It was not my intention to post this much today, but you go where the news takes you, right?
The bar got higher today, as Kansas City Power and Light reached an agreement with the Sierra Club and Concerned Citizens of Platte County, in which KCP&L agrees to certain conditions in exchange for those two groups dropping their objections against KCP&L's new coal-fired power plant. In fact! It's an agreement that "can serve as a model for environmental groups and utilities working together"! Indeed!
In all seriousness, from the brief skimming I've done, it looks like the process out there has been much uglier--6 years long, to start with, with much more counter-suing and allegations that KCP&L had broke the law (violation of New Source Review).
From their webpage, it looks like KCP&L is an investor-owned utility serving Kansas City and 24 counties in Missouri and Kansas, with 500,000 customers and 4000 MW of generating capacity (75% coal--er, "lower cost coal"--unsure on what basis that percentage is).
The agreement calls for them to add 400 MW in wind energy, create 300 MW of energy efficiency (kind of an odd phrasing, but I like the focus on performance, compared with our agreement's focus on dollars spent), reduce carbon emissions by 20% by 2020 (at some point, I think I saw that one primary mechanism of this will be that they have to offset in its entirety the emissions from their new plant), and reduce emissions from the new plant and their older plants (I haven't yet compared their goals with our goals). They'll also look into upgrading or closing an older plant, work on a net-metering plan, and finance several other projects in Kansas City recommended by the KC Climate Protection Committee. (I should note at this point that, in addition to having a Climate Protection Committee, Kansas City has also signed onto the Mayor's Climate Protection Agreement.) The agreement, in its full legal glory, can be found here.
So, congratulations to the Concerned Citizens of Platte County, KCP&L, and the Sierra Club!