Sixteen Greenpeace activists were arrested today after they broke into a Progress Energy power plant complex in Asheville before dawn to protest the destruction and damage caused by coal-burning power plants.

Some of the protesters, equipped with harnesses and climbing gear, scaled equipment and were dangling from nets, according to local news coverage.

They were arrested after unfurling a banner 400 feet above the ground on a smoke stack that read: "Duke Energy: The climate needs real Progress."

"They're all experienced climbers," said Greenpeace spokeswoman Keiller MacDuff. "Non-violent civil disobedience of this type does bear some inherent risk, which is why it's so courageous of these activists to put themselves in these positions."

MacDuff said Greenpeace is highlighting the environmental damage caused by Raleigh-based Progress because the company is in the midst of a corporate merger with Charlotte-based Duke Energy, which will result in the largest electric utility in the country.

Progress Energy today fired up a new power plant as the power company shifts from burning coal to using cleaner fuels to generate electricity.

The Raleigh-based electric company today commissioned a gas-fired power plant into service in Richmond County. The $575 million, 600-megawatt unit had been in development and construction for about four years.

It's the first of several gas-fired power plants the company plans to build as it phases out older, dirtier power plants. Progress abandoned building new coal-burning plants several years ago and subsequently moved to start shutting down older plants in anticipation of stricter environmental regulations that would raise the cost of using coal to generate power.

Wanted: A few hundred good men (and women) to build a power plant.

Progress Energy and its principal contractor on a planned $900 million power plant are holding a vendor fair for subcontractors interested in bidding on the construction project.

At the height of construction the project will employ as many as 500 people, said Progress spokesman Mike Hughes.

Progress Energy today proposed shutting down 11 coal-burning power plants in the state, a move that signals the beginning of the end of the dirty coal era that has defined the state's electricity production for decades.

The Raleigh-based electric utility is moving to shutter older coal-burning plants as it becomes increasingly expensive to retrofit aging facilities to trap pollution. Additionally, power companies across the country are anticipating stringent greenhouse gas restrictions to be imposed soon by Congress that will have the effect of penalizing coal-dependent utilities like Progress.

More than half the state's electricity is produced by coal, an abundant domestic source of energy that's lost favor because it emits carbon dioxide, believed to be a major contributor to global warming. The United States has more than 200 years of coal reserves, but in recent years dozens of power companies have scrapped plans to build new coal power plants in the environmental backlash against global warming.