100 Coal Plants Prevented or Abandoned
100 Coal Plants Prevented or Abandoned: Movement Sparks Shift to Cleaner Energy and Over 400 Million Fewer Tons of CO2
Washington, DC: Americans can breathe easier today as Intermountain Power’s
coal plant in Utah became the 100th new coal plant to be prevented or
abandoned since the beginning of the coal rush in 2001. 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; for the first
time the wind industry created more jobs than mining coal. And it’s not just
wind, significant job creation is happening across the clean energy
spectrum. http://action.sierraclub.org/site/R?i=X2ATjVgoKx_zKBEeqBk7gQ.. .
Coming just a week after Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa announced
the city would end coal use by 2020, and announced the same day as a
decision by Basin Electric Power in South Dakota to pull plans for a new
coal-fired power plant, the Intermountain Power coal plant marks a
significant milestone in the shift to clean energy.
“We are witnessing a remarkable transformation toward a cleaner, healthier,
more secure future,” said Bruce Nilles, Director of the Sierra Club’s Beyond
Coal Campaign. “At the beginning of the coal rush in 2001, it seemed
inevitable that as many as 150 new proposed coal plants would get built.
Since then we’ve seen an incredible change in the way people, businesses and
governments– like Los Angeles– are thinking about energy, figuring out how
to generate and use it more cleanly and efficiently. Coal is no longer a
smart or cost-effective option. We can create jobs and electricity through
clean energy technology made in America.”
For the past six years the Sierra Club and its allies have been running a
hard-hitting campaign to expose the dirty truth about coal. Tremendous
grassroots pressure, rising costs, and upcoming federal carbon regulations
all contributed to the demise of the 100 plants. Activists with the Sierra
Club’s Beyond Coal Campaign worked on the ground in almost every state to
fight local coal plant proposals, turning out to public hearings, holding
rallies and meeting with officials to push for cleaner and cheaper energy
options for their area.
“I was around for the first coal plant Sierra Club tackled; against all odds
and with literally only a handful of us who believed in fighting the plant.
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.
That movement has kept well over 400 million tons of harmful global warming
pollution out of the air annually, 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.
As the new coal rush ends in many states, the Sierra Club is working to
replace the existing dirty and unreliable coal plants that are large
contributors to health harming soot, smog and mercury pollution with cleaner
energy options that create more jobs.
“Stopping one hundred coal plants is a huge milestone in our fight to end
global warming, but the coal industry is still pushing forward with plans
for dozens of new plants in places, like Michigan and Kansas, and pouring
money into slick advertising campaigns and lobbying efforts,” said Nilles.
“As we celebrate this amazing milestone, we must redouble our efforts to
stop new plants and replace the existing coal plants with clean energy.”
For more, visit www.sierraclub.org/100coalplants
For detailed information on clean energy job creation in other sectors
visit, http://action.sierraclub.org/site/R?i=l5See79j94jSBGU6uNQe3Q.
This article is from the Sierra Club. For more information, contact: Virginia Cramer, 804-225-9113 x 102