American Electric Power agrees to close 3 coal plants in emissions lawsuit [View all]

[Kolesar]

Updating an earlier 2007 settlement, American Electric Power will stop burning coal by 2015 at three power plants in Indiana, Ohio and Kentucky and replace a portion of that supply with new wind and solar investments in Indiana and Michigan. The company will spend $5 billion to install pollution controls on plants in its aging, coal-fired fleet in the Eastern United States and cut its annual sulfur dioxide emissions over the next 12 years from 828,000 tons to 174,000 tons.
...
According to the Clean Air Task Force, an advocacy group, closing the Tanners Creek Generating Station Unit 4 in Indiana, the Muskingum River Power Plant Unit 5 in Ohio and the Big Sandy Power Plant Unit 2 in Kentucky will prevent 203 deaths, 310 heart attacks, 3,160 asthma attacks and 188 emergency room visits annually once they stop burning coal.
...
Sierra Club attorney Bruce Nilles, who helped negotiate the agreement, said in an interview that the result showed how a combination of market forces and environmental activism had weakened the hand of the coal industry in the United States. But he added that in the face of rising carbon emissions worldwide, environmentalists could not declare total victory.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/aep-agrees-to-close-3-coal-plants-in-emissions-lawsuit/2013/02/25/a11f1a96-7f5d-11e2-b99e-6baf4ebe42df_story.html

Clean Air Task Force:
http://www.catf.us/about/