100 Coal Plants Stopped
The Sierra Club Beyond Coal campaign made a major announcement today.
As of today 100 coal plants have been defeated or abandoned since the beginning of the coal rush, including Enviropower, Indeck and Rentech coal plants in Illinois. In their place, a smart mix of clean energy solutions like energy efficiency, wind, solar and geothermal has stepped up to meet America’s energy needs.Last year 42 percent of all new power producing capacity came from wind, and for the first time the wind industry created more jobs than mining coal. Illinois now has approximately 1,000 megawatts of wind power online, enough to power 300,000 homes.
When the Coal Campaign started challenging plants they were told it was a lost cause. The political climate has changed dramatically.
A press release sent to me by Becki "good at fighting" Clayborn quotes one of the people who helped negotiate the Sierra Club agreement with CWLP.
"I was around for the first coal plants Sierra Club tackled, located here in the Midwest; against all odds and with literally only a handful of us who believed in fighting the plants. Now, only a couple of years later, there are thousands of grassroots volunteers who are helping defeat the construction of polluting coal burning plants. We are seeing a movement," said Verena Owen, volunteer chair of the Beyond Coal Campaign.
Campaign Director Bruce Nilles wrote on his blog:
That movement has kept well over 400 million tons of harmful global warming pollution out of the air, making significant progress in the fight against global warming. Stopping 100 new coal plants has also kept thousands of tons of asthma causing soot and smog pollution, as well as toxins like mercury out of our air and water.
In response to the coal industry weakening the federal energy bill and seeking taxpayer subsidies at all levels of government he declares, "Big Coal deserves no more free rides and loopholes."
I'm proud of the Sierra Club's agreement over the new Dallman 4 coal-fired power plant because it took Springfield in a new direction toward clean energy. But, it wouldn't happen today.
Newer activists can hardly believe that the Club compromised to drop an EPA appeal. If Dallman 4 were proposed today it would be fought to the end like every other coal-fired plant and probably defeated. People who still complain about the Sierra Club playing too tough don't realize how lucky Springfield's timing was.
Here's the video of Bruce Nilles talking about 100 plants down and more to go.
Comments
Sorry to burst your bubble... but the last I heard is that commie China is opening new coal plants at a rate of 1 per week! So China's mindless coal expansion has negated whatever accomplishments we make in the United States.... I'm not sure if we can avoid runaway greenhouse effect.
Posted by: Incensed Voter | July 9, 2009 6:16 PM
No bubble bursting required. Everyone always hears about China building coal plants. What you don't always hear is that public backlash to the resulting pollution is already happening. They're also doing far more to promote energy efficiency, fuel efficiency and renewable energy than the US. Check out their 20 gigawatt wind farm.
http://www.e360.yale.edu/content/digest.msp?id=1953
Regardless, what the US does isn't negated by China. Less carbon is less carbon.
Posted by: Will | July 10, 2009 2:06 PM
I applaud Sierra Club's long term committment to protecting the environment.
Without leaders and individuals standing up for our Citizens, our planet would be in worst shape than it is.
Springfieldians are indeed fortunate that an agreement was reached with CWLP, this adds value to our community and quality of life. Vapid consumerism and parasitic consumption of the planet's resources at the expense of our future has caused quality of life to diminish, some of which is beyond individual control.
The last year has brought forth a series of intellectual as well as trivial dialogue about the direction our country and world should pursue. Many more Citizens are staying engaged beyond the election cycle.
A lot of Hope seemingly has been wasted but I hope that anyone who feels disenfranchised will turn their anger into sustained action against the economic and political status quo.
Little things like buy Local, eat Local, supporting Local causes that enhance your quality of life is in the purview of everyone and can bring satisfaction that you are doing something against the powerful interests whose only concern is wealth extraction.
Posted by: Beth Adams | July 10, 2009 2:10 PM
Ok, keep up the fight on stopping coal plants.
Someone already successfully captured carbon from coal plant but the experimenters don't know what to do with the carbon so they released it into the atmosphere. What a farce.
Is there anyway to get more scientists (not just the prominent ones) engaged in this climate change fight? It seemed to me that they are living in a bubble by naively just letting "their work speak for themselves." They must mount a fully engaged and vigorous campaign because the public is so scientifically illiterate that they are believing the lies of the fossil industry and their "mainstream" media allies.
Posted by: Incensed Voter | July 19, 2009 5:44 AM