Coal

The Labadie Energy Center and the Sioux Energy Center will have two extra years to limit emissions of mercury and other hazardous air pollutants.

Industrious Labs, a Washington D.C.-based climate advocacy nonprofit, found that SunCoke Energy’s Metro East facility, located adjacent to Granite City Works, could be responsible for $87 million to $161 million in total health costs every year.

The Environmental Protection Agency estimates Rush Island released 275,000 tons of sulfur dioxide after it was updated without required pollution controls in 2007 and 2010.

Fifteen years after the EPA said greenhouse gasses are dangerous to public health, the agency finalized rules to limit climate-warming pollution from existing coal and new gas power plants.

With the passage of Illinois' Climate and Equitable Jobs Act back in 2021, coal mines and plants will slowly close across the state. The state grant program will provide $3.28 million to various Metro East communities whose coal facilities will close.

As Illinois considers ways to achieve its goal of relying entirely on clean energy by 2050, one technology that has courted controversy is carbon capture.

Ameren Missouri plans to buy a solar power plant in Bowling Green, Missouri, that could produce energy by 2024. The announcement comes days after it shared plans to open a natural gas plant. Both facilities need approval from Missouri’s Public Service Commission.

Missouri environmental groups are decrying proposed state rules that would allow power plants to discharge contaminants like coal ash into groundwater through a general permit for multiple facilities. Power plants currently have individual, site-specific permits.

The coal ash basins at Labadie Energy Center contain 15 million cubic yards of waste, the largest volume of Ameren’s four coal-fired power plants in Missouri.

The move was part of a series of steps the agency said it would take to protect communities from harmful coal ash contamination.