Democratic presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg wants to close all of the nation’s coal plants by 2030 and have 80% of America’s electricity be carbon-free even sooner.
Bloomberg released a “100% clean power plan” Friday to replace the nation’s remaining 251 coal plants with clean electricity and stop the construction of new gas plants to achieve 80% clean electricity by 2028.
The electricity target is the first component of Bloomberg’s pledge to fully decarbonize the economy by 2050 at the latest — a goal matched by nearly the entire Democratic primary field.
Bloomberg, a late entrant to the presidential race, wants to get halfway to that goal by 2030, cutting greenhouse gas emissions 50% by then.
“We’ve proven that you can transition to clean energy and strengthen the economy at the same time,” said Bloomberg, the former New York City mayor and climate change philanthropist. “As president, I’ll accelerate our transition to a 100% clean energy economy.”
Bloomberg’s plan looks a lot like a campaign he bankrolled with the Sierra Club to eliminate the nation’s coal plants by 2030 and start shutting down natural gas and oil.
Sierra Club’s “Beyond Coal” has helped retire more than half of the nation’s coal plants since Bloomberg’s first donation in 2011.
Bloomberg gave $500 million to a second phase of the project, “Beyond Carbon,” in June.
While closing coal plants is an easier task given existing market-driven economic challenges, Bloomberg will have a harder time with his secondary goal of preventing the construction of new gas plants.
Natural gas, which emits half the carbon of coal, has mostly replaced coal in the electricity sector, supplying 35% of U.S. power in 2018, compared with about 17% from renewable sources and 19% from zero-carbon nuclear power.
