Ignoring Big Financial Risks, Wall Street Journal Stumps for Coal
by David Sassoon - Apr 7th, 2008
The Wall Street Journal's editorial writers again revealed their disregard of basic carbon economics in a piece last Friday that ignored new financial realities in order to stump in favor of more coal power for Kansas.
The piece was filled with inaccuracies, but this was the most glaring lie: they said Governor Kathleen Sebelius is suggesting wind power as the sole alternative to the two coal plants she's so far successfully stopped. In actual fact, the Governor in a spirit of compromise has quite reasonably proposed building only one coal plant in Kansas as an alternative to two, but her offer has been rejected by desperate coal interests there.
Kansas does not need two coal plants worth of base load power to meet its future needs, as the Journal suggests. It may need one, perhaps, eventually. But Sunflower Electric is adamant about building two because it wants to export dirty power to neighboring states in order to rescue itself from financial distress.
It's still paying off debt on a coal plant it built decades ago, and so, it's proposing to throw good money into another pair of fifty-year investments to help make good on the first one. Maybe the boys at the Journal have gotten too used to Wall Street and into a pattern of sub-prime thinking if they think that's a good idea.
The Journal editorial writers also claim that without new coal power, "ordinary Kansans" will be the losers, forced to pay higher electricity rates. Their concern for common folk is as laughable as it is untrue. Turns out that coal power is a more expensive alternative than others available to "ordinary Kansans," if you factor in a modest price for carbon emissions.
Innovest, a financial research firm, did just that in a report released a few weeks ago. Wonder if Mr. Gigot and the rest of his carbon-challenged crew at the Journal bothered to pay attention to it. They should have. It was after all, a financial analysis -- the only one of its kind devoted to the proposed coal plants in Kansas. It said the new coal plants would be a bad investment that will saddle ratepayers in Kansas with increasing prices they won't be able to control.
Yet the Journal wants more coal and essentially advises -- when you're in a hole, keep digging! At least they are consistent -- thats what they do with their opinions, after all. Rather than admit they missed the boat on climate change, they keep pretending it's an eco-Marxist plot, even though carbon is becoming the hottest new global currency and a powerful new engine of capitalist economic development.
As in the movie with that dog Toto, the Governor from Kansas is showing she's got a brain, a heart and courage - all three - and the Journal's editorial writers are proving themselves deserving of a bucket of water. Would that they would melt away.
And Mr. Murdoch, you old wizard you, high time you emerged from behind that curtain.
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