Over the course of the last half century, the image of smoke stacks spewing soot from a coal plant on the western edge of Jersey City have become ingrained in the consciousness of it’s residents. The Hudson Generation Station has provided electricity for the region longer than most of it’s residents have been alive but that all changed this week. The power plant which sits on a 250 acre site along the Hackensack River has long been in the crosshairs of environmental activists.

This week, the plant will go offline forever, folding to increased taxes and pressure from the state government to modernize. Adding to the defeats for coal and the environmentalists victories the Mercer coal plant along the Delaware River in Trenton will close this week. The coal-power plant which has been open since 1960 has long been the target of environmental groups who claim it pollutes the water and air quality nearby. However, for some residents the end of these plants brings on a new time of economic hardship, approximately 100 people worked at each of the sites.

This leaves just one coal plant remaining active in New Jersey a state where energy production is now dominated by nuclear power and natural gas. The closures which have been planned since last year are part of a broader trend which has seen more than 250 coal plants close across the United States since 2010.

The Public Service Enterprise Group which owned both of the power plants being closed stated the closures were brought on by economic realities rather than environmental concerns. The falling price of natural gas throughout the United States has made many coal burning plants no longer economically viable. In this environment PSEG maintains it is more important than ever that nuclear plants remain in New Jersey’s power mix to ensure the state does not become reliant on a single fuel source.