Winds of Change: Dynegy Rethinks Coal

This is the weekly blog post from Bruce Nilles, director of the Sierra Club's National Coal Campaign.

The dominoes continue to fall in the fight to stop the coal rush: last week Dynegy Inc. announced that it was now re-evaluating six of its planned coal-fired power plants due to difficult permitting processes and the “high cost of capital.”

According to the Reuters article, “the company wants to protect cash flow and avoid complex financial arrangements” – something we warned Dynegy about earlier this year (PDF) through an Innovest Strategic Value Advisors report about the risk to Dynegy shareholders when merging with LS Power. Dynegy is also considering pulling out of two other projects under construction.

Clearly the higher-ups at Dynegy (and LS Power, which owns 40% of Dynegy) are seeing the writing on the wall: Coal is not a viable option for our country’s power needs, and coal plants come with a tremendous financial risk.

This is something Sierra Club and our allies have been telling Dynegy/LS Power (and many other companies) for a long time now. Our staff, activists and allies have spent thousands of hours fighting Dynegy's proposed coal plants – including getting more than one hundred protesters to the annual Dynegy shareholders’ meeting back in May.

Dynegy/LS Power had more planned coal-fired power plants than any other company in the U.S., truly showing how behind they are when it comes securing a clean energy future for the U.S.

In 2009, we look forward to working with Dynegy after they abandon their risky coal projects and instead begin to invest in green jobs that avert catastrophic climate change.

Comments

[greenmullet]

whistle
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=taVW8Kv2HcQ

[Camacho]

let's get ourselves off of coal and into something smarter and cleaner

[Dr. James Singmaster]

In order to get recovery of environments damaged by coal mining, I again call on Sierra Club to start a campaign for a SIN tax of 5-10% on coal sales in order to develop a fund to pay laid-off coal workers for doing reforesting and other environmental restoration. We need to get this in action now so that as coal fades as a fuel, restoration money will be available to help miners have much healthier and safer jobs and lives. We will never get the mining cos. to do anything so let's get them now for their past SINS against the environment. Dr. J. Singmaster