by Melissa Hope, Chapter Development Associate
On March 20th, 2007, Sierra Club and Concerned Citizens of Platte County announced a groundbreaking global warming agreement with Kansas City Power and Light (KCP&L) that ended all lawsuits against the company. In return for dropping all legal actions and challenges to the building of a new 850 MW power plant near Kansas City the company agreed to provide the largest investment in clean energy Sierra Club has secured to date (400 MW of wind and 300 MW of energy efficiency). The agreement allows the one coal plant under construction (out of their original plan for five coal plants) to continue on the condition that all 6,000,000 tons of annual CO2 emissions from the new plant will be offset with investments in energy efficiency and wind power.
This agreement lays the groundwork to ensure that this one coal plant will be one of the last (if not the last) coal plant built in the Missouri/Kansas region. The essential elements of the agreement include:
• | KCPL agrees to build only one 850 MW coal-fired boiler (Iatan 2) at an existing facility, rather than the 5 new boilers in a multi-state area initially proposed in 2001. | |
• | KCPL will offset the entirety of the carbon emissions (6,000,000 tons annually) from the additional boiler through the addition of 400 MW of wind, 300 MW of efficiency, and a yet to be determined amount of additional wind or efficiency or the decommissioning of an additional boiler at another facility. These offsets will largely be implemented by 2010 and fully implemented by 2012. | |
• | The agreement includes significant reductions—some 9,100 tons annually—in criteria pollutants from Iatan I & II and La Cygne I & II power plants. These reductions will aid the Kansas City metropolitan area in achieving attainment status with regard to federal air pollution standards. | |
• | Net metering will be established within the entirety of the utility’s service area within six months. | |
• | The company will work with the Sierra Club on legislative and/or regulatory measures in Kansas and Missouri as part of their effort to achieve a 20 percent system- wide reduction in the utility’s CO2 emissions. | |
• | The Sierra Club will participate in a study with KCP&L to determine the future of their aging Montrose generating station located southeast of Kansas City. The study will look at the possibility of retiring, altering, or repowering three units at the Montrose site. | |
• | The company agreed to a six figure investment in global warming reduction, pollution monitoring projects, and infrastructure upgrades in the utility’s main metropolitan service area. The projects will be selected jointly by the utility, the Sierra Club, and Concerned Citizens of Platte County. |