Environmentalists nationwide are celebrating Monday's Fulton County Superior Court decision they say will make it harder —- if not impossible —- to build new coal plants.

Judge Thelma Wyatt Cummings Moore's ruling is the first to anchor coal-fired power plants to global warming.

In her 19-page order, Moore invalidated a state permit issued last year for a proposed coal plant in southwest Georgia and instructed the state Environmental Protection Division to limit carbon dioxide emissions in any new permit for the plant.

"There is no question that CO2 is 'subject to regulation under the [federal Clean Air] Act,'" Moore wrote.

Carbon dioxide is the main greenhouse gas that an international panel of scientists has said contributes to global warming by trapping the heat of the sun.

"We think this is the beginning of the end of conventional coal-fired power plants, because of the enormity of their emissions," said Bruce Nilles, director of the Sierra Club's national campaign against coal.

Of the 80 coal plants in the permitting process nationwide, about 30 are in active litigation, Nilles said. The Sierra Club is fighting coal plants across the country and was one of the petitioners in the Georgia case.

"Our state can find other ways to produce cleaner, more economically beneficial energy," said Patty Durand, director of the Georgia Chapter of the Sierra Club. "Other states are doing it. Why can't we?"

Michael Vogt with LS Power Group, the New Jersey energy company that proposed the power plant in Early County, said the company, along with its joint venture partner, Dynegy of Houston, will take the case to the Georgia Court of Appeals. The companies, operating as Longleaf Energy Associates, want to build a 1,200-megawatt plant expected to cost more than $2 billion.

"Congress is now debating how and whether they would regulate CO2 emissions," Vogt said. "It is pretty surprising that she [Judge Moore] would be out front of everybody on this issue."

Jeff Holmstead with the Washington law and lobbying firm Bracewell & Giuliani, which represents power companies, says Moore's decision misinterprets a 2007 U.S. Supreme Court ruling. The court ordered the EPA to determine whether carbon dioxide is harmful to public health and needs to be regulated.

Holmstead said three or four other courts have rejected similar arguments from environmentalists similar to those in the Georgia case.

Holmstead, who was in charge of EPA's air pollution office until 2005, said the energy companies and the state EPD have a good chance to overturn the decision on appeal.

Early County leaders are bullish on the coal plant. They are looking forward to the promise of more than 100 high-paying jobs and millions in tax revenues for a county ranked as the state's sixth poorest.

The plant would provide power for about 1 million homes. The electricity could be sold in Alabama and Florida, as well as Georgia, Vogt has said.

 DALE E. DODSON / Staff 
A Fulton County Superior Court judge has become the first in the nation to directly tie a planned power plant to the issue of global warming. Judge Thelma Wyatt Cummings Moore invalidated the permit for the proposed $2 billion coal-fired Longleaf plant in Early County because it failed to take into account emissions of carbon dioxide. A product of combustion, the buildup of the gas in the atmosphere has been implicated as a major cause of climate change.

Map locates proposed coal-fired power plant in Early County. Inset map outlines area of detail in relation to Atlanta.