Soot to Solar

The Crawford Generating Station in Chicago closed in 2012 following community organizing by the Little Village Environmental Justice Organization (LVEJO). While a 2012 memorandum of understanding required stakeholder input for redevelopment, Hilco Redevelopment Partners announced plans in 2018 to build a logistics facility, which LVEJO opposes due to the risk of increased diesel pollution. The Union of Concerned Scientists proposes an alternative: a 10 megawatt solar farm and a 10 megawatt energy storage installation, leveraging the site's existing grid infrastructure and brownfield status under the Future Energy Jobs Act.

• The Crawford Generating Station and Fisk Generating Station were the final coal-fired power plants operating within a major US city before their retirement, with Crawford closing in 2012 after a decade of organizing by the Little Village Environmental Justice Organization (LVEJO).
• Community stakeholders, including LVEJO, oppose Hilco Redevelopment Partners' 2018 proposal to convert the Crawford site into a logistics facility, arguing it would increase toxic diesel pollution in a neighborhood already affected by traffic from a Unilever plant.
• Technical analysis by the Union of Concerned Scientists indicates the Crawford site could support a 10 megawatt solar farm using 73 percent of the land and a 10 megawatt energy storage installation using 0.18 percent of the land.
• A solar transition at the Crawford site could utilize the Future Energy Jobs Act to access financial incentives for brownfield sites and create local employment through the Solar for All training program.

APA

Union of Concerned Scientists (2018). Soot to Solar. https://www.ucs.org/sites/default/files/attach/2018/10/Crawford-English-Case-Study.pdf

Chicago

Union of Concerned Scientists. Soot to Solar. 2018. https://www.ucs.org/sites/default/files/attach/2018/10/Crawford-English-Case-Study.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=Union of Concerned Scientists |title=Soot to Solar |date=October 2018 |url=https://www.ucs.org/sites/default/files/attach/2018/10/Crawford-English-Case-Study.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{unionofconcernedscientists2018soot, author = {{Union of Concerned Scientists}}, title = {{Soot to Solar}}, institution = {Union of Concerned Scientists}, year = {2018}, month = oct, url = {https://www.ucs.org/sites/default/files/attach/2018/10/Crawford-English-Case-Study.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }