By Frank Andorka, Senior Correspondent
Three months after announcing it would completely eliminate coal from its portfolio, Detroit-based utility DTE Energy announced on Friday it, along with partner Consumers Energy, was accelerating plans to increase its clean-energy portfolio to reach a generation target of at least 50% by 2030.
The utility’s announcement came on the same day President Donald J. Trump tweeted that the United States has 250 years of “clean coal” in its energy mix and touted the fact he ended the mythical “war on coal.”
DTE Energy’s announcement is further proof that the era of coal is rapidly coming to a close whether coal barons like failed Senate candidate Don Blakenship or President Trump want it or to or not, and no amount of regulation or edicts from the federal government will stop it from coming. For example, DTE said it would reach its goal by investing in a goal of at least 25% renewable energy reaching the remainder of its goal through energy efficiency programs.
“Our two companies [DTE and Consumers Energy] are overwhelmingly in favor of renewable energy and are focused on bringing additional energy efficiency opportunities to our customers,” said DTE Energy Chairman and CEO Gerry Anderson and Consumers Energy CEO Patti Poppe. “We will continue to work within the framework put forward by our legislature and regulators to build on our environmental initiatives to benefit all residents of the state.”
The decision to accelerate the clean-energy program is at least in part the result of an agreement with progressive billionaire Tom Steyer’s Clean Energy, Healthy Michigan (CEHM) group to place aside a ballot proposal to increase the state’s renewable portfolio standard. The group had gathered enough signatures to put an increase in the RPS on the ballot.
Details of the two companies’ plans to retire coal plants and increase wind and solar generation will be outlined in their respective Integrated Resource Plans.
Trump has routinely touted the benefits of “clean coal” without seeming to understand what that phrase means or that “clean coal” is really just coal, with all the requisite carbon emissions that would result from burning it.