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Cholena is banded 25 days after hatching.

Cane Run employees helped name the chicks. The female is “Cholena,” an American Indian name meaning “that which soars.” The male is “Cinco,” a nod to the five years the nesting box has been at Cane Run.

KDFWR estimates the chicks are 25 days old. Kate Heyden, avian biologist for KDFWR, said it’s the perfect time to band the falcons because their bone structure is almost fully grown.

“From here on out, they are going to be growing feather and muscle,” she said, adding that the falcons will shed most of their white feathers in the next two weeks. Once their new feathers come in, Cholena and Cinco will start learning to fly.

Heyden says the female falcons are typically larger than the males, so Cholena will wear a bigger band. “Each bird gets a unique alphanumeric code on its leg. The colors and codes are unique for all the falcons in North America,” said Heyden. The information from the leg bands are entered into a database available to all departments of fish and wildlife in North America to track the falcons once they leave the nest.

KDFWR employees apply a spray to Cinco to prevent feather mites.

Yet the birds are making a big comeback in Kentucky, thanks in part to falcon releases in the ‘90s and the placement of nest boxes around the state. KDFWR has placed nest boxes at five LG&E and KU power plants because the crevices and alcoves remind the falcons of their natural nesting locations and provide ample food supply.

Two falcons, known as a nesting pair, will occupy a nest box during the spring. This year, 14 falcons have hatched from the nest boxes placed at our power plants.

Peregrine falcons were first spotted near Cane Run several years ago and this is the first year falcons have actively used the nest box at that facility.


Related Article:
Our falcons are stretching their wings at Mill Creek

Happy Falcon Friday!

Our young peregrine falcon chicks, which hatched just a few short weeks ago at our Mill Creek Station, are beginning to stretch their wings. Check out the video below and visit our falcon cam for a real-time look at the chicks' activity in our nesting box.

Our friends at the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources tell us that even after the young falcons take flight they'll continue to come back to the nesting box as a home base for a few months. Of course, as they get bigger, space inside the box is becoming more limited.

Imagine living in a one-room apartment with three other rowdy roommates...that's sort of like our nesting box at the moment. 

Our employees and generating facilities across Kentucky have been helping increase the peregrine falcon population since the early 1990s. Raptors such as peregrine falcons are near and dear to our hearts, and it's an honor to now be able to share with our customers our love for these birds up-close.  

Since late March, more than 24,000 viewers from 52 countries have watched Kentucky’s first peregrine falcon web camera while the falcon chicks hatched and grew from inside the falcon nest box at our Mill Creek Generating Station.


Today, the good folks with the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources briefly removed the four chicks from the nest and banded them. 
The unique color bands allow biologists to identify individual falcons and track their success. The leg bands have different colors and number codes, which are inputted into a database along with the bird's gender, date of hatching and nesting place. This database is available for all departments of fish and wildlife in North America as a way to track the falcons.

Check out the photos and video below of the big day, and stay tuned to the falcon cam in the coming days as our young chicks take flight!





                                                                                                               

With more than $13 million invested in a public-private partnership to make Louisville the home of a new, one-of-a-kind agricultural product development facility at the Mill Creek Generating Station, LG&E and KU and Charah, Inc., along with state and local officials, reiterated today their commitment to innovative and beneficial use of coal combustion byproducts.

Earth day was an ideal time for today's event, which featured speakers such as Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell and Senator Rand Paul; Commissioner of Agriculture James Comer; House Majority Floor Leader Rocky Adkins; Victor A. Staffieri, chairman, CEO and president of LG&E and KU Energy and Charles Price, president and CEO of Charah, Inc.

The Charah, Inc. SUL4R-PLUS^® Product Manufacturing Facility is the first facility of its type and represents a unique partnership between us and Charah. This new facility will recover approximately 300,000 tons of gypsum annually to create a unique sulfur product that will be sold to and distributed by agricultural companies.

Today's announcement follows a late November groundbreaking event at Mill Creek when we announced plans to spend approximately $940 million in clean coal technology at the station. All total, over the next five years, we'll invest approximately $6 billion in our system.

SUL4R-PLUS® product, in its unique patent-pending pelletized form, will help meet the increasing demand for sulfur by the regional farming industry. While synthetic gypsum has been used in agriculture applications in the past, Charah is the first to pelletize the byproduct, making sulfur application easier for the farmer.





Here's what the speakers at today's event had to say about the new facility:

"Innovative projects like this show how coal has and will continue to be a major contributor to the economic vitality of Kentucky and of the U.S., not just in the energy sector, but in science and innovation and now agriculture," McConnell said. "This first-of-its-kind facility will help improve our environment while creating 20 quality jobs in the process."

"Since 1980 because of the clean air investment by the utility industry in coal-fired generation, we have an astounding 83 percent decrease in the amount of sulfur emitted into our air. Charah and LG&E's approach with this project is simple: invest in clean air, but ensure our farmers have this vital nutrient for their crops," Comer added.

"It's exciting to have this ground-breaking facility in our Commonwealth and it demonstrates how innovation and collaboration can pay long-term dividends for Kentucky and the environment," Adkins said.

