Who’s keeping the coal industry alive? Fossil fuel oligarchs, and the private equity firms where they invest.
Who just divested from coal? CASTLETON COMMODITIES, which owned 50% of the Merrimack Generating Station. For years, the commodities trading firm Castleton Commodities and private equity firm Atlas Holdings propped up the extraction, transit, processing, combustion, and waste generation of coal in New England as the co-owners of Granite Shore Power, which in turn owns Merrimack Station.
As the co-owners of Granite Shore Power, Castleton and Atlas became major targets of our campaign, since Granite Shore Power is the entity capable of filing a retirement de-list bid to take the coal plant offline. A retirement de-list bid would remove Merrimack Station from the regional electrical grid and from eligibility to participate in grid operator ISO New England’s forward capacity auction (which dedicates between 10% and 20% of ratepayer electric bill payments to propping up the oldest, least economical, and dirtiest fossil fuel generators). This, in turn, would make the coal plant effectively inoperable.
Castleton Commodities has officially sold its stake in Granite Shore Power to Atlas Holdings. According to a recent report from NEPOOL, the region’s stakeholder advisory group, Castleton first filed to sell their stake in October 2021, and finalized the transaction in December. This move leaves Atlas Holdings as THE company responsible for keeping coal-fired electricity on the grid in New England.
The Castleton Commodities International (CCI) website states, “We have adopted a sustainability framework that guides our efforts to achieve alignment with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals outlined below. CCI has also committed that it will not engage in the marketing or trading of physical coal, and will not acquire any coal assets. In support of that commitment, CCI divested its interest in a coal-fired generation plant in 2021 and no longer owns any coal assets.”
Now, that’s a lot of big talk about sustainability from a firm that’s made millions off of investments in coal, oil, gas, and other dirty fossil fuels. As of today, Castleton still owns 3665 MW worth of oil- and gas-powered assets, and many extraction assets to boot. Sustainability is quite clearly not a true concern for them. So, how did we get here really?
For the past three years, activists with our campaign (and more recently the No Coal No Gas Corporate Working Group) have applied pressure to both Castleton and Atlas to divest from Granite Shore Power and retire the coal plant. Castleton’s divestment marks a major win in the corporate branch of No Coal No Gas’s campaign to close the Merrimack Station and end coal in New England.
Here’s a timeline of our anti-corporate efforts:
2019: First delivery of coal to Castleton headquarters. Local Connecticut interfaith and labor leaders carrying a bucket of coal are chased away from Castleton’s doors by police and a disgruntled building manager.
2019-2020: Direct actions targeting the coal plant and resupply trains highlight the absurdity of continuing to invest in coal.
2020-2021: Strikers with the New England Utility Strike participate in the Coal Bucket Challenge, mailing packages of coal to Granite Shore Power and regional grid decision makers.
Early 2021: the corporate working group forms and begins ramping up NCNG’s campaign against Castleton and Atlas, and performs detailed research on the investment firms behind Granite Shore Power.
Summer 2021: Kayak action at the plant declares Merrimack Station “closed” and forces the plant to shut down while running.
Early October 2021: Mass action at the plant announces No Coal No Gas’s intention to transition the land and demands that Castleton and Atlas cease their investments in coal.
October 20, 2021: Castleton Commodities files to sell its shares of Granite Shore Power to Atlas Holdings. (Source.)
November 2021: No Coal No Gas activists, carrying nothing but a message, are forced out of the Castleton Commodities office by a wave of security and police. They install protest art around the block and drop a banner from a Stamford Connecticut parking garage on their way out of town.
December 6, 2021: The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission approves the transfer of Castleton’s shares of Granite Shore Power to Atlas Holdings. Source.
Late December, 2021: activists with No Coal No Gas visit the homes of Atlas and Castleton CEOs, demanding that they announce their divestment from coal and file retirement de-list bids.
March 2022: No Coal No Gas launches an initiative to bombard Altas and Castleton CEOS with demands for a permanent de-list bid. It was in response to this pestering that Castleton representatives first announced that they were no longer invested in Granite Shore Power. They posted this announcement on their website:
Merrimack Station barely clears ISO-New England’s forward capacity auction, with Atlas Holdings receiving payments.
April 2022: Castleton Commodities goes public about their divestment from Granite Shore Power, and commits to never investing in coal in the future. (When asked if they would divest from coal too, Atlas shrugged.)
Onwards to the future: No Coal No Gas campaign to close Merrimack Station continues, with the Corporate Working Group targeting Granite Shore Power and its sole parent company, Atlas Holdings.
As you can see, Castleton’s announcement marks a significant victory in our campaign. Our hours of research, endless phone calls and emails, and multiple weeks of action have had powerful effects, and forced Castleton Commodities to concede to our demands. So, with this win behind us we just have one more private equity firm left, Atlas Holdings, which now owns 100% of the power plant. This is where things get even more serious, since Atlas has been turning coal and gas plants into horrific bitcoin mines. Atlas Holdings might plan on continuing to profit from climate catastrophe and environmental injustice, but not if we have anything to say about it. We of NCNG will be there to directly intervene in this process of harm. We aren’t near finished yet, but we will get Atlas Holdings to divest, and we will force Granite Shore Power to de-list this plant. We will shut down Merrimack Station.
