Farm Support For Coal Plants Is No Mystery

Farmer-owned coop status seems to be something many don't understand.

Published on: March 6, 2009

A former co-worker of mine recently expressed surprise that farm organizations are out in front of the battle to build coal-fired electrical plants in western Kansas.

He had missed the fact that Sunflower Electric Power is a farmer-owned cooperative, as Tri-State, the partner in the venture.

The farmers of western Kansas are all too aware of the high cost of natural gas and wind generation because that is mostly what Sunflower has now and they pay significantly higher rates than the eastern third of the state, which has bountiful coal generation.

The disparity is even more apparent to rural customers in eastern Kansas.

The Senate passed a bill to allow the plants to be built by a veto-proof majority on Thursday. The House is five votes short. Time will tell.

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  2. kansan27 says:
    1/24/2010 1:43:00 PM

    PJ - the reason Sunflower has high rates - higher than other portions of the state as you point out, is from building their first coal plant, which they are still in debt from.  They owe taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars from Holcomb I, but want to build an even bigger plant when they can't pay off their first project.  Ever heard the subsidy argument used against renewables?  It goes both ways --- Sunflower has already taken their fair share of taxpayer $ that they can’t pay back.   It sounds great to justify the new coal plant by pointing to the existing high rates, but fact of the matter is it makes little sense to relieve high rates by repeating a mistake that caused the high rates in the first place.  Sunflower doesn't need 900 MW of power -- this is a coal plant for Colo and I doubt the farmers of Western KS want to use scarce water resources that could be used to grow food to produce power for other states.  I agree with you that farmers have been burdened with high rates in Western KS, which makes business hard for them, but the high rates can largely be attributed to Holcomb I. 

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  3. kansan27 says:
    1/24/2010 1:43:00 PM

    PJ - the reason Sunflower has high rates - higher than other portions of the state as you point out, is from building their first coal plant, which they are still in debt from.  They owe taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars from Holcomb I, but want to build an even bigger plant when they can't pay off their first project.  Ever heard the subsidy argument used against renewables?  It goes both ways --- Sunflower has already taken their fair share of taxpayer $ that they can’t pay back.   It sounds great to justify the new coal plant by pointing to the existing high rates, but fact of the matter is it makes little sense to relieve high rates by repeating a mistake that caused the high rates in the first place.  Sunflower doesn't need 900 MW of power -- this is a coal plant for Colo and I doubt the farmers of Western KS want to use scarce water resources that could be used to grow food to produce power for other states.  I agree with you that farmers have been burdened with high rates in Western KS, which makes business hard for them, but the high rates can largely be attributed to Holcomb I. 

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