"This pioneering facility is a perfect example of entrepreneurial success," said Paul. "With coal being the largest source of electricity generation in Kentucky and worldwide, it is exciting to see this innovative project, which will expand the use of coal byproduct, benefiting our environment and creating jobs."

Mill Creek currently produces nearly 600,000 tons of gypsum per year. At full capacity, more than 50 percent of Mill Creek's gypsum will be beneficially used. The new facility will recycle byproducts to benefit the environment, provide lower costs to our customers and create an innovative agricultural product.

The facility is expected to create 20 new jobs when at full capacity by 2014.

There have been a lot of headlines lately about our environmental investments, including the early closure of our coal-fired Cane Run Station and how we plan to replace it with a new natural gas-fired power plant to comply with more stringent environmental regulations.

We work hard to regularly communicate the how’s and why’s behind our operations and plans for the future, but we understand that our industry is complex, and often the full story isn’t told.

Your questions and feedback are important to us, and providing you with straight answers and engaging in a two-way dialogue are part of why we launched this blog more than two years ago.

Let’s take a look at some of your more recent questions below, and break it down piece-by-piece. Check back often for more “From the Inbox” Q&As.

With environmental regulations getting stricter, why do you still burn coal?

We’re mandated by the Kentucky Public Service Commission to provide customers with least-cost energy and coal-fired generation has consistently met that requirement. In addition, Kentucky has some of the lowest energy costs in the nation, due in large part to its close proximity to vast coal reserves. Lower energy costs are important for economic development and, ultimately, jobs in the Commonwealth.

Even after our latest construction program is completed in 2015 to comply with more stringent regulations from the Environmental Protection Agency, coal-fired power will still make up a good majority of our company’s fuel mix.

As part of our compliance plan, we are retiring about 800 megawatts of coal-fired generation, and replacing it with a new natural gas power plant. In many cases, however, it was more cost-effective to retrofit or add pollution controls to our existing coal-fired units to further reduce emissions.

It’s also important to note that by 2016 – when more stringent EPA regulations take effect – we will have reduced emission rates for sulfur dioxide by 88 percent and nitrogen oxide emission rates by 83 percent since 1995. Over this same period of time, however, it’s critical to note that our customers have increased their use of electricity by more than 25 percent.

Why don’t you switch to renewables, which have zero fuel costs?

Every fuel has its advantages and challenges when you look at the complete picture. For instance, Mother Nature may provide wind and sun, but those “fuels” are not always available at the same time that our customers demand energy.

So, if on a hot summer day the wind isn’t blowing, or on a cold winter day and the sun isn’t shining, we’d need substantial back-up power to reliably meet peak energy demand and keep your lights on.

And, if we have to import renewable power from another state, it only adds to the cost. We take all of that into account when evaluating options for new generation.

Why don’t you invest more in energy efficiency and green energy?

We do. Energy efficiency is important to us and we offer a number of programs and services in which our customers can enroll to save energy and money.

The programs are part of our continued efforts to help customers use energy more wisely, offset annual customer energy demand growth that leads to additional generation, and help offset the potential customer rate impacts of federal environmental regulations. If customers take full advantage of our energy efficiency programs, our portfolio of residential and commercial programs has the ability to offset 500 megawatts of generation by 2018.

And, you can join our Green Energy Program to help expand the generation capacity of renewable power that serves the Kentucky electric grid. For just $5 per month, we can purchase approximately 1,800 kilowatt hours of Renewable Energy Certificates from renewable energy sources in Kentucky and adjacent states. Your voluntary investment helps offset the higher cost of renewable energy in our area.

You can find more information on all of our energy efficiency programs and tips by visiting www.lge-ku.com/savingenergy.

Until next time, keep using energy wisely.

After a month-long contest that solicited more than 118 entries from our employees to name Raptor Rehab’s Golden Eagle, officials from the organization announced the winner during a presentation to our employees today.

Judges selected the name Aurelia, Latin for “golden,” as the winning entry. Annalee Worthington, a senior communications specialist at LG&E and KU, submitted the name.

It’s a suitable name for an incredibly beautiful bird.

In case you have never heard of them, Raptor Rehab is a nonprofit, all-volunteer group which focuses on rehabilitating sick, injured or orphaned raptors.

As a token of appreciation to LG&E and KU for our pledged financial support for the care and feeding of the eagle for the rest of her life, Raptor Rehab asked our employees to name the rescued raptor, which has been in captivity for more than 18 years due to a wing amputation.

I was one of the folks who attended the presentation, and it was an amazing experience to get an up-close and personal look at this magnificent bird.

It also reiterated the importance of protecting these raptors for future generations.

Here at LG&E and KU, we’re doing our part with a complete avian protection plan to help many different species of raptors thrive across the Commonwealth.

Whether it’s installing nesting boxes at our power plants for peregrine falcons or ospreys, or special guards designed to prevent birds from having accidental contact with our electrical equipment, our employees are passionate about caring for these creatures.

View a brief interview below on Raptor Rehab’s mission to learn more about the organization’s partnership with LG&E and KU and discover how you can get involved:



Until next time, keep using energy safely and wisely.