"Environmental groups seeking to block Vectren Corp. from building a new $900 million natural-gas-fired power plant in Indiana and a related pipeline are flanked by an unlikely ally in the fight: the Hoosier State's powerful coal industry.
The Indiana Coal Council and two mining companies — Sunrise Coal LLC and Alliance Resource Partners LP — have separately intervened at the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission, hired expert witnesses and made filings arguing that Vectren should be denied a certificate to build the plant.
The opposition includes testimony from Charles McConnell, former assistant secretary for fossil energy at the Department of Energy, who said Vectren's proposal doesn't address concerns about grid "resilience."
There's little mystery to why the coal industry is pushing back. The 850-megawatt combined-cycle gas plant would displace an almost equivalent amount of coal-fired generating capacity."
