iStockphoto/Dilok Klaisataporn
It’s fair to say that 2020 was a grueling year with more than its share of challenges, but the progress the Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal campaign made in spite of that should make us doubly optimistic about the future.
Over the past year, the Beyond Coal campaign supported the Movement for Black Lives, put its resources toward efforts to help families in need during the COVID-19 pandemic, mourned the loss of a groundbreaking Supreme Court justice, and soldiered through the most consequential presidential election in American history. And through it all, we continued to work side by side with communities of every race, color, and creed to retire dangerous, polluting coal plants, replace them with clean energy, and support a fair economic transition for workers and communities.
Despite fierce opposition from the Trump administration and its allies, 2020 was the biggest year ever for coal plant retirement announcements, and also the biggest year ever for new wind and solar in the US. We crossed two milestones this year -- 60 percent of plants are now announced to retire, and 50 percent of total megawatts. We helped retire 36 coal plants in 2020 alone. And during the four years of Donald Trump’s presidency, nearly 100 coal plants were committed to retirement -- that’s one coal plant every 15 days.
Of course to meet our climate goals, we still have 192 coal plants to retire before 2030, but with a more supportive incoming presidential administration and the increasing popularity of climate action in state and local governments, it’s fair to say that we have a clear path to transition our country to run completely on clean energy by the end of the decade. Here’s a rundown of some of the most significant developments we saw around the country.
In the Southeast, the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality entered into a settlement to excavate approximately 80 million tons of toxic coal ash at six Duke Energy coal ash sites. Meanwhile, in Georgia, Plant Washington -- the last proposed new coal plant in the country -- was finally canceled.
In the Southwest, APS, the largest electric utility in Arizona, proposed committing $144 million to help support a fair transition away from coal for Indigenous communities that have historically had a stake in the Grand Canyon State’s coal industry -- particularly those involved with the Navajo Generating Station. This is in addition to the Arizona Corporation Commission taking a major step toward implementing new clean-energy rules that, once the formal rulemaking process is complete, will require electric companies to provide 100 percent carbon-free energy by 2050.
In the mid-Atlantic, Pennsylvania is poised to join the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, which would put the most coal-heavy state in the region into a framework that will help it transition to clean energy, and the Virginia legislature has passed historic climate crisis legislation to accelerate its transition to clean energy.
In California, cities and counties resisted pressure to transition from coal to gas instead of clean energy. Motivated by the climate crisis, worsening air pollution, escalating gas rates, and safety risks, an increasing number of local governments have begun to mandate that new buildings be powered exclusively by electricity. So far, 40 cities across the Golden State have adopted building codes to reduce their reliance on gas-fired appliances. The movement has also gained momentum in other parts of the country: Seattle’s mayor, for instance, proposed a strong building code that would require new commercial and high-rise apartment buildings to use the city’s carbon-free electricity for space and water heating, rather than polluting gas appliances.
In the Mountain West, Colorado’s Tri-State announced it would close two coal plants and one coal mine ahead of schedule and agreed to a 80 percent reduction in carbon emissions for electricity delivered to Colorado by 2030. In Colorado Springs, the Colorado Springs Utilities (CSU) Board voted to accelerate the closure timeline for its two coal plants. Martin Drake -- one of the nation’s last urban coal plants -- will now close by 2023 and Ray Nixon will close by 2030. As part of its 2020 Electric Resource Plan, CSU will replace its 416 megawatts (MW) of coal-fired power with 500 MW of new wind energy, 150 MW of solar power, and over 400 MW of battery storage.
Colorado’s Platte River Power Authority (PRPA) announced that it would retire its Rawhide coal plant in 2030 -- 16 years ahead of the original retirement date. That decision was welcome news after a 2019 report by Strategen found that PRPA customers would save $22 million if the Rawhide plant were to be retired by 2023 and replaced by solar and market purchases.
In Utah, the Salt Lake City District School board passed a resolution unanimously establishing the goal of transitioning the school district to 100 percent clean electricity by 2030, and off of fossil fuels for heating and transportation by 2040. This was the direct result of a campaign led by students from Salt Lake's three major high schools in collaboration with the Sierra Club’s Utah Chapter and Climate Parents program.
In the Midwest, Wisconsin’s Dairyland Power Cooperative announced that it would retire the Genoa coal-fired power plant in 2021, and the owner of the E.D. Edwards coal plant, following a multimillion-dollar settlement with communities harmed by the plant’s pollution, announced that it will close by the end of 2022 -- pending regulatory approval. The utility Alliant Energy also announced that by the end of 2022 it would retire the last power-generating unit at its Edgewater coal plant in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, and transition to renewable energy. Importantly, Alliant also pledged to provide career assistance and coaching to help prepare workers to transition into other jobs.
In Milwaukee, WEC Energy Group announced plans to retire 1,400 MW of coal by 2025, starting with the four remaining units at the South Oak Creek coal plant in 2023 and 2024, with an additional 300 MW to be retired by 2025. WEC is a co-owner of the Columbia coal plant, operated by Alliant Energy, and it co-owns and operates the Weston Power Plant and Elm Road Generating Station. WEC’s announcement included plans to invest in a significant clean energy portfolio that includes 800 MW of solar, 600 MW of battery storage, and 100 MW of wind. WEC’s announcements are part of a roadmap that lays out the company’s goal of achieving a 70 percent reduction in carbon emissions by 2030.
In Iowa, Alliant released plans to retire the last power-generating unit at its Lansing coal plant and to invest in 400 MW of solar generation by the end of 2023, as well as up to 100 MW of distributed energy resources, such as 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 the pollution from more than 100,000 cars.
In Michigan, Governor Gretchen Whitmer announced an executive action to make her state a leader on mitigating climate change. This economy-wide greenhouse gas emission-reduction goal makes Michigan one of only nine states in the country with a full carbon-neutrality commitment.
And in Illinois, Vistra announced retirements for the Baldwin and Joppa Power Plants by the end of 2025, and Kincaid and Newton Power Plants by 2027. The utility added that all these retirements may be sooner than the announced dates should economic or other conditions dictate. Vista also announced they were retiring their Ohio coal plants, the single biggest coal plant retirement announcement in US history, by a utility that is our biggest carbon polluter in the electric sector.
If the year 2020 has taught us anything, it’s that despite long odds, tough obstacles, and heartbreaking circumstances, we can still push forward and make progress. That bodes well for our fights ahead and makes me certain that 2021 and beyond are going to be awesome for all of us who care about clean energy and climate justice.