Dive Brief:

• Massachusetts regulators approved a 630-MW natural gas-fired power plant to be built near Boston.
• Under an agreement with the Conservation Law Foundation, the plant's owners, Footprint Power, agreed that starting in 2026 it would reduce the plant's carbon emissions by running it less often, installing carbon capture equipment or offsetting the emissions by investing in renewable energy elsewhere.
• Footprint also agreed to shut the $800 million plant down in 2050.
• The plant will replace a coal plant in Salem Harbor that is slated to retire this year.

Dive Insight:

Although natural gas-fired power plants produce about half the carbon emissions as coal plants, for many people that's still too much emissions. This unique agreement sets up a limit on how long the natural gas “bridge” will last for this plant.