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A South Texas coal-fired energy plant will obtain greater than $1 billion in funding from the U.S. Division of Agriculture to transform right into a photo voltaic and battery facility, in accordance with the company.
The swap by San Miguel Electrical Cooperative, positioned in Christine in Atascosa County, to a photo voltaic and battery plant will be funded by greater than $1.4 billion of a $4.37 billion federal grant to assist clear power whereas sustaining rural jobs. With the co-op’s transition to a renewable power plant, solely 14 coal-fired energy vegetation will probably be left within the state.
In September, the CEO of San Miguel Electrical Cooperative, Craig Courter, instructed a neighborhood newspaper that with federal funding, the co-op can “virtually eliminate our greenhouse gas emissions while continuing to provide affordable and reliable power to rural Texans.”
“We take pride in our attention to detail in safety, environmental compliance, community service and mined land reclamation,” Courter instructed the Pleasanton Categorical.
In line with the USDA’s Thursday announcement, the transformation will cut back local weather air pollution by greater than 1.8 million tons yearly and assist as many as 600 jobs.
In 2019, a Texas Tribune investigation confirmed that state companies allowed San Miguel Cooperative to infect acres with poisonous chemical compounds. These chemical compounds can leach into groundwater and soil and endanger folks’s well being. In line with 2023 EPA information, the plant is the fourth-largest mercury polluter of all energy vegetation within the state.
“For years, folks in my county have been worried about water contamination from San Miguel’s lignite mine, so with this announcement, we are hopeful that McMullen County’s water will be clean long into the future,” McMullen County Decide James Teal instructed the Sierra Membership, a grassroots environmental group.
Teal stated that county authorities officers are wanting ahead to a advantages plan that may “implement a quality remediation process for the existing plant and mine and provide us with peace of mind that the mess has been cleaned up.”
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San Miguel will nonetheless want to ascertain a timeline for shutting down the coal plant. Nonetheless, it’s a “historic victory” for South Texas, stated James Perkins, a Sierra Membership Texas marketing campaign organizer.
Different co-ops in Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Minnesota, and Nebraska acquired related federal funding.
“Texans want healthy air and water and affordable, reliable energy — and we’re ready to come together to get it done,” stated Perkins.
