Conscious Choice: Dirty, Coal-Fired Power Plants in Illinois

February 2001 | News of the Earth

Dirty, Coal-Fired Power Plants in Illinois

by Dave Aftandilian

When the U.S. Congress updated the Clean Air Act in 1970 and 1977, it exempted coal-burning power plants that had been built before 1977 from complying with the stricter air pollution emission requirements. Who would have believed that these aging plants would still be going strong twenty-five or more years later? In some cases there has been almost no modernization of the equipment. Who would have thought that we would be seeing a significant increase in power produced from these grandfathered plants in the 1990s (partly as a result of the nationwide move toward electricity deregulation)? In Illinois, twenty-four such dirty coal plants continue to belch filth into the air today, despite numerous studies demonstrating the appalling extent of their pollution and the severe dangers such pollution poses to public health and the environment.

The Clear the Air campaign notes on its Web site that "in terms of volume and variety of contaminants emitted, no other single industry comes close to matching the negative impact from electric power plants. They are the single largest industrial source of some of our worst air pollutants, including sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, carbon dioxide, and mercury. Among power plants, the dirty old coal-fired facilities produce the most pollution." Older coal plants produce as much as ten times more sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides than newer coal plants, and higher amounts of other pollutants as well.

In 1998, the first year that electric utilities were required to report to the EPA’s publicly available Toxics Release Inventory (TRI), power plants ranked number one for air emissions in the TRI data, and number two for total TRI releases (behind metal mining). Electric utilities released more than one billion pounds of toxic pollution in 1998, and more toxic chemical air pollution than the chemical, paper, plastics, and refining industries combined. Coal- and oil-fired power plants released nearly nine million pounds of toxic metals and metal compounds into the air and land in 1998. Many of those materials are known or suspected carcinogens or neurotoxins. These same power plants emitted between twenty-seven and fifty-four times more acid gases than chemical plants that actually manufacture these gases as products, because the power plants are exempt from federal emissions standards regulating acid gas pollution.

The bad news about power plant pollution doesn’t stop there. EPA data from 1997 show that power plants emitted 36 percent of the total carbon dioxide pollution in the United States that year (two billion tons), 64 percent of the sulfur dioxide (thirteen million tons), 26 percent of the nitrogen oxides (six million tons), and 34 percent of mercury emissions from all known sources (fifty-two tons). According to a National Academy of Sciences report released last June, power plants, especially coal-fired ones, are the single largest source of mercury pollution. While only 56 percent of power plants in the United States are fueled with coal, those coal-fired plants accounted for most of the pollutants emitted by the entire electric industry — more than 93 percent of nitrogen oxides, 96 percent of sulfur dioxide, more than 88 percent of carbon dioxide, and 99 percent of mercury emissions — according to EPA’s Acid Rain Program.

Sulfur dioxide is a leading source of fine particulate pollution (particles smaller than the width of a human hair) that can penetrate deeply into the lungs. Nitrogen oxides are a main ingredient of smog (ground-level ozone). In addition to causing respiratory problems for children, people with asthma, the elderly, and outdoor workers, smog also reduces crop productivity — annual losses due to ozone for soybeans alone in Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio are estimated at between $198.6 million and $345.6 million. Both sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides also help cause acid rain, which may be carried hundreds of miles by the wind, damaging forests, corroding buildings, and killing fish in lakes and streams along the way. Mercury can cause severe neurological and developmental injuries to humans (particularly infants and children) as well as wildlife.

Power Plants and Public Health

A number of recent epidemiological studies have quantified the public health effects of air pollution from power plants and other sources. Writing in the December 2000 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, researchers from Johns Hopkins University found that soot (fine particles) and dust in the air cause between 20 and 200 premature deaths each day in America’s major cities, including Chicago. The lead author of the study, Dr. Jonathan M. Samet, said that "when we look nationally, we see an effect of particles on mortality that suggests there is a public health problem. The science continues to indict particles and their role in mortality." The researchers also found that death rates climb steadily in direct proportion to the amount of particulates emitted — more pollution causes more deaths. When they proposed new legislation to regulate fine particles in 1997, the EPA estimated costs of cleaning up these particles at $10 billion per year, compared to public health benefits estimated at between $20 billion and $100 billion per year. (Polluting industries have challenged the EPA regulations, and the case is currently before the U.S. Supreme Court.)

