Energy -- especially electric generation -- has become a significant point of discussion in the past few months in Kansas as a result of the denial of the planned Holcomb plant expansion. In light of this discussion, we need to examine some pertinent facts facing our state and nation.

The U.S.'s enormous and growing demand for electricity, which was up 20 percent in the past decade, is expected to climb another 45 percent by 2030.

Currently, coal and nuclear fuels are responsible for roughly 70 percent of America's electricity each year. Most of these plants are baseload, meaning they must operate around the clock all year long. The capacity factor at the nation's nuclear and coal based power plants has climbed significantly since 1990, rising from 66 percent to 91 percent in 2004 for nuclear and from 59 percent to 74 percent for coal. Essentially, current baseload generation is being fully used.

As the nation's electric utilities look to the future, there are four significant considerations for future electric generation technology choice include rising demand, rising fuel costs, the need for new transmission lines and expected new environment regulations.

Decisions regarding future generation hinge on projections of fuel price and availability.

Prices for fossil fuels have risen considerably since 1999. Costs for traditionally steady coal, for example, have doubled since then, according to the EIA.

The large utilities do not expect the next round of generation to be gas-based. Natural gas might have been a no-brainer decision in the 1990s, but it is a non-starter in the future -- because of availability and price volatility. (In my opinion natural gas should be reserved for home heating uses because using natural gas for the generation of electricity only will increase home heating costs.)

The choice, then, for baseload generation is between coal (with clean-coal technologies such as integrated gasification combined cycle, or IGCC) and advanced nuclear. Both of which are expensive.

In terms of transmission, industry figures show electric companies will invest approximately $28 billion in transmission system infrastructure improvements through 2008, a significant increase from past years. This is necessary to support growing markets, to hook up new generation and to preserve reliability.

Significant progress has been made in transmission planning in Kansas through the Kansas Electric Transmission Authority, which was created to assist in the planning and building of our transmission infrastructure.

This brings us to environmental regulations. Nationwide companies invested $24 billion just in the three years from 2002 to 2005 to meet new federal environmental regulations.

According to estimates from the U.S. EPA, the industry will need to invest almost $50 billion from 2007 to 2025 to comply with the current Clean Air requirements.

And then we move on to what will happen next. In reality, the nation is in a state of uncertainty as to what the "new" rules are going to be.

The construction of any additional baseload generation in the U.S. requires large amounts of capital and binding upfront assurances from regulators that construction costs can be recovered through rates.

Baseload plants are an investment in our high-tech society's future as the demand for reliable, affordable and increasingly clean electricity continues to grow.

As a state and a nation, we must begin the work immediately to determine scientifically what air quality regulations are necessary and appropriate and then make those regulations clear and in a regulatory atmosphere that will be workable, affordable, and fair to all involved.

Without that, we will be faced with a number of years of uncertainty.

You, I am certain, have noticed that I have not discussed wind generation, which is another important issue in Kansas with our vast resources of wind.

While I am a strong supporter of wind generation as a supplemental source of energy, it cannot replace additional baseload generation. Because wind is intermittent, it must be accompanied by baseload generation of some sort and currently is paired for the most part with natural gas because it is more efficient to power down and power up a gas-fired generator than to do so with a coal generator.

However, to have the capacity to produce much more wind generation, Kansas will need additional transmission lines from west to east and south to north.

It is more difficult to financially justify building transmission lines for wind alone, as that would make the wind prohibitively expensive. For transmission lines to be financially viable, they need to move energy from baseload generation as well as wind generation.

So what does this mean for us? In today's tight capacity environment, wholesale contracts to municipal electric utilities and rural electric cooperatives, such as Midwest, only might be available on a year-to-year basis. This situation presents two significant risks.

First, there is no assurance a one-year contract will be renewed.

Second and more importantly, the Southwest Power Pool (the agency that regulates electric transmission in our area of the nation) now requires firm transmission service contracts be at least five years long if the buyer wants to preserve its rights to transmission. So buying power under a one-year contract means the utility might be denied firm transmission service.

The bottom line is Kansas is short of baseload generating capacity, and we are short of transmission capacity in the larger region. We no longer can rest on the assumption that yearly transmission service will be available even if the utility has a power supplier.

Janis Lee represents the 36th District. jlee@ink.org