Scott Stantis editorial cartoon for Sun, Apr 26, 2026, on issues with Illinois’ clean-energy law. (Scott Stantis/For the Chicago Tribune)
By The Editorial Board | Chicago Tribune
Illinois’ clean energy law, meant to decarbonize the state’s power generation industry, has a loophole so large you could drive a flatbed truck through it.
We wrote a little over a week ago about how one power-plant owner has reacted to Illinois’ heavy-handed Climate & Equitable Jobs Act, or CEJA, by literally extracting six turbines from a large natural gas-fired plant in Will County and transporting them — by, yes, flatbed trucks — to Texas, where they will continue to run and support growing electricity demand in that state.
That facility, Elwood Energy, is the largest gas-fired “peaking” plant in northern Illinois (and perhaps the country). It was required under CEJA to be shuttered by 2030. Facing that deadline, the previous owner last year sold the facility in two pieces.
Six of the nine turbines at the site went to Bethesda, Maryland-based Hull Street Energy, which responded to the law’s strictures by making the audacious Texas move. Those six turbines together generate up to 900 megawatts when needed — about the same output produced by one of Constellation Energy Group’s northern Illinois nuclear reactors.
Myriad unintended consequences are flowing from the law’s foolish 2030 mandate to close a sizable number of the gas-fired plants that are critical to keeping Chicagoland’s lights on during summer heat waves and polar vortexes.
Today, we’re zeroing in on another pernicious CEJA effect, one that relates to the three remaining turbines at the Elwood site, along with other similarly critical facilities in our region.
Dairyland Power Cooperative, a power generator based in La Crosse, Wisconsin, has scooped up gas-fired plants throughout the area at what we are told are cut-rate prices. By virtue of these transactions, Dairyland will be able to operate these power stations until 2045, not 2030.
Editorial continues here.
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