KKR Goes Green By, Uh . . . Building 3 Coal-Fired Plants In TX Instead Of 11 - Bloomberg

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For much of 2006 and into 2007, Environmental Defense Fund had been battling to stop TXU Corp., Texas’s largest power producer, from building 11 coal-fired plants. The barrage of lawsuits, town-hall meetings and online community groups was also becoming a major headache for KKR & Co., TPG Capital and Goldman Sachs Group Inc.’s private-equity arm, which were planning the world’s biggest leveraged buyout of the utility company. “We had to get the environmentalists on board,” recalls William Reilly, senior adviser at Fort Worth, Texas-based TPG, who headed the Environmental Protection Agency under President George H.W. Bush.

Reilly sat down with James Marston, director of EDF’s Texas office, on Feb. 21, 2007, Bloomberg Markets magazine reports in its May issue. Over scrambled eggs and coffee at San Francisco’s Mandarin Oriental hotel, the two agreed that to win environmentalists’ blessing, TXU’s new owners would build just three plants, Marston says.

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TXU’s 3 new coal-fired plants -- the ones whittled down from the proposed 11 -- are adding an extra 22 million tons of CO2 to the atmosphere every year, says Tom Smith, Texas director of Public Citizen, a consumer advocacy group founded by Ralph Nader.

“EFH has spent a great deal of money on energy efficiency and wind and solar,” Smith says. “The benefits are a pittance compared to the environmental damage EFH is doing.” he utility invested $229 million for energy improvements as of 2010, spokeswoman Lisa Singleton says. EFH is the largest provider of wind power in Texas and the fifth largest in the U.S., she says.

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http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-04-06/kkr-barbarians-go-green-as-buyout-firms-embrace-more-profit-in-less-energy.html

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1. If they throw up a turbine or two it's cool.

Green rocks.