By Henry Robertson and Melissa Hope
On March 3rd, Associated Electric Cooperative, Inc. (AECI) announced that it was shelving or “postponing indefinitely” its plans to build a massive 660 megawatt coal-burning power plant in Norborne, 60 miles east of Kansas City.
The announcement is the latest breaking news in a tidal wave of progress as our nation transitions from nineteenth century coal technology to a modern and clean 21st century clean energy economy. Four-years ago the country was considering plans to build as many as 160 new coal-fired power plants and today AECI brings the total number of plants abandoned or defeated to 63. And all indications are that this trend is accelerating as costs of coal skyrocket and the nation focuses its attention on global warming solutions.
AECI is owned by, and provides wholesale power to, six regional and 51 local electric cooperative systems in Missouri, northeast Oklahoma and southeast Iowa that serve more than 850,000 customers. In the past two-years Associated Electric has become the wind energy leader in Missouri among all electric providers, including municipal and investor owned utilities.
The Sierra Club (Missouri Sierra Club in conjunction with Sierra Club’s National Coal Campaign) has been working with Concerned Citizens of Carroll County and a growing Missouri Clean Energy Coalition to educate residents about the dangers of coal and to advocate for Missouri’s Clean Energy Future heralded this announcement.
AECI’s decision was unusual considering that they had just a few weeks earlier received a construction permit from the Missouri Department of Natural Resources’ Air Pollution Control Program. But the plant still faced many obstacles. The project still needed a water certification from MDNR, a dredge-and-fill permit from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and a solid waste permit from MDNR for its coal ash landfill. The Sierra Club was prepared to challenge all these permits and to file a federal lawsuit attacking the plant for its contribution to global warming.
AECI’s biggest challenge was financing. As a rural electric coop, AECI was eligible for loans under an anachronistic federal program. The Rural Utilities Service (RUS), a unit of the Department of Agriculture, has been lending money for rural electrification since 1935, even though the rural U.S. is now fully electrified and the biggest demand for new electricity from coops like AECI is in areas of suburban sprawl. The RUS has now suspended all lending for new coal plants. California Congressman Henry Waxman sent a letter to RUS in January querying how it could justify such loans in the face of climate disruption for which coal-fired power plants are the single biggest culprit.
Private financing is virtually out of the question. Three of the country’s biggest investment banks, JPMorgan Chase, Citi, and Morgan Stanley, reached agreement on a set of Carbon Principles and an Enhanced Diligence process for review of proposed coal plants in the light of climate risk. Coal does not look like a smart investment anymore. Congress is almost certain to enact legislation that will penalize coal burning and start ratcheting down the country’s overconsumption of fossil fuels.
The shelving of the latest coal plant is very good news but we still have many challenges ahead before we can determine what Missouri’s energy future will look like. Kansas City Power & Light warns of substantial cost overruns at its Iatan-2 plant being built in Platte County. After that unit comes on line, coal will have run its course in Missouri, at least for the time being. AmerenUE’s long-range plan, released February 5th, makes clear what some of us already suspected — they’re looking to nuclear for the future. Some environmentalists prefer nuclear to coal on global warming grounds, but (not to mention the unsolved problem of radioactive waste) the enormous expense of nuclear plants would displace investment from the far better options of energy conservation, efficiency and renewable energy.