19 October 2007 – The Kansas Department of Health and Environment denied a final construction permit for Sunflower Electric Power Corporation's Holcomb Expansion. Expansion plans included building two 700-MW coal-fired power plants and a bioenergy center that would use captured CO2 to grow algae, which would be converted to biofuels. The department's decision was based a finding that additional carbon dioxide in the atmosphere would present a "substantial endangerment" to the public health of Kansans. The utility is expected to challenge the ruling.
Attorney generals from California, Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont and Wisconsin opposed the expansion, saying the power plants would undercut their state's efforts to regulate greenhouse gases. The U.S. Department of the Interior also opposed the expansion, saying that pollutants would affect visibility in the Wichita Mountains in Oklahoma. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency also voiced concerns about the project.
Sunflower, operator of Holcomb Station, filed an air permit application with the KDHE in February 2006. Construction for the proposed plant was to be complete in 2013.
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