The Beyond Coal movement is a campaign by environmental group the
Sierra Club to promote
renewable energy
Renewable energy is energy that is collected from renewable resources that are naturally replenished on a human timescale. It includes sources such as sunlight, wind, the movement of water, and geothermal heat. Although most renewable energy ...
instead of
coal
Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock, formed as rock strata called coal seams. Coal is mostly carbon with variable amounts of other elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen.
Coal is formed when dea ...
.
Their primary objective is to close
coal power plants in the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
, including at least one-third of the country's more than 500 coal plants by 2020, and to replace them with renewable energy sources. The campaign is also active in other countries; for example, they are trying to prevent the construction of the Kosovo C thermal power plant near
Pristina
Pristina, ; sr, / (, ) is the capital and largest city of Kosovo. The city's municipal boundaries in Pristina District form the largest urban center in Kosovo. After Tirana, Pristina has the second largest population of ethnic Albanians and ...
,
Kosovo
Kosovo ( sq, Kosova or ; sr-Cyrl, Косово ), officially the Republic of Kosovo ( sq, Republika e Kosovës, links=no; sr, Република Косово, Republika Kosovo, links=no), is a partially recognised state in Southeast Euro ...
; to this end, they have collaborated with academic and
Obama administration climate advisor
Dan Kammen. Other objectives include keeping coal in the ground, specifically in
Appalachia and the
Powder River Basin
The Powder River Basin is a geologic structural basin in southeast Montana and northeast Wyoming, about east to west and north to south, known for its extensive coal reserves. The former hunting grounds of the Oglala Lakota, the area is very s ...
, where the majority of American coal reserves are located,
[ and preventing coal from being exported from America.]
The campaign has received at least $80 million from Michael Bloomberg and his philanthropic foundation, Bloomberg Philanthropies
Bloomberg Philanthropies is a philanthropic organization that encompasses all of the charitable giving of founder Michael R. Bloomberg. Headquartered in New York City, Bloomberg Philanthropies focuses its resources on five areas: the environmen ...
. During the early Presidency of George W. Bush
George W. Bush's tenure as the 43rd president of the United States began with his first inauguration on January 20, 2001, and ended on January 20, 2009. Bush, a Republican from Texas, took office following a narrow victory over Democratic i ...
, an energy task force convened by Dick Cheney
Richard Bruce Cheney ( ; born January 30, 1941) is an American politician and businessman who served as the 46th vice president of the United States from 2001 to 2009 under President George W. Bush. He is currently the oldest living former U ...
advocated the construction of 200 new coal plants in the United States, warning that if they were not built the entire country would face load shedding
Demand response is a change in the power consumption of an electric utility customer to better match the demand for power with the supply. Until the 21st century decrease in the cost of pumped storage and batteries electric energy could not be ...
as California had just seen. During the Bush administration, the Beyond Coal campaign prevented 170 of the 200 plants from being built.
Europe Beyond Coal
In November 2017, a similar campaign, calle
Europe Beyond Coal
was launched in Europe. This campaign is inspired by the US Beyond Coal campaign but is independent of it. Europe Beyond Coal is an alliance of civil society groups working to catalyse the closures of coal mines and power plants, prevent the building of any new coal projects and hasten the just transition to clean, renewable energy and energy efficiency. Over 30 NGOs, including Greenpeace
Greenpeace is an independent global campaigning network, founded in Canada in 1971 by Irving Stowe and Dorothy Stowe, immigrant environmental activists from the United States. Greenpeace states its goal is to "ensure the ability of the Earth t ...
, WWF, EEB, Climate Action Network
Climate Action Network - International (CAN) is a global network of over 1,300 environmental non-governmental organisations in over 130 countries working to promote government and individual action to limit human-induced climate change to ecolo ...
Europe and many others, take part in the European campaign.
See also
* Phasing-out coal
* Environmental issues with coal
* Powering Past Coal Alliance
The Powering Past Coal Alliance (PPCA) is a group of 166 countries, cities, regions and organisations aiming to accelerate the fossil-fuel phase out of coal-fired power stations, except the very few which have carbon capture and storage. It ha ...
References
{{reflist
Sustainable energy
Environmental organizations based in the United States
Sierra Club
Energy policy of the United States
Environmental impact of the coal industry