Back in December 2003 the Intermountain Power Agency described its plan to expand the coal-fired Intermountain Power Project in west-central Utah in glowing terms. IPA pamphlets said Unit 3 would be reliable and environmentally responsible; it was supported by the community, would be cost-efficient and fueled by America's "most abundant and economically stable energy resource" -- coal.

Today, Unit 3 is dead. Its air-quality permit from the state, appealed by environmental groups over issues of dirty air near Utah's national parks, has expired. It was killed by a growing awareness among Americans and their governments that CO2 emissions from burning coal are a dire threat to our planet and its inhabitants. It died because California recognizes there is no long-term future for coal-fired plants. Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, one of the largest original participants in the project, will accept no electricity from coal-fired plants after 2010.

The Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems, representing a group of 23 Utah towns and cities that buy power from IPA, once vowed to fight in court to get the permit granted but now has lost interest. Its members recouped in a lawsuit about $6.4 million of the money they had invested in Unit 3 and have moved on, we hope toward renewable energy sources.

The passing of Unit 3 could be a harbinger of things to come in the power industry. We hope so.

The Sierra Club, one of the groups that sued to

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halt Unit 3 construction, reports that of 150 new coal-fired power plants planned in the United States in recent years, 100 have been scrapped or shelved indefinitely. Two plants planned in Utah -- in Sevier County and near Vernal --are also being challenged in court.

The Obama administration, backed by reams of scientific reports that show a looming worldwide catastrophe if CO2 emissions continue to cook the Earth, is working to shift the nation's energy focus toward solar, wind and geothermal energy sources. IPP's Unit 3 claimed to be using the latest and best technology to clean its emissions, but now we understand that no technology can create clean power from coal. Only carbon capture and sequestration might offer a way to make coal burning tolerable, but the technology remains iffy.

Energy funding is best spent on technology to produce and deliver power from the sun, from wind and from inside the earth. IPP Unit 3 represented dirty power. We're not sorry to see it laid to rest.