Coal power hitting roadblocks

As more and more states are turning against coal power facilities in the U.S., advocates have been using the legal system to halt new pending plants. In Georgia, a major case is testing the implications of the 2007 ruling by the Supreme Court in Massachusetts v. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), that carbon dioxide is a pollutant. Two subsequent rulings by a Fulton County Superior Court Judge and the Court of Appeals in Georgia have so far each held up a new plant, Longleaf Energy Station, sought in Georgia's Early County by LS Power of New Jersey. If approved, the plant would be the first new coal power plant in Georgia in at least 20 years and one of the only ones opened in the U.S. during the same period, advocates said. "It would be an anomaly to see this coal plant get built because nationally they're shutting them down and taking them off-line," Erin Glynn, Georgia organiser for the Sierra Club's national Beyond Coal Campaign, told IPS. "A hundred coal-fired power plants have been stopped in the last 18 months," Glynn said. "It's mostly related to the uncertainties about investing in coal. In nearly every case, the investors have mentioned market uncertainties and the risk in investing in coal. It goes back to carbon dioxide, because we know we're going to have to pay for carbon very soon." "Citigroup, Bank of America, and Merrill Lynch have all issued statements staying we will not invest in coal because it causes carbon dioxide, it causes global warming," Glynn added.