Dive Summary:
- Los Angeles, Calif. is halting its use of coal-fueled electricity and will instead support renewable sources and build a natural-gas fired plant.
- The city's Department of Water and Power is phasing out the imported electricity from Navajo Generating Station in Arizona and Intermountain Power in Utah; the plants account for 39 percent of the power the city uses.
- Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said that the move is inevitable given the information we have regarding coal and that the city will "reduce our carbon footprint and set a precedent for the national power market.”
From the article:
Los Angeles, the nation’s second-most populous metropolitan area after New York, has cut greenhouse-gas emissions by more than 28 percent from 1990 levels, which it says is more than any other major U.S. city. Coal releases twice the carbon dioxide as natural gas per megawatt of power produced, and climate advocates have seized on phasing out its use as the necessary first step in addressing global warming.
Coal generation in the U.S. is under mounting pressure from cheap natural gas prices, tougher federal pollution standards, state-level energy efficiency requirements and activist lobbying. ...
