IL Students Fight Proposed Coal Plant

Students at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale are concerned. Their school has the prize of being the only campus in the U.S. to have an active proposal for a coal-fired power plant. Led in part by a member of the Student Environmental Action Coalition‘s National Council, Kandace Vallejo, the SIUC’s Student Environmental Center is standing up to the administration’s interest in investing $250 million student dollars in coal.

Kandace says (from the heart of Illinois coal country), “I feel like investing the money in more coal technology is almost pointless, because within the next 100 years this entire country is going to have to transfer over to 100 percent clean and sustainable energy. We’re just going to run out of coal and oil.”

And they won’t be alone – SEAC and the Energy Justice Network will be supporting the resistance. Hopefully this proposal, along with 200+ others similar to it across the country, will fall to the favor of conservation, efficiency, renewables, and simple common sense. Read the full story here.

1 Response to “IL Students Fight Proposed Coal Plant”


  1. 1 Victory: Only Campus Coal Plant in the Country On Hold « It’s Getting Hot In Here Trackback on Mar 31st, 2008 at 4:12 pm
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About Mattie


Mattie is a member of the Ohio Student Environmental Coalition's Steering Committee, an organization he founded at Power Shift 07. He is proud to support a growing statewide network of student groups working for a clean, safe, and just future for all. Mattie originally got involved as a Syracuse University student who saw a pressing need for climate action, later as an Energy Justice Network intern who began to realize the human impacts of coal, and finally as an OSEC organizer committed to building an economy and climate worth fighting for. He also has a degree in women's studies and sociology, is a founding member of the Mountain Justice Spring Break Planning Collective and an intentional community in Columbus, and is the convener of the Energy Action Coalition's Anti-Oppression working group.

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