Tell us something we don't know

The Kansas City Star: New coal plants are expensive

Posted by Sean Casten (Guest Contributor) at 3:35 PM on 21 Mar 2008

Read more about: coal | energy | business | Kansas

The Kansas City Star reports:

Electric bills are poised to soar for customers of utilities building coal-fired power plants.

Coal-based electric utility executive responds:

We're moving forward regardless of what you namby-pamby, cheap-energy-loving hippies think.*

Michael Dworkin then raises the obvious question:

You've got to ask: "Do you think we have reached a point where it economically doesn't make sense?"

It will be interesting to see how this affects the Sunflower Electric debate, since the state does now seem to be getting beyond the false belief that coal is cheap.

*Italicized text implied but entirely fabricated by the author.

For story: Tell us something we don't know
4 Comments | Post a Comment

Fresh and Natural

Grist explores coal, nuclear and wind and solar extensively.

But what about the "clean hydrocarbon", natural gas?

http://www.bp.com/subsection.do?categoryId=9013383&co ...

" The world will rely on fossil fuels as its main source of energy for decades to come. And natural gas is the cleanest fossil fuel of all"

by jabailo at 6:53 PM on 21 Mar 2008

Jabailo - not about the fuel

I am admittedly guilty of this, but the relevant question is not which fuel (or tech) is best. It is rather "what do we need to do to get more useful energy out of every Btu of primary energy?" Whether we do that by extracting solar and wind power, by chasing energy efficiency or through hybrid vehicles, those are all good paths. But building inefficient, central coal/gas/oil/nuclear plants that is unnecessarily expensive, unnecessarily dirty and accelerates the depletion of resources is stupid. Notwithstanding the fact that it's the standard approach.

by Sean Casten at 7:03 AM on 22 Mar 2008

Spot Market

The price of coal has doubled on the spot market in the last few months. Most coal companies now are bound by long term contracts.

When the long term contracts expire and as new ones are entered into, watch and see how cheap coal really is!

The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.

by Pompey Road at 3:18 PM on 22 Mar 2008
[ Parent ]

PR - you're right

This is also true for distribution utilities that currently have the benefit of long-term power contracts with wholesale suppliers that are "underwater" at current prices.

But keep in mind that even though the price of coal as a fuel is up dramatically, the majority of the costs of a new coal plant are capital recovery. So the big spike in prices is coming not because of fuel price fluctuation (which will always have a certain degree of volatility) but because of capital costs that are innate to building Clean Air Act-compliant coal plants.

by Sean Casten at 6:12 PM on 23 Mar 2008
[ Parent ]

ADVERTISING POLICY

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