Montana already has five existing power plants, with six new plants proposed (see map), despite the fact that Montana currently exports more than half the power produced in state.

There are many problems associated with burning coal to generate electricity, affecting both public health and the environment.

U.S. Supreme Court turns down utilities over mercury emissions (AP, 2/24/09)  The Supreme Court is refusing a request by electric utility companies to step into a case concerning the regulation of mercury emissions from power plants.

If new coal plants are to be built, employing Integrated Gasification/Combined Cycle (IGCC) technology with Carbon Capture and Sequestration (CCS) could significantly reduce the environmental toll of coal use.  CCS is still in its infancy, however, and placing too much emphasis on capturing and sequestering carbon from new coal-fired plants could divert resources away from efforts to promote renewable energy and addressing global warming pollutants from existing coal-fired power plants.

Coal-fired Power Plants

MEIC is opposing the construction of several new coal-fired power plants in Montana, both because they are not needed and because they are environmentally unsound:

• Highwood Generating Station

• Roundup Power Project
  

• Thompson River Co-Gen

• The Hardin Generating Station

• Nelson Creek Project

• Colstrip

Non-Coal Electricity Plants in Montana

MEIC worked closely with Bob Quinn and his WindPark Solutions America to site a suitable location for Montana’s first wind project. The Judith Gap Wind Project provides a good example of clean energy development, pursued in an environmentally-sensitive fashion.

MEIC also worked closely with designers of the Basin Creek natural-gas-fired power plant south of Butte to address the carbon dioxide emissions of the proposed power plant. MEIC supports the company’s efforts to encourage wind production in Montana.

SEE MAP OF MONTANA'S MAJOR OPERATIONAL AND PROPOSED WIND PROJECTS (February 2008)

For more information on Montana coal

• State Seeks Comments on Leasing Otter Creek Coal
  
• MEIC Files Suit over Highwood CO2 Emissions NOTE: This lawsuit has implications for all power plants in the state.]
• View the PBS special Dark Energy: The Clean Coal Controversy (first aired July 29, 2008). This hour-long documentary examines both the potential for liquid coal to meet energy needs and the very real environmental and economic costs of the technology. It also scrutinizes proposals to capture carbon dioxide emissions and pump them deep into the ground in the hopes of trapping the CO2 there for hundreds of years. Interviews include Governor Brian Schweitzer, Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Air Force William Anderson, Congressman Henry Waxman, and MEIC Program Director Anne Hedges.
  
• Read Tom Powers' commentaries on Dirty Coal, Coal and Economic Development, the New Coal Boom in Montana, Coal Industry Layoffs, Missoula's potential buy-in to Great Falls' coal-fired power plant, and The Energy Industry’s Attack on the Regulation of Greenhouse Gases

• The Tide is Turning against Coal, which includes a list of recent NEWS ARTICLES about coal and climate change.
• Read a letter that Dr. James Hansen (director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies and Adjunct Professor at the Columbia University Earth Institute) wrote to Great Britain's Prime Minister, Gordon Brown on December 19, 2007 calling for Brown to implement a moratorium on new coal plants in Europe and England.

• Read an affidavit filed by Dr. James Hansen (379 K pdf) in connection with MEIC’s lawsuit against the Montana Department of Environmental Quality for failing to regulate CO2 emissions from the Highwood Generating Station.