Write your elected officials today to tell them to kick coal to the curb and move forward into a clean energy future. #
For years, utilities have been voluntarily closing coal plants across the West because they are expensive, becoming increasingly obsolete with the boom in affordable clean energy, and often far less reliable than other energy sources.
But there are some who think that we can and should raise coal from the dead – disregarding the will of communities and the utilities. A decade ago, state regulators and Tri-State Generation made plans to retire the Craig 1 power station in 2025.
Then, just one day before the coal plant was supposed to shut down, the Department of Energy used legally dubious orders to keep it open, citing “reliability” as the reason.
The problem? The utility and the state already did extensive research and found that the coal plant isn’t needed for reliability. To make matters worse – the plant is broken and needs to be repaired.
Not only is it not needed – while pumping more emissions into the air – a recent study estimates it will also cost an extra $84.7 million a year to stay running. And these costs will almost certainly be passed on to consumers who are already struggling with the high cost of living.
These orders to force outdated, broken, and dirty coal plants to stay open across the country ignore the will of the people, states, and businesses and the decades of work that have gone into closing coal plants.
Keeping coal plants running not only defies the science on the harmful effects of air pollution but defies market trends too. Coal plant owners spent $6.2 billion more in 2024 than they would have spent for the same amount of electricity generated by coal in 2021 — a 28% jump in just three years. And these costs are passed on to everyday ratepayers.
The EPA also announced it will no longer consider “lives saved” when determining new air pollution rules, and instead only assess costs to industry. This demonstrates how critical it is to keep working on state-level solutions to address our air pollution – and closing coal plants is ground zero.
It’s time to move on from coal. Communities want to. Utilities want to. States want to.
It’s only the backwards-looking administration that wants to make coal a reality – when the truth is that it’s already been long gone.
We all deserve clean air and affordable electricity. The efforts to keep obsolete coal plants running put both in danger.
Let’s move forward into a clean energy future – not back to a polluting past.#
