Vote on climate plan set for today
Coal-fired power reliance remains thorny point on emissions reduction
San Antonio City Council is set to vote Thursday on a plan designed to reduce the city’s carbon emissions enough to become carbonneutral by 2050 — a plan that has frustrated business leaders and climate activists alike.
More than two years in the making, the plan still leaves major questions unanswered, including how and when San Antonio will end its reliance on coalgenerated power, a major producer of pollution.
Cityowned CPS Energy has two coal plants left — Spruce One and Two, which sit on Calaveras Lake on the city’s Southeast Side. The two plants generate nearly a fifth of the power used by San Antonians and other CPS customers.
Though CPS plans to close at least one of the plants by 2032, utility officials have been hesitant to agree to a more aggressive timeline to shut down both facilities — exasperating environmentalists.
“It really shows that they (CPS) don’t feel bound to our health and wellbeing as a broader community,” said Greg Harman, an organizer with the Sierra Club who sat on the plan’s steering committee.
Mayor Ron Nirenberg and some council members have said they want to shut down the plants as soon as possible. But concerns abound about how CPS would reliably make up that power generation — and whether the cost of switching to another energy source would unduly burden lowincome residents.
“We know that a future without coal is the future for San Antonio, and we want to get there,” Nirenberg said. “We have to go through the data to create those specifics