Zombie coal plants could threaten the US energy transition
14 May 2024
On the banks of Maryland’s Patapsco River, about 10 miles south of Baltimore, there’s an aging coal plant that pretty much everyone wants to shut down. Local community activists, environmental groups, state officials, even the company that owns the coal-burning facility — they all want to close the Brandon Shores Power Plant next year.
But they can’t.
Think of Brandon Shores as a zombie coal plant: a polluting and money-losing facility that’s being kept alive due to a lack of foresight from grid planners and an outdated set of energy market and policy regimes that have made it nearly impossible to replace the plant with cheaper and cleaner alternatives.
