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Her Dirty Secret

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"Kansas is blessed with greater wind resources than most other states," she added. "Therefore, adding wind generation to the Kansas electrical generation portfolio is part of the solution — but we cannot expect it to be THE solution."

In coming years, Sebelius wrote, new technology will make coal generation far cleaner and less damaging to the environment.

"The basic question is, can we get by for 5 to 10 years by adding wind to the mix while we wait for the availability of new technology? I believe it is possible if we use our existing supplies more efficiently and reduce consumption of electricity through conservation....

"I want to see us get through this transition period by focusing on adding a realistic degree of renewable energy in conjunction with building a strong conservation ethic."

But Sebelius seems to contradict herself. Though she says she believes it's possible to wait for new technology that will make coal cleaner, she declines to address whether she has considered a moratorium on new coal plants.

She says she'd like to see Kansas navigate a complex energy era by focusing on wind energy and conservation but she does not express any reservation about the Holcomb expansion, which would further entrench a coal-fired system.

She says she wants to reduce consumption and use energy more efficiently to stretch Kansas' current supply of electricity but she declines to address whether the state could use those measures to make up for the small increase in power that the state would get from Sunflower's new plants.

After all, only 200 megawatts of the new power will serve Kansas residents — just a little more juice than is generated by the Butler County wind farm south of Beaumont. On a frigid Saturday morning in December, more than 100 Kansans rallied at the Capitol to tell Sebelius that her middle-of-the-road leadership was leaving her on the wrong side of the Sunflower issue. With mitten-covered hands, they held homemade signs with slogans aimed at the governor.

"Governor Sebelius: Just Say No!"

"Kathleen: Save Us From Fossil Fools!"

"Wind Good. Coal Bad."

Many of the placards had been printed on the back of "Sebelius '06" yard signs left over from the November election, a race in which the popular governor failed to gain the Sierra Club's endorsement because of her weak environmental record.

On a table stocked with hot chocolate, the Sierra Club provided sample letters to Sebelius. "Demand Governor Sebelius use her leadership to do what's right," fliers urged.

Griffith told the crowd that Kansans needed to draw a line in the sand and reject dirty power. The state is at a crossroads, he said, and the governor has the power to propose a moratorium on new coal plants.

"She's done it before. There is precedent," he said.

In 2003, when wind developers were eyeing sites in the Flint Hills, Sebelius put a hold on any new construction while a blue ribbon panel studied the issue. As a result, the governor designated a 60-mile swath as off-limits to wind farms.

With global warming threatening erratic weather and more frequent drought in Kansas, a half-dozen other speakers argued, a moratorium on coal would be the only responsible action.

"We do not want them to make a mistake of historic proportions," Griffith said.

Last September, Sebelius' press secretary, Nicole Corcoran, told Platts Coal Trader magazine that the governor would consider a moratorium on new coal plants if the Kansas Energy Council recommended it. (In 2004, Sebelius appointed the 35-member council of energy stakeholders — from citizen activists to utility executives — who advise the governor on energy policy.) But Ken Frahm, co-chairman of the council, says the group has not dealt with the issue of Sunflower's expansion. "She has not directly asked us to study it at all," he says of Sebelius.

Appointee Sarah Dean says global warming has been conspicuously absent from the group's agenda since the governor created the council three years ago. A longtime Sebelius supporter, Dean says it wasn't until this winter — after the uproar over Sunflower — that greenhouse gases became a topic of discussion.

Sebelius did ask the Kansas Corporation Commission (the state agency that regulates public utilities) to study the economics of adding wind to the Kansas power grid. That research assessed the real price of dirtier coal-fired power by adding the health costs to Kansans and the impact on the state's environment.

In correspondence with the Pitch, Corcoran initially suggested that the research had been completed. But when asked for a copy, the press secretary said the study was still "in the final edit stage." Information in the study could factor into the debate about Sunflower's expansion; Corcoran now says it will be released "in the near future."

Meanwhile, thanks to Sebelius, Kansas is starting to tap into its lucrative wind resources. In May, the governor and Kansas energy executives held a press conference to announce an agreement in which the six utilities vowed that wind would supply 10 percent of the state's power by 2010. The governor's office estimates that the current slate of new wind projects will put Kansas at 11 percent by the end of the decade.

But that impressive statistic doesn't factor in 1,400 megawatts of new coal power, which would overshadow the projected 1,100 megawatts of new, clean power from wind.

In fact, Griffith says, all of the governor's green initiatives would be overshadowed — or directly undermined — by the new plants at Holcomb.

With a life expectancy of more than 50 years, the new plants would also make some of the state's environmental efforts more difficult. For instance, this summer, Kansas signed on to the Climate Registry, in which officials from more than three dozen states hope to establish a system to track global-warming pollution, then work with states to reduce their greenhouse gases. But with Kansas poised to add another 10 million tons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere each year, finding ways to cut greenhouse gases would be hard.

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