With the Board of Water and Light’s recent proposal to build another outdated coal-fired power plant, you’d think we’d been transported to the year 1885. It’s a year that has been vanquished for nearly 150 years, but its influence continues to prattle deafeningly on, especially when it comes to the proposals of one particular Lansing-based corporation. During the course of this year, a vaccine for rabies was patented, Huckleberry Finn was published, and, this particular corporation in question, Lansing’s Board of Water and Light was established. And, much like its initial business strategy originally executed upon the Board’s year of birth, the BWL is pledging to remain shadowed in the Victorian era by succumbing to the proposal of another coal-fired plant – it’s a technology so new and innovative you’d think that we were all wearing rigid, rib-crunching corsets. Chester A. Arthur would be proud.

While the debate between the US’s dependency on fossil fuels and its converse quest for alternative energy sources rages on, it’s always surprising to find out when a public mainstay like Lansing’s Board of Water and Light plays a part as one of the chief offenders in coal abuse. The organization’s Erickson plant, located in Delta Township, has been fired on coal power for decades, and now, to make matters worse, the BWL has proposed a new, mostly coal-fired plant to join its Erickson facility in an irresponsible campaign.

The BWL’s refusal to see the light is a prime example of the ways in which the heads of some major energy corporations just don’t seem to get it. By running a plant that provides power for a vast majority of the state capital and surrounding area, the BWL leaders should be willing to look beyond older, outdated modes of generating electricity and embrace the future. The cost of coal is skyrocketing; its use keeps us dependent on imported energy; and it is a chief contributor to global warming. Perhaps the most important factor to this argument is that alternative sources of energy like wind and solar power would be much cheaper to harness, not to mention a lot healthier, especially considering public health and environmental impacts of burning coal. It’s a better investment, creating more good-paying jobs than coal and is unlimited in supply. After all, they don’t call it “renewable” energy for nothing.

The BWL has been a staple of the Lansing community since 1885; how ironic, given that the corp’s latest energy proposal seems as though it had come straight out of the 19th century. If corporate execs at BWL keep insisting on sticking with the same technology found in the novels of Charles Dickens, it’s probable that they will end up hurting the very people who they are supposed to be helping – the people of Lansing. Stubbornly clinging to Victorian-era business methods and obsolete technology just doesn’t work: there’s a reason why the Big Horseshoe and Conglomerated Opium industries have long since faded away.

The insistence of BWL execs on the reliance of coal stands out as an eye-catching example of the comprehensive problems in Michigan. Without the ability to adapt to new thoughts and innovations in industry, our state’s economy is doomed to fail; left behind in the dark ages of coal and its blackening, fossilized kindred.

Oh, by the way, in addition to the coal fiasco proposed by BWL, Michigan is being threatened by seven – count ‘em, SEVEN – other coal plants. They call it the “coal rush” and it will take our state backwards. The good news is, you can fight the scurvy knaves by going to http://www.nocoalrush.com/.