Editor’s note: Welcome to “Tangled Up in Green,” Red, Green and Blue’s weekly debate over the hot issues in environmental politics. Each week, writers Ranjit Arab and Adam Bowman will “throw down the glove” on current events involving environmental policy, legislation and citizen action. Adam and Ranjit are both graduate students in journalism at the University of Kansas, and currently enrolled in Professor Simran Sethi’s “Media and the Environment” course.

In Holcomb, Kansas, there rages a battle over energy, jobs, and economy.

The Sunflower Electric Company has a plan to build two coal-fired power plants that would produce 1400 megawatts of power. And until the Secretary of the Kansas Department of Health and Environment (KDHE), Roderick L. Bremby, denied the application for an air quality permit, they probably would be breaking ground right now.

People in the more populated Eastern part of Kansas, (which is pretty much all powered by coal), want to abandon the coal for sustainable wind energy. For Kansas, wind makes a lot of sense. Wind maps show that we are sitting in a very productive wind energy area. Basically any state in the Great Plains has an abundance of wind at their disposal. And the good news is, there isn’t any waste emissions or land ruining strip mining to harvest this energy.

But what about Eastern and Western States that aren’t sitting on a wind gold mine?

Kenneth Defeyes writes in his book, Beyond Oil, that coal, “is the best of fuels; it is the worst of fuels.”

Coal is cheap. (Not including the environmental costs.) And more importantly, we have the largest reserve in the world. Which means that we aren’t in conflict with foreign countries for our energy. We can dictate the costs.

Coal is the dirtiest of dirty energies. From excavation to consumption, it pollutes. There have been many advances in reducing the amount of mercury and sulfur dioxide emitted by coal plants. But they still contribute to the majority of green house gas emissions in the world. In 2004, 10 billion tons of CO2 were emitted into the atmosphere through the burning of coal. Wouldn’t it be great if we could get rid of the best of fuels worst byproducts?

There has been a buzzword in fossil fuels lately, clean coal.

At the National Governor’s Association annual winter meeting, energy was at the heart of the event. Governors from coal-rich states say it is irresponsible not to have coal in the energy debate. They put a lot of stock in new technologies to curb the emissions from coal. There is a lot of skepticism however, from Governors of renewable energy rich states, and environmentalists.

One clean coal technology already in use is coal gasification. It basically boils the coal into gaseous elements. These can then easily be separated and used for other purposes. Unfortunately there aren’t a lot of uses for CO2. However, Basin Electric in North Dakota has found a buyer for their waste.

PanCanadian Petroleum is pumping the gas into porous rock about a mile underground. This forces oil out of the rock. Pumping CO2 into the ground is called carbon dioxide sequestering. Essentially, in this case, it takes a fossil fuel, uses its energy, and then puts back into the ground the useless parts for more fossil fuels. It also extends the life of the oil well.

And if we are ever fortunate enough to wean our selves off of oil, it is estimated that there is enough porous rock not containing oil underground to sequester every bit of CO2 emissions for centuries.

Another new discovery is using re-engineered simple organisms to feed on CO2 and emit methane that can then be used for fuel. Scientists expect this technology to be up and working in about 18 months. However, this may cause more problems than it solves. There is little known about the side effects of genetic engineering. The point is that people are working on the problem because coal may need to be in our future.

In the larger picture of energy, there is no one answer, or even two answers. Wind is a fantastic option, but it won’t work for everywhere. Reducing energy consumption is part of the solution, but in a consumer society, it is a hard sell. Nuclear is potentially catastrophic, plus there isn’t a useful thing to do with the waste. Solar is expensive and not as efficient as we need it to be yet. Coal is cheap, it’s here, and we control it. With new technologies, we may be able to truly clean coal consumption.

The exciting thing is that all these options come with a ton of jobs, and economic growth. So at least that part of the puzzle can be answered. It just comes down to: what do we want to invest in for the future, and what do we have to invest in for the present?

Does the town of Holcomb, Kansas sound familiar?

I’m sure it does if you’ve read “In Cold Blood,” or seen the movies based on the book and its author Truman Capote.

