On January 21, 2021, an article about the Prairie State Generating Company was published in the Chicago Tribune and the St. Louis Post Dispatch. Unfortunately, the article’s content does not fully depict the advanced technologies in place on our energy campus, nor the value that our campus brings to the electric grid or the Illinois economy.
We recognize that our nation’s energy supply is in a state of transition, and Prairie State and its public power owners are committed to working with policy leaders on ways to further mitigate CO2 in the future while still maintaining grid reliability and efficiency.
Prairie State came online in 2012 during the Obama-Biden Administration and operates under very stringent environmental standards, including more than $1 billion in emissions control technologies. As one of the newest and most efficient plants in the country, supporting more than 650 well-paying jobs and an additional $40 million annual investment in the Illinois union workforce, Prairie State can and should continue to serve as a stabilizing resource to the midwestern energy grid well beyond 2035.
Among the ways Prairie State is embracing its position as an environmental leader in the energy industry is by working on progressive solutions, including a recent partnership with the University of Illinois to conduct a carbon capture FEED (front end engineering and design) study. The study’s objective is to identify CO2 emission mitigation opportunities at a commercial scale, which could provide broad value for closing the gap between today’s technologies and long-term carbon goals of the future. The grant for this study was made possible by the bipartisan support of U.S. Sens. Dick Durbin and Tammy Duckworth, as well as U.S. Reps. Mike Bost and John Shimkus. We look forward to building on this record of cooperation and innovation.