a responsible homeowner who invested in replacement windows and doors last year? This is a call to all who did to lobby your senators and representatives in Congress. We have been denied the energy tax credit that was allowed for 2005-2007 and renewed for 2009.

The only way to win back this valuable tax credit and stimulate our personal, local and national economies is to make our collective voices heard so that our representatives and senators are armed with our petitions for fiscal tax equity to take to their respective bodies of Congress.

As the old saying goes, “the squeaky wheel gets the grease.”

A.J. Cameron
Roeland Park

U.S. needs national power grid

Every state in the union is subject to frequent power outages due to various kinds of storms. Some individuals and businesses are still without power long after the ice storm that swept the nation. Yet, like the weather, everybody talks about it but nobody does anything. We are still dependent upon the antiquated poles and wires of yesteryear to deliver power. Storms knock them down, and power companies pay large sums of money to put them back up.

I hope the “stimulus package” contains public works funding to develop and install a power grid that can function in all kinds of weather. Creative engineers who already know how to provide power to orbiting space ships should be able to develop systems that benefit earthlings. An undertaking of this magnitude would provide jobs for years to come and be of enormous benefit to all Americans.

President Eisenhower was severely criticized for proposing the Interstate Highway System and had to fight tooth and nail for funding. He finally prevailed, and we have all benefited from the system. If President Obama could achieve the same measure of success with a nationwide power grid, his legacy would be secured.

Kenneth Lee
Raytown