Wind Power Bites Another State
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| Wind turbines near Beaumont, Kansas |
Here’s why the rates are higher, according to an energy cost analysis by the Kansas Corporation Commission and two days of hearings where KCC officials presented their findings to the state Senate Utilities Committee: The major Kansas utilities, Westar Energy and Kansas City Power & Light, spent billions of dollars in the past 10 years to build or retrofit coal-fired power plants to meet new federal emissions standards.
They’ve also spent hundreds of millions of dollars building wind farms and transmission lines to get the power to market, in order to meet a state mandate that 20 percent of the state’s energy come from renewable sources by 2020. That goal has already been met, although the state Legislature has since repealed the requirement.
In 2008, Kansas had among the lowest electric rates in the nation. Now, our rates are above average. This is what happens when politicians intervene in the marketplace.It is even worse when global warming activists, by design, keep people poor and sick:
Modern energy access transforms lives in a myriad of ways. Energy not only powers lights that allow children to do homework and light streets to make them safer, but also the fridges that keep food hygienic and vaccines usable, the technology that brings healthcare and education into the modern age, and allows the economic development that can only be achieved through modern farming, commercial enterprise and industrialization.
By allowing the poor to stop cooking and heating with wood, cardboard and dung, modern energy also helps eliminate indoor air pollution, the world’s biggest environmental killer claiming 4.3 million lives annually.
We should always match the most appropriate fuel for the task. Effective decarbonization will occur when fossil fuels are replaced with reliable (wind isn't), inexpensive power such as third-generation nuclear, fusion or others under development.
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