Illinois to Drop Electricity Carbon Emissions 22% by 2030

CHICAGO COAL PLANTS
Midwest Generation's Crawford Generating Station, a coal-fired power plant, is seen Wednesday, Feb. 29, 2012, in Chicago. The city's two coal-fired plants will shut down early under a deal between the operator, city officials and environmental groups. The Chicago Clean Power Coalition says Midwest Generation signed an agreement Wednesday to close the Crawford plant by the end of 2014 and its Fisk Generating Station plant by the end of this year. Chicago is the only large U.S. city with coal-fired power plants operating within its borders. M. Spencer Green / AP Photo
CHICAGO COAL PLANTS
Midwest Generation's Crawford Generating Station, a coal-fired power plant, is seen Wednesday, Feb. 29, 2012, in Chicago. The city's two coal-fired plants will shut down early under a deal between the operator, city officials and environmental groups. The Chicago Clean Power Coalition says Midwest Generation signed an agreement Wednesday to close the Crawford plant by the end of 2014 and its Fisk Generating Station plant by the end of this year. Chicago is the only large U.S. city with coal-fired power plants operating within its borders. M. Spencer Green / AP Photo

Illinois to Drop Electricity Carbon Emissions 22% by 2030

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We’ve become accustomed to bad news regarding climate change, but the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) will join us to give some good news. In their new analysis, Soot to Solar: Illinois’s Clean Energy Transition, UCS reports, “Under Illinois’ current plan to increase the amount of renewable power on its grid, the state will reduce the electricity sector’s carbon emissions by 22 percent by 2030.” Jessica Collingsworth, the report’s co-author, and UCS midwest energy policy analyst and advocate, along with Celeste Flores, Lake County outreach director with Faith in Place, will also tell us what steps Illinois could take to at least double the carbon reduction they report, thereby “…prevent[ing] nearly 1,000 premature deaths because of less air pollution.”