After the bad news about the Wise County Virginia plant being granted it’s permits and beginning construction that very same day – it sure was good to hear that not everyone has drunk the coal kool-aid. Yesterday Fulton County Judge Thelma Wyatt Cummings Moore overturned a ruling that allowed the construction of the $2 billion Longleaf Energy Plant, which would become Georgia’s first new coal-fired plant in more than two decades.
The decision marks the first time that a judge has applied a U.S. Supreme Court finding that carbon dioxide is a pollutant to emissions from an industrial source.
I’m guessing that Dynegy’s bankers (Citi and Bank of America to name just two) aren’t feeling particularly proud of their investment decisions today. How many coal plants need to be canceled or stalled before the financial sector wakes up to the fact that investing in coal power is not bad for the climate, but bad for their pocketbooks too?