Energy

Closing the Big Sandy Power plant in Lawrence County would be devastating for area. That's what speaker after speaker said during a Kentucky Public Service Commission public meeting last week at the Lawrence County Community Center. Lawrence Countian Gary Allen asked some provoking questions but did not get answers. But the main question seems to be would you rather pay more for your electricity in order to keep the Big Sandy plant burning coal, or would you rather have cheaper electricity that meets environmental code?  Read more..

A coalition of western Kentucky businesses and residents has formed in hopes of minimizing the fallout of an electricity rates deal between Big Rivers Electric Co-Op and western Kentucky aluminum smelters.  The coalition is worried the deal will lead to higher utility bills for residents and businesses. 

Kentucky Utilities Co. is alerting customers of a recent telephone scam asking customers to pay their bills over the phone. The caller claims to be a KU employee and asks for immediate bill payment by credit card or prepaid money card. If the targeted customer does not cooperate, the caller threatens to disconnect the person’s electric service. KU said it will never call and ask for credit or debit card numbers or other personal information. KU has more than a half-million customers across Kentucky. Read more...

FRANKFORT - The Kentucky Public Service Commission will hold a meeting today and teleconferences Wednesday to take public comments on the proposal by Kentucky Power Co. to purchase replacement electric-generating capacity in order to retire the Big Sandy generating facility near Louisa. Both the meeting and the teleconference will begin with a presentation by PSC staff on the regulatory processes governing the case and an overview of the Kentucky Power proposal.
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Natural gas rates are going up for 34-hundred customers in Floyd, Magoffin and Pike counties.  The state Public Service Commission today okayed an immediate rate hike requested by Kentucky Frontier Gas.  Kentucky Frontier Gas runs ten, small natural gas distribution systems.  The increase is designed to create consistent pricing for natural gas throughout the system.  

America’s energy mix in 2040 won’t be drastically different from what it is today: a little less coal and oil, a little more natural gas and renewable energy. That’s according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration’s Annual Energy Outlook. Paul Holtberg—the leader of the EIA’s Analysis Integration Team—was in Louisville last week to give a presentation to the local chapter of the U.S. Association for Energy Economics. Here are a few of the key takeaways from Holtberg’s presentation, and from the early release of the EIA’s annual report:

The mix of energy sources used in Kentucky is expected to diversify over the next decade.  Still, an expert on America’s oil and gas industry argues green energy has its limits.  Bernard Weinstein with the Dallas-based Maguire Energy Institute told Lexington Rotarians these energy sources rely too heavily on government subsidies.  “I’m in favor of everything, but I think all energy resources need to be put to the market test.  My gripe with renewables, if you want to call it that, is that we’ve been subsidizing them for 20 years, and they’re still not able to stand on their own,” said Weinstein.

Lexington has just added an electric car to its fleet.  Also receiving electric vehicles are Louisville, several state agencies and the University of Louisville.  Lexington administrative officer Tracy Thurman says the Chevy Volt is going to the parks department.  “Parks is involved in so many public opportunities to showcase this vehicle and actually have it utilized across Fayette County and to get the exposure for electric vehicles and a greater understanding of how they work and how they could benefit our community,” said Thurman.

Kentucky Utilities will spend $57 million to install updated pollution control equipment and pay civil penalties under the terms of a proposed consent decree. The money will go to installing a sulfuric acid mist emission control system at the company’s Ghent power plant, replace a coal-fired boiler and pay $300,000 in fines to the Environmental Protection Agency.

Thirteen Kentucky organizations will receive grant funding next year under a settlement between the Tennessee Valley Authority and the Environmental Protection Agency for alleged violations of the Clean Air Act. The TVA settlement money is meant to go to environmental mitigation projects in the TVA service area. Greg Guess is the director of Kentucky’s Division of Efficiency and Conservation. He says the energy savings that the grant money will facilitate are significant. A portion of the money will go to Fayette County Public Schools to track energy consumption on a real-time basis.

State regulators on Thursday accepted a settlement that will allow Kentucky Utilities Co. to raise its electric rates. Under the settlement agreement, the average monthly bill for a typical KU residential customer will increase by $5.16 or 5.6 percent, according to the Kentucky Public Service Commission.

In the United States, recent data has shown that coal is losing ground, and is now neck in neck with natural gas in terms of the percentage of electricity generation the country gets from each fuel. Coal use is even diminishing in the southeast, a region that's typically relied on coal-fired power. But that's not indicative of what's happening worldwide, and new research shows coal could even surpass oil as the world's top energy source by 2017.

Tennessee Valley Authority is well on its way toward meeting its renewable energy production goals. The multistate energy provider is in the process of updating its Integrated Resource Plan, which is a guideline for energy production. TVA is idling some of its coal-fired plant capacity. But the overall goal is to create a balanced generation capacity, rather than just reducing coal use, according to Scott Brooks, a spokesman for TVA in Knoxville, Tenn.

That deal to export Kentucky coal to India still hasn't been scheduled. The deal was announced in August—an agreement to send up to nine million tons of Appalachian coal to India every year for 25 years. The first shipment was supposed to leave the U.S. in September, but the company responsible for facilitating the transportation says it still hasn’t been scheduled.

The University of Kentucky recently spent $25 million in energy savings projects, and that work is already showing results. The Herald-Leader reports that costs have been cut by $2.4 million a year. $2.2 million of those savings will go toward the $25 million bond, while the remaining $200,000 will be set aside for future energy projects. And the projects have also reduced UK's carbon dioxide emissions by 23,291 tons a year.

A Harlan County coal company and two supervisors will plead guilty to charges that they willfully violated federal mine-safety laws. Attorneys for Manalapan Mining Co. and the employees filed court motions, including two on Monday, saying the three will plead guilty. The alleged illegal acts happened in the weeks before an employee at the mine, David Partin, 49, of Pineville, was killed when a large section of the mine wall fell on him.