Austin, Texas -- American Electric Power, parent company of Southwestern Electric Power Company (SWEPCO), announced a fleetwide compliance plan to address coal ash and toxic water pollution, which includes plans to end coal use at its Pirkey and Welsh coal plants in east Texas. In addition, AEP announced it will spend tens of millions of dollars to update ash disposal systems at plants in West Virginia and Arkansas and divest its interest in the Rockport coal plant in Indiana in 2022.
The Clean Power Coalition of Southeast Wisconsin hosted an online press conference Thursday morning on the ninth anniversary of the We Energies’ Oak Creek bluff collapse incident which occurred on Halloween of 2011. Speakers from the community and local public officials called on We Energies to stop their dirty tricks and finally end their haunting legacy in Southeast Wisconsin by retiring their polluting and devastation-prone coal plant. We Energies is faced with having to eliminate its more dangerous methods for handling coal ash by the end of next year, in accordance with its water permit. The company has yet to decide whether it will invest more money in the Oak Creek coal plant, or shut it down in order to comply. Speakers appealed to the company to make the only decision that will offer residents a guaranteed future free of impacts from that plant: a retirement and remediation timeline for the coal-fired Oak Creek Power Plant.
Annapolis, MD - Today, the Governors of Virginia, Maryland, and North Carolina announced a new regional partnership that seeks to attract and promote massive clean offshore wind development and thousands of clean energy jobs and billions of dollars to the region.
RICHMOND, VA - Today, the Governors of Virginia, Maryland, and North Carolina announced a new regional partnership that seeks to attract and promote massive clean offshore wind development and thousands of clean energy jobs and billions of dollars to the region.
Today, the Platte River Power Authority (PRPA) Board voted to build a new gas-fired power plant as part of its long-term, electric resource plan (ERP), which derails the utility’s 2018 commitment to 100% carbon-free power by 2030. PRPA is now the only utility in Colorado with plans to build new, permanent fossil fuel-powered generation.
Six months after a poorly executed implosion at the former Crawford coal plant, community activists are escalating the demand for answers with billboards calling out the developer, Hilco Redevelopment Partners (Hilco), about continued lack of transparency and cooperation. Since May, the City of Chicago has only hosted one community meeting, with no professional Spanish interpretation, while Hilco has hosted a single meeting only after a mandate from the City. The environmental disaster at the Crawford site blanketed Little Village in a toxic dust cloud and both Hilco and City officials have failed to provide adequate information on the dangers residents may have been exposed to. Hilco is working to redevelop the coal plant site into a truck depot for retail giant Target.
This morning Alliant Energy announced that by the end of 2022, the utility plans to retire the last 275 MW power generating unit at its Lansing coal plant near Lansing, Iowa, and will invest in 400 MW of solar generation by the end of 2023, and up to 100 MW of distributed energy resources, like community solar or storage resources, by 2026. The Lansing plant emitted over 250,000 pounds of sulfur dioxide in 2019 and carbon emissions equivalent to over 100,000 cars. The announcement is part of Alliant’s Clean Energy Blueprint, the company’s “path for accelerating their transition to cleaner energy for customers.” In addition to providing advance notice about retirement, Alliant pledged to provide career assistance and coaching to help prepare workers to transition into other jobs.
On Thursday, October 29 at 10:00 AM, the Clean Power Coalition of Southeast Wisconsin will host an online event remembering the shoreline bluff collapse at We Energies’ coal-fired power plant in Oak Creek which released devastating pollution (coal ash, earth, trucks, and other debris) into Lake Michigan on Halloween 2011. We Energies was implicated in the catastrophe and additional environmental regulation violations were discovered during the response to the collapse. This Halloween will be the 9 year anniversary of the incident and the event will feature speakers who remember the collapse and will also talk about ongoing pollution from the plant that continues to impact neighbors and area residents today.
Austin, TX - The Texas Commission on Environmental Policy (TCEQ) commissioners approved an “Agreed Enforcement Order” with Xcel Energy, the owner of the Harrington Coal Plant, for violations of air quality standards that are putting the health of nearby residents at risk. Under the terms of the enforcement agreement, which were never subject to meaningful public input, the coal plant owner agreed to end its use of dirty coal and convert the plant to run on gas by January 1, 2025.
FERC approved PJM’s compliance filing for the Minimum Office Price Rule (MOPR) today, moving forward with the disastrous rule that will block most new renewable energy resources from the PJM capacity market.
Today, former coal lobbyist and EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler finalized another rollback of clean water protections, which will allow utilities to keep dumping enormous quantities of toxic coal ash into unlined, leaking, and structurally unsound coal ash ponds -- putting tens of thousands of families at risk.