University of Missouri professor dies in Thailand during student trip
Posted Jan 14, 2020 3:00 AM
Wayne McDaniel photo Univ. of Missouri
COLUMBIA, Mo. (AP) — A University of Missouri adjunct professor died in Thailand while on a winter break study program with about 15 students.
Wayne McDaniel, 64, died Friday while in the Phi Phi islands, which are near the Malay peninsula. University spokesman Christian Basi said Monday the school is working to confirm details of McDaniel's death, The Columbia Tribune reported.
McDaniel was associate director of the Office of Technology Management and Industry Relations and an adjunct engineering professor.
The study trip to Thailand takes students to mangrove swamps, wildlife areas and the Phi Phi islands to study coral wreaths. There are 15 students on this year’s trip, with three faculty and staff, including McDaniel, Basi said. The trip began Dec. 26 and the group is due back Sunday.
McDaniel’s worked to negotiate and license technology developed at the university and helped faculty startups become successful businesses, according to his online biography. He earned a bachelor’s degree in biology and master’s and doctoral degrees in electrical engineering with a biomedical focus from Missouri.
An independent review of Kansas’ rising electricity prices shows the
current system for setting rates could use some improvements.
In a lengthy report requested by state legislators
and submitted by London Economics, analysts concluded three main
things: The current ratemaking process has been slightly balanced in
favor of utilities, regulators are limited in their ability to protect
consumers from paying for underused investments (such as aging coal
plants), and additional bill surcharges and have been a key driver of
rising rates.
The report looked at rates from all Kansas
electric utilities — from co-ops to municipals to Evergy, the largest
utility in the state with about 1.5 million customers.
“There are
some near-term recommendations,” Evergy Chief Customer Officer Chuck
Caisley said. “But the report doesn’t say, ‘Do this and rates will go
down’ on any page, any graph, any appendix in the entire thing.”
They
wanted an independent organization to look into the effectiveness of
current ratemaking practices and whether there were any options
available to state regulators or the legislature to help rates become
regionally competitive again.
The report, which came out Wednesday, offered three main suggestions.
Suggestion 1:
The Kansas Legislature should create a state energy plan and require
utilities to regularly submit an integrated resource plan, or IRP.
The
state’s plan would allow the legislative and executive branches to set
short and long-term goals about pricing, future transmission needs and
renewable energy, giving regulators a clear framework for
decision-making. And the IRP would encourage utilities to use the most
cost-effective methods for meeting the state’s goals.
Suggestion 2: Lawmakers
should consider performance-based regulation, with the state setting
targets to incentivize electric companies to be more efficient. They
would then be rewarded for that, rather than solely for building more
power plants or transmission lines.
Suggestion 3: The
legislature should make laws so that utilities can refinance their
loans on older, uneconomic investments. This is a process known as
securitization and could potentially ease the financial burden when
utilities have to shut down coal-fired power plants and other, less
profitable long-term investments.
The responses
Evergy
generally supports the recommendations, Caisley said, but working out
the details of any proposed legislative changes would be important. He
added that Evergy is already working on an IRP as a condition of the
merger between Westar Energy and Kansas City Power & Light.
He
also applauded Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly for proposing to work on a new
state energy plan last year, well before this report recommended it.
“We
are thrilled that we have a governor that realizes that firm policy
direction is important for consumers and it’s important for utilities,”
he said.
Advocacy groups, such as the Kansas Industrial Consumers
Group, which lobbied for the independent study, are worried the state’s
high electricity rates are bad for businesses.
“The utilities
have prospered in the last decade way above what the S&P 500 is,”
organization president Jim Zakoura said, “while the ratepayers in Kansas
have seen their rates increase 70%.”
He said the best chance of
Kansas seeing competitive rates again is for the legislature to take the
recommendations seriously and make sure they’re implemented.
Dorothy
Barnett is the executive director of the Climate and Energy Project, a
clean-energy advocacy group. She said state lawmakers and regulators
need to finally start planning for grid modernization and the rapid
shift to renewable energy.
“It’s time to start talking about different ratemaking structures,” she said.
Ultimately,
the report concludes that there is no single, easy fix to reducing
Kansas’ electricity rates. Each option considered comes with
implementation costs and risks.
The report is the first part of a
two-part study; the second part will look at more specific policy
choices, such as how to integrate electric vehicles and whether advanced
energy technologies like battery storage and microgrids will help
consumers. It must be finished by July 1.
Legislators in the
House and Senate Utilities Committees are expected to be briefed on the
report’s findings when the session begins next week.
Brian
Grimmett reports on the environment, energy and natural resources for
KMUW in Wichita and the Kansas News Service. You can follow him on
Twitter @briangrimmett
or email him at [email protected] The Kansas News Service
is a collaboration of KCUR, Kansas Public Radio, KMUW and High Plains
Public Radio focused on health, the social determinants of health and
their connection to public policy.
