Prairie State Energy Campus is a 1,600 megawatt base load, coal-fired, electrical power station and coal mine near Marissa, Illinois southeast of St. Louis, Missouri. Prairie State Energy Campus (PSEC) features low levels of regulated emissions compared to other coal-fired power stations, capturing sulfur from high-sulfur coal mined nearby instead of transporting low-sulfur coal from elsewhere. Ken Bone, a power plant worker who asked a question during a 2016 Presidential debate, is employed at Prairie State. He is a Control Room Operator. Project Proposed and led by Peabody Energy Corporation, the project is jointly owned by public electric utilities with Peabody initially retaining 5% ownership. It is operated by Prairie State Generating Company, LLC. The first 800 MW generator went online in June and the second in November, 2012. The project's Lively Grove underground mine was constructed to produce 6 million tons of high sulfur coal per year. In 2019 it was the 26th largest coal mine in the country, producing 6.4 million short tons of coal. PSEC stated it will be "among the cleanest major coal-fueled plants in the nation" through use of pollution mitigation technology, producing as low as one-fifth the levels of regulated pollutants as typical U.S. coal-fired plants. Noting that projected emissions nevertheless include 25,000 tons of soot and smog-forming pollutants yearly, the Sierra Club and other organizations unsuccessfully sued to stop the EPA granting an air permit. As of 2/6/2019, the plant's ownership consists of nine municipal public power agencies including American Municipal Power, Inc. (23.3%), Illinois Municipal Electric Agency (15.2%), Indiana Municipal Power Agency (12.6%), Missouri Joint Municipal Electric Utility Commission (12.3%), Prairie Power Inc.(8.2%), Southern Illinois Power Cooperative (7.9%), Kentucky Municipal Power Agency (7.8%), Northern Illinois Municipal Power Agency (7.6%), Wabash Valley Power Association (5.1%). Carbon Dioxide Emissions During construction the Chicago Tribune asserted PSEC would be the "largest source of carbon dioxide built in the United States in a quarter-century." The company projected a 15% reduction in carbon dioxide () pollution compared with other coal-fired power plants based on its use of efficient supercritical steam generators and no emissions from transporting coal. Judging that regulatory limits on carbon emissions were not likely in the near future, Peabody chose not to employ a more expensive integrated gasification combined cycle design that could more easily be retrofitted with carbon capture technology. The Environmental Protection Agency first proposed limits in March 2012. The limit of