Movement Sparks Shift to Cleaner Energy and Over 400 Million Fewer Tons of CO₂

Chicago, IL. 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.

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 in Utah became the 100th prevented coal plant. The decision marks a significant milestone in the shift to clean energy.

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.

"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.

In Illinois hundreds of concerned citizens turned out to public hearings, held rallies and met with officials to push for cleaner alternatives to coal fired power plants such as the Power Holdings Coal SynGas plant. The Power Holdings plant, which is currently proposed for the Mt. Vernon area, would turn coal into gas to be used in heating homes and businesses. The plant would also emit up to 10 million tons of global warming pollution every year, along with soot and smog pollution, which can worsen asthma and cause other respiratory illnesses.

"The community opposition to the Power Holdings Coal SynGas plant here in Illinois is just one part of a growing nationwide movement,” said Becki Clayborn, Sierra Club regional representative. “It’s clear that the American people are ready for a switch to the clean energy technologies that can help repower our economy.”

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.

For more, visit www.sierraclub.org/100coalplants