After a controversy that has put a coal-fired power plant in Kansas on hold, that state’s lieutenant governor says Kansas will still be able to export energy… but now in a renewable form.
The Salina (KS) Journal reports Lt. Gov. Mark Parkinson made the remarks before a Topeka Rotary Club as he assured members that the rejection of a major coal plant project wouldn’t doom the region:
“I think you’ll see massive growth in wind farms in western Kansas,” Parkinson told about 100 people while noting his family, based in Johnson County, still owned a farm in Scott County.
Afterward, he continued to expound on the west’s potential for a strong future in energy — renewable energy, that is.
“The future of western Kansas in terms of energy is incredibly bright, but it’s in alternative energy that we have in western Kansas. It’s not in buying coal from Wyoming.”
And he sees ethanol as significant in the mix as well:
* Fifteen of the 18 ethanol plants open or under construction are in western Kansas.
* A vast majority of wind farms open or under construction are there, too, he added, as is virtually all new transmission — “millions of dollars of construction.”
* One of the first cellulosic ethanol plants will be in Hugoton, although the technology is about a decade away from development for the market.