Muskegon Coal Plant to Close, No Coal Burning Replacement to be Built. Demand Met by Renewables.

The 63 year old coal fire power plant in Muskegon is scheduled to close in 2015. There will be NO replacement coal plant construction.

Let me say that again: the Muskegon coal plant is shutting down, and it will not be replaced. Check THIS out...

Along with the current energy market forces, Consumers' decisions also were made based on future expectations of energy savings from efficiency measures and additional generation from alternative sources of power. Consumers Energy now is constructing the 100-megawatt Lake Winds Energy Park, a commercial wind farm in southern Mason County.

Opponents of renewable energy need to stick that in their crack bowl and smoke it. Between this and a Bay County wind farm that was put on hold because power demand had been met with renewable energy...the suggestion that wind power doesn't shut down coal plants is pretty much blown out of the water.

And it's not just ONE coal plant being shut down.

The closure of coal unites at the Cobb plant, J.R. Whiting plant near Luna Pier and the Karn/Weadock Plant near Bay City are due to the same factors that canceled the company's plans for a clean coal plant.

The closure of the seven smaller, older coal units and the environmental improvements to its remaining generating units will reduced Consumers power plant emissions by 90 percent, company officials said.

Do I have to say it again? It's a new world. I'm saddened by knowing that over 100 jobs will be lost when the coal plant closes...though there is an advanced battery manufacturing plant opening up that will employ hundreds, and a proposed wind turbine component manufacturing park. We hope that will go to help replace those jobs and give work to those families.

I drove down the road this drizzly December afternoon with my kids and passed by Every Woman's Place...an organization that helps women in need. Next to the familiar building I've seen my whole life, something news. Rows and rows and rows of solar panels pointed toward the sky generating clean energy. It was part of a project funded by the US Department of Energy from the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act.

It's a beautiful thing.