In what is perhaps a beautiful foretelling of our energy future – crowds gathered in St. Paul Minnesota yesterday to watch a coal smokestack come crashing down.

Hundreds of people cheered as they witnessed the skyline and the air quality of the region become a little bit cleaner. The 570 foot coal smokestack was part of the Xcel Energy High Bridge Energy Plant, and its demolition marks a symbolic indicator of what our energy future will look like.

In the words of top climate scientist James Hansen from NASA’s Goddard Research Center

“We’re going to have to bulldoze the old style coal fired power plants.”

Well, in Minnesota, they are taking him at his word. As the movement for clean energy grows – one of our priorities is to take the dynamite currently used to blow up mountains in Appalachia and instead see it used to demolish the smokestacks of the ~600 remaining coal plants here in the US. One down, 600 more to go.

As recently illustrated in Hawaii (where a new bill requires all new homes to include solar technology), and in Rockport Missouri (which installed enough wind turbines to power 100% of it’s energy needs) – the solutions for a clean-energy future are at hand – we just need the political will to make it happen. Building a clean energy economy can provide more jobs (and better jobs!) for our communities, contribute to a low/no carbon energy future, clean up our air quality and save billions in health care costs (and lives lost), and work towards a just economy for all.

Watch this short video below of the demolition.