In a perverted way that negative association has been somewhat of a godsend. People remember Holcomb; they immediately recall it as the place where a senseless and unspeakable crime was committed.

Unfortunately, it looks like Holcomb may be preparing for a sequel, featuring yet another heinous act. This time it involves the attempts of Sunflower Electric Corp.—along with several lawmakers—to force an expansion of the power company’s Holcomb facilities, which would include two hazardous coal-burning electric plants.

Call it “In Coal Blood,” if you will (sorry…if you hear a churning noise under your feet it’s probably just Mr. Capote spinning in his grave like a rotisserie chicken).

Back in October, Rod Bremby, secretary of the Kansas Department of Health and Environment, with the support of Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, rejected the air permits for the company’s proposed pair of 700-megawatt coal-burning electric plants, citing the devastating impact emissions from carbon dioxide—and other greenhouse gases—would have on the environment.

In other words, it was the first time a proposed power plant had been rejected by using a “global warming” defense. This defense certainly wasn’t far-fetched. After all, the proposed plants would spew some 11 million tons of CO2 annually, making them the largest new source of such emissions in the nation.

But, of course, the battle didn’t end there.

Sunflower Electric and its supporters in the state legislature continue to try and ram this project down our throats. They insist it is needed to meet rising energy demands in western Kansas; they also argue that it will lead to much-needed economic development in one of the poorest regions of the state.

Or as Greg Brady look-alike Sen. Sam Brownback recently put it:

“Expansion of the Sunflower facility would have created 2,000 jobs during construction and an additional 400 permanent jobs and billions of dollars in economic development.”

Two thousand temporary jobs and 400 permanent ones—is that all we get for destroying the planet? Well, heck, throw in 30 pieces of silver and you got yourself a deal!

Then again, I’m sure Brownback’s job estimates are low. After all, several other jobs might be created as a result of this expansion, namely hospital receptionists, pulmonary specialists, insurance claims adjusters…

Moreover, proponents also fail to emphasize that Kansans will only receive about 10 percent of the energy generated from the plants; the remaining 90 percent will be shipped off to Colorado and Texas. They conveniently overlook the fact that all of the waste—namely mercury dumped in the water—will remain right here in Kansas.

Perhaps that, too, will create more jobs: water inspectors, Hazmat workers, not to mention the voluntary citizen soldiers needed to fight off the giant mutant fish that will threaten to take over Kansas by 2011.

Still, even Sammy B. realizes that coal alone is not the answer:

“The new coal plants would be part of an integrated bioenergy center that would have significant benefits for the environment. For example, much of the carbon produced by the coal plants would be captured and used to grow algae, which would be crushed to make biodiesel. Ethanol, another renewable fuel, would be produced onsite by using methane gas from livestock facilities.”

So let me get this straight: we only need 10 percent of the energy a plant like this would generate, and we know that alternative methods (proposed only as supplemental energy) are available, and yet we want to go ahead and produce far more than we need simply so a corporation can cut a deal with two other states, all while destroying our own water. Sounds like a plan to me!

Let’s be honest here, the plant is not about meeting surging energy demands; it’s about making money. We could meet the energy demands with a combination of alternative methods that, while not perfect, would leave a far smaller carbon footprint—I mean, Brownback didn’t even mention wind energy, which capitalizes on one of our state’s greatest natural resources.

But all of that is a hard sell to the folks of western Kansas. Times are hard in rural America.

We can—and should—argue that the coal plants are not in the best interest of the folks out west, but we need to do more than simply shoot down the proposal. We need to offer them something concrete in its place. What that entails exactly is beyond my tiny brain, but I imagine it would require bringing politicians, environmentalists, alternative energy experts, and western Kansans together to show that alternative energy and jobs can be had through far less damaging means—and that the two concepts are anything but mutually exclusive.

I hope that Holcomb eventually shakes off its reputation as the setting for one of the most brutal crimes depicted in American literature. Here’s to hoping it comes to represent the small town of the future—one that simultaneously respects the environment and the needs of its residents.

There. I think I finally made Mr. Capote stop spinning.