Washington (Platts)--7Sep2011/358 pm EDT/1958 GMT

The Sierra Club's effort to transition away from coal-fired power in the US has potentially cost 1.24 million jobs in 36 states, according to an analysis released Wednesday by the National Mining Association.

The Beyond Coal Campaign's mission, according to the Sierra Club, is to move away from coal by stopping construction of new coal-fired power plants, phasing out existing plants and keeping coal reserves in the ground and out of international markets.

By stopping construction of more than 150 coal-fired power plants, the campaign has "targeted for destruction 116,872 permanent jobs and an additional 1.12 million in construction jobs," NMA said. The numbers were calculated by Energy Ventures Analysis using the Sierra Club's information tracking proposed coal-fired power plants and coal plant employment data from the National Energy Technology Lab and RS Means Reed Construction Data, NMA said.

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"From this analysis, only two conclusions are possible: Either the Sierra Club is exaggerating its effectiveness, or its effectiveness is genuine but at the cost of hundreds of thousands of high-wage jobs for Americans struggling to find work in the middle of an historic unemployment crisis," NMA CEO Hal Quinn said in a statement Wednesday.

Bruce Nilles, deputy conservation director for the Sierra Club and one of the campaign's founders, said NMA's analysis does not take into account jobs created in other energy sectors because the coal-fired power plants were not built.

NMA's analysis found that Texas lost about 122,065 potential jobs because the campaign stopped the construction of 10 coal-fired power plants in Texas. Nilles pointed out that Texas leads the country in wind generation. The state has more than 2,000 wind turbines, according to the Energy Information Administration.

"You have to look at what the [coal-fired] power plants were replaced with," he said. "Wind, solar and natural gas have created thousands of jobs."

In July, the campaign received a $50 million donation from Bloomberg Philanthropies, which will make up one-third of the campaign's projected $150 million four-year budget. At the time, the campaign said the money will help it scale up its efforts on the ground and double its staff. One of the Sierra Club's goals is to cut coal production by 30% by 2020.

-Beth Ward, beth_ward@platts.com