WEST PADUCAH, Ky., Nov. 15 (UPI) — Alice Howell, a regional director for the Sierra Club, lauded the planned closing of two coal-fired units at a power plant in western Kentucky. “Kentucky is proving that it can move beyond coal,” she said in a statement Thursday. The Tennessee Valley Authority, a federally owned utility and economic development corporation, is retiring the units at the 50-year-old Paradise power-generating facility, the Sierra Club said. The advocacy group said the plant has 13.6 million tons of emissions every year. The TVA will compensate for the loss of power with a 1,000-megawatt natural gas plant, the Sierra Club said. The New York Times reported Thursday the closings are part of the TVA’s strategy to use less coal as a power source. The closings extend to coal-fired plants in Alabama. The TVA offered no deadline for when the plants’ coal units would shut down. […]