The Biden administration’s efforts to transition America away from fossil fuels has led to the construction of a $4 billion Panasonic electric vehicle battery factory in De Soto, Kansas.
The factory will require between 200 and 250 megawatts of electricity to operate, and as a result, the utility will continue to burn coal at a power plant near Lawrence, Kansas, and delay plans to transition units at the plant to natural gas.
This has caused environmental concerns, as EVs require a lot of energy to produce and the mining and factory processing produces a lot of carbon dioxide emissions.
There is a growing recognition of the need for coal to supply baseload power, and Rep. Cyrus Western has noted that renewables are a great source of auxiliary supplemental power, but without a solid base load to ensure a reliable energy supply, they don’t work.