10-point plan for clean energy by 2050
Climate Jobs Illinois calls for solar, wind expansion, Transition Fund for fossil-fuel communities
Lake Park High School in Roselle was an early adopter of solar energy. A new 10-point plan from Climate Jobs Illinois calls for schools statewide to follow suit. (Lphs.org)
By Ted Cox
A coalition of union groups backing a clean-energy economy released a 10-point plan to achieve the goal Monday, including a renewed commitment to solar and wind energy and a transition fund for communities threatened to be left behind by fossil-fuel firms.
Climate Jobs Illinois, a 2-month-old coalition of the state’s leading labor unions, released a 10-point plan for making the transition to clean energy. It called for the state to install 10 gigawatts of utility-scale solar power by 2030 — projected to save or create 76,000 jobs — and another 13 gigawatts of wind power by the same year, saving or creating another 86,500 jobs.
“This proposal is ambitious but achievable,” said Nikki Budzinski, executive director of Climate Jobs Illinois, in a statement accompanying a news release on the 10-point plan. “With the state’s clean-energy resources, highly skilled workforce, ready-made apprenticeship programs, and manufacturing infrastructure, we can build a cleaner and fairer future while putting working families first.”
Jobs and clean energy went hand in hand throughout the proposal, including a call to “stabilize” the current energy system with a commitment to keep nuclear power plans open as a key carbon-neutral element of the energy system. “This can be achieved by including the Braidwood, Byron, Dresden, and LaSalle nuclear plants in the Zero Emission Standard program and adopting the Fixed Resource Requirement process, or a similar process that allows the nuclear fleet to remain competitive in future capacity auctions,” the plan proposed. “Currently, only the Clinton and Quad Cities nuclear plants are included in the program and receive zero-emission credits, which compensate for the environmental benefits of carbon-free energy generation.” That too would save 24,000 jobs.
Supporters of the Clean Energy Jobs Act, pending in the General Assembly, have likewise backed the continued use of nuclear energy as a bridge to a totally clean-energy economy. Exelon recently threatened to close both the Byron and Dresden plants, although the Pritzker administration immediately dismissed those threats as scare tactics the energy behemoth has tried before in leveraging a better deal from the General Assembly.
Another key proposal was for a Just Transition Fund to benefit communities threatened with being left behind in the transition away from fossil fuels, such as coal mining and coal-powered utility plants. The plan called for the fund to provide three to five years of wage, health care, and benefits replacements, along with three to five years of tax revenue lost in those communities, in addition to other supports. It also called for at least two years of advanced notice of plant closures, along with the exploration of proposals such as coal-to-solar initiatives to keep workers employed and increased funding for the Future Energy Jobs Act’s training plan.
CEJA calls for firms leaving those communities behind to fund their revival and pay for cleanup projects such as the disposal of coal ash.
The coalition plan called for the Illinois Works Jobs Program, created under the Rebuild Illinois capital plan last year, to be tailored “to establish a pipeline into joint apprenticeship programs for workers from disadvantaged communities” targeted at the energy economy.
The plan calls for the state to commit to an all-electric zero-emission fleet of school buses and public transit statewide, along with a carbon-free school initiative “that installs 4 gigawatts of solar power by 2030 and requires energy-efficiency improvements at all public schools to create or save 67,300 jobs over about eight years.”
Climate Jobs Illinois also announced that the Illinois Federation of Teachers was joining the coalition.
“I am proud that my union joined the Climate Jobs Illinois coalition to tackle the urgency of climate change and its impact on working people,” said Michael Beeftink, an environmental-science teacher in the north suburbs. “What a better way to help students understand how clean energy can put people to work and be part of the solution to climate change by reducing the carbon footprint of our schools.”