The Momentum of an Amazing Beyond Coal January

I know I’m not the only one who thinks that this first month of 2020 has already felt like a year. The news is depressing and scary, and some of it is infuriating. But here’s something uplifting you may have missed -- our Beyond Coal advocates and partners have had an incredible month, including five coal plant retirement announcements and big new commitments to clean energy. Let me tell you more about this amazing month of progress.

So far, 2020 is shaping up to be one of the biggest years ever for replacing coal with clean energy -- I told Forbes for a predictions column recently that "2020 will solidify the end of the US’s coal era, and will mark the beginning of the end of the power sector’s rush to build new (fracked) gas."

The big news has been coming so fast! Let's recap some highlights:

• The Sierra Club and many partners reached a settlement with Duke Energy for the largest coal ash cleanup in US history. 

• A study in a prestigious journal found that reduced US coal use saved 26,000 lives over the past decade.

• A Rhodium report found that US greenhouse gas emissions fell in 2019 due almost entirely to our plummeting use of coal.

• Reuters confirmed our Beyond Coal analyst team's projection that 2019 will be the second-biggest year ever for coal retirements.

• Coal plant retirement #300 was announced -- SWEPCO's (AEP) Dolet Hills plant in Louisiana, a notoriously expensive, polluting plant that the utility had previously pledged to keep running until 2046. Now, it will be going offline in 2026. 

• The next day, Tri-State announced coal plant retirements #301 and #302 -- the Craig coal plant in Colorado and the Escalante plant in New Mexico -- effectively phasing out all its coal in both states.

• Tri-State then announced a commitment to 100% clean energy in Colorado by 2040 and 50% renewable energy by 2024 for its co-ops. The announcement excluded any plans to build new fracked gas plants as it phases out coal.

• What’s more,Tri-State then announced that it and Sunflower Electric are finally abandoning their proposed Holcomb coal plant in Kansas. This one was proposed 14 years ago (we’ve been opposing it all that time) and is one of the last two proposed coal plants left from the George W. Bush–era coal rush!

• Coal plant retirement #303 was announced -- the Merom Generating Station in southwest Indiana. It's a 1,000 megawatt (MW) coal plant owned by the electric co-op Hoosier Energy. 

• Arizona utility APS rolled out a major new climate plan that will retire the remaining 1,636 MW of coal at the Four Corners power plant by 2031, increase its share of renewable energy from 13% to 45% by 2030, be 65% carbon free by 2030, and get to 100% carbon-free power by 2050 -- and the utility says it currently has no plans to build new fracked gas. Just two years ago, APS was planning to add 5,500 MW of new gas and keep Four Corners running until 2038.

• Coal plant retirement #304 was announced -- Dairyland Power Co-op's 345 MW Genoa plant in Wisconsin. 

To close, let's add all that up. The plants announced to retire so far this month, #300 through #304, total 3,831 MW. Together, these plants were responsible for 25 million tons of CO2 in 2018. Retiring them is equal to taking 5.3 million cars off the road every year.

Behind each of the milestones above lies years of advocacy by the Sierra Club and many partners. We wouldn't be here without the tenacity, commitment, and creativity of Beyond Coal activists and allies nationwide. Our activists are parents, teachers, scientists, city officials, faith leaders, students, business owners, and health professionals, and they are moving the needle toward a clean energy future. And with NASA and NOAA recently announcing that 2019 was the second-hottest year on record, and the hottest without an El Niño, ending the hottest decade ever recorded in human history -- this is a race against time. 

Every bit of this progress matters so much for our climate, our kids, the beautiful natural world that we depend on, and our future. I can’t wait to see what the rest of 2020 brings!