Last October Abt Associates completed a study for the Clean Air Task Force which John Spengler of the Harvard School of Public Health called "the most rigorous look to date at the contribution of air emissions from the nation’s power plants to fine particle levels and the impact of those emissions on public health." The study found that fine particle pollution from these plants shortens the lives of more than 30,000 Americans every year (1,700 in Illinois) and causes hundreds of thousands of asthma attacks, cardiac problems, and upper and lower respiratory tract problems. In other words, pollution from dirty power plants kills more people every year than drunk drivers (16,000 deaths each year) or murderers (17,000 deaths per year). The elderly, children, and those with respiratory diseases are most severely impacted by this pollution; people living in metropolitan areas near coal-fired plants are more at risk than those who live far from power plants. The study concluded that "approximately two-thirds (more than 18,000) of the deaths due to fine particle pollution from power plants could be avoided by implementing policies that cut power plant sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide pollution 75 percent below 1997 emission levels."

Last month, the Harvard School of Public Health released a study of the health effects of fine particle pollution from nine coal-fired power plants in Illinois, each of which is more than twenty-five years old. (The plants are located in Chicago, Joliet, Waukegan, Pekin, Hennepin, Bartonville, and Romeoville.) The study found that each year, these power plants are linked to an estimated 300 deaths; 13,900 asthma attacks; 2,600 emergency room visits; and 500,000 incidents of upper respiratory disease; "in general, per capita health risks were greater closer to the power plants and decreased with distance. The greatest impacts from current emissions and benefits from potential reductions occur near Chicago and Peoria." About two-thirds of these health impacts could be avoided by requiring these plants to meet modern air pollution emission limits, according to the study.

Fixing the Problem

Given the mounting evidence linking the heavy air pollution from coal-fired power plants with serious public health risks and environmental damage, the question is not so much whether these plants should be cleaned up, but how — through voluntary standards, or by setting new government-mandated controls and limits? John Thompson, Director of Clean Air Programs for the Illinois Environmental Council (IEC), told me his organization feels that "voluntary standards are inappropriate due to the number of deaths and public health risk. It’s like asking a drunk driver to voluntarily stop drinking, or a murderer to voluntarily stop killing. We need to set limits and enforce them."

Several bills have been introduced at the federal and state levels to clean up dirty coal-fueled power plants. In the U.S. Congress, sponsors of good bills are Representatives Henry A. Waxman (D-CA) and Sherwood L. Boehlert (R-NY) in the House ("Clean Smokestacks Act") and Senators Jim Jeffords (R-VT) and Joe Lieberman (D-CT) in the Senate ("Clean Energy Act"). Although legislation on this issue failed to pass in Illinois in 1999, several politicians are planning to try again this session, including recently reelected State Senator Christine Radogno (R-LaGrange), State Representative Ricca C. Slone (D-Peoria Heights), and State Representative Kurt M. Granberg, Assistant Majority Leader (D-Carlyle). If these bills pass, some of the older plants will probably be retired (and likely replaced in the short term with natural gas-fueled plants), while others will be retrofitted with existing technology to clean up their emissions to acceptable levels.

For the long term, "we need to take a step back and develop a comprehensive energy policy in Illinois and across the country, including renewable energy from wind, solar, and other sources," according to Diane Brown, director of Illinois Public Interest Research Group. John Thompson of the IEC suggests that a major component of this policy should be energy conservation, about which very little has been said lately despite high heating oil and natural gas prices this winter and recurring power shortages last summer. "With economic growth and deregulation, utilities have largely given up on energy conservation," says Thompson. "We need to do more work to cut the demand for electricity. Think about prevention — when you go to the doctor because you’re overweight, he doesn’t prescribe bigger pants; he puts you on a diet."

And, of course, we need to stop subsidizing fossil fuels and start leveling the playing field for renewable energy instead. If the costs to public health, the environment, and crops from dirty fossil-fueled power plants were included in the price of the power they generate, power from the much cleaner-burning wind and solar sources would suddenly look much more affordable. Unless we begin to write the social and environmental costs of cheap power from dirty coal into the energy equation, we’ll continue to squander our health and that of our children and our environment.

You can help. Contact the organizations below for more information. Then write your federal, state, and local officials and ask them to pass legislation with mandatory controls to clean up dirty coal-fired power plants and invest in renewable energy. At the state level, it’s especially important to get Governor Ryan on board; if he takes the lead, others will follow (Governor George Ryan, 207 Statehouse, Springfield, IL 62706; 800-642-3112; E-mail: governor@state.il.us).

And in the meantime, switch off lights you’re not using, turn down the thermostat this winter and the air conditioner next summer, and consider buying more energy-efficient bulbs and appliances when you need to replace the ones you’re using now.

Resources

Clear the Air, 202-887-1715, Admin@cleanerpower.org

Illinois Environmental Council, 217-544-5954, iec@ilenviro.org

Illinois Public Interest Research Group, 312-364-0096, illinoispirg@pirg.org,

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