The Sierra Club will receive $50 million from Bloomberg Philanthropies to combat coal-fired power plants, and some of that grant money will be earmarked to Georgia to discourage new plants in Washington and Early counties.
New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg said he will donate $50 million over the next four years to the Sierra Club’s “Beyond Coal” campaign, which is an effort to close older coal plants and prevent new ones from being built.
“We’ll have more public muscle,” said Mary Anne Hitt, Beyond Coal director.
Money will be used to double the Sierra Club’s 100-person staff that is dedicated to stopping coal-fired energy use in the U.S., Hitt said. The organization will target closing older coal plants in 45 states.
Money will be spent to lobby state utility commissions, local zoning boards and other state and local officials in areas with proposed coal plants, Hitt said.
In Georgia, Hitt said the Sierra Club’s focus is to prevent the building of the proposed Plant Washington in Sandersville and the Longleaf Energy Plant in Early County. LS Power wants to construct the Longleaf plant; Plant Washington is a project of a consortium known as Power4Georgians.
The Sierra Club also will promote the closure of older coal units such as Georgia Power’s Plant Branch. Georgia Power, the state’s largest utility, said earlier this year it will shut down two of the four units there.
A spokeswoman for Atlanta-based Southern Co., Georgia Power's parent company, said all resources, including nuclear, natural gas, renewables and energy efficiency,are needed to keep electricity flowing. That includes "21st century" coal, a term Southern uses to define a project in Mississippi. The technology will convert the coal into gas first, reducing the levels of sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides and mercury.
Georgia was listed ninthin an environmental advocacy group’s “Toxic 20” list of the dirtiest states as measured by emissions from coal-fired plants. The Natural Resource Defense Council, using data from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, said Georgia’s emissions contain 18.2 million pounds of toxins, including mercury, which comes from coal plants.
Georgia Power gets 43 percent of its fuel from coal.
