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Kansas has become the ground zero of the fight over the future of coal in America, and a new report being released today by a leading global financial research firm drives a stake through the heart of the strongest argument proponents of coal-fired expansion there have: that coal is cheap.

The groundbreaking report says coal is not the cheapest source of power for Kansas -- or anywhere else, quite likely -- if you account for coming federal regulation of carbon emissions.

Projected to cost $3.6 billion, the two coal plants proposed for Holcomb, Kansas have been touted by its builders, Sunflower Electric Power, to provide the promise of cheap electricity for the state's next generation of citizens. But the independent financial analysis -- surprisingly, the first of its kind -- says otherwise: 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.

The report comes from Innovest Strategic Value Advisors -- a firm that raised the red flag on Bear Stearns last July when the big banks were blinded by the Bear's $150 stock price. Not that anyone listened to Innovest then. Maybe this time, in Kansas, they will.