Out of the frying pan ...

Dynegy targeted by Sierra Club in new anti-coal campaign 3

Check out Clean Up Dynegy, the brand new website for the Sierra Club's campaign against the company Sierra calls "America's Coal-Fired Polluter Number 1." The campaign is significant in that it represents the first attempt by anti-coal forces to single out a single company on a nationwide basis.

It kicked off in late February with mass call-ins to Dynegy headquarters originating from twenty states -- "thousands of calls," according to the Sierra Club. Already, the campaign seems to have hit a nerve, with Dynegy's CEO, Bruce Williamson, lashing out that his company is being unfairly picked on. It probably didn't help Williamson's morale that he was also just picked as one of five executives to receive 2008 "Fossil Fool of the Year" awards.

Dynegy (which merged with LS Power in Mar. 2007) will celebrate its tenth anniversary this June. In its first decade, the company had at least one near-death experience, getting caught up in charges of price fixing and other fraudulent practices during the California electricity crisis of 2000 and again in the wake of the Enron debacle in 2002.

Williamson, who came on board to replace founder Charles Watson, is credited with saving the foundering company by exiting natural gas and moving into coal. Unfortunately, Dynegy can't seem to get its timing right. Compared to the current hornets' nest of coal opposition he finds himself in, Williamson may already be feeling nostalgic for the good old days of natural gas.

Prior to the launching of the Sierra club campaign, five Dynegy and LS Power projects had already hit the dust:

The remaining six, all targeted by the "Clean Up Dynegy" campaign, are as follows:

Ted Nace is the director of CoalSwarm, a collaborative information clearinghouse on U.S. and international coal mines, plants, companies, politics, impacts, and alternatives.

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  1. Tasermons Partner Posted 10:12 am
    08 Apr 2008

    Sandy Creek......as far as I know, that one is still goin' ahead.  They've already preped the site, but I don't know if actual construction has begun yet.
    Anyone have any info. on that?
  2. sindark's avatar

    sindark Posted 12:26 am
    09 Apr 2008

    Smart sanctionsTargeting specific companies and CEOs can be a good strategy - akin to the 'smart sanctions' that get applied to members of the ruling regime in places like Sudan, North Korea, or Zimbabwe.

    a sibilant intake of breath
  3. Pompey Road Posted 6:19 am
    09 Apr 2008

    Picked onWell I hope ol Bruce takes it better than Don Blankenship CEO of Massey Coal. Threatened a reporter and told him he was liable to get shot!
    He later stated that he really would not have shot the guy but is always threatened by Enviornmentalist and has to be on the defensive.
    Looks like when you are picken on em in Kentucky and West Virginia you had better take some back up.
    I don't suppose the Mountain Top Removal sites he opperates has anything to do with him being picked on.
    Its best to catch him on vacation with some of the West Vieginia Supreme court judges in countries where he can't pack legal.  

    The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.

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