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Trend toward coal-fired power plants blackens America's future

No longer considered a fuel of the past, smoky, dirty coal is beginning to replace natural gas as a power-plant fuel in parts of the country where electrical companies are unable to obtain long-term contracts for gas at affordable prices.

Date published: 10/14/2002

LEXINGTON--If ever there was a question about the envir- onmental hazards from coal, it was dispelled with a recent study showing that the production of electricity at coal-fired power plants carries a deadly health risk.

The Harvard School of Public Health determined that soot and noxious chemicals emitted by coal-fired plants cause about 15,000 premature deaths annually in the United States. By comparison, 16,000 Americans are killed each year in drunken-driving accidents and 17,000 are victims of homicides.

The amount of coal being burned to produce electricity in the United States has reached 1.1 billion tons a year, and is rising. No longer considered a fuel of the past, coal is beginning to replace natural gas as a power-plant fuel in parts of the country where electrical companies are unable to obtain long-term contracts for gas at affordable prices.

Coal is also benefiting from the Bush administration's decision to relax air pollution rules for coal-fired power plants.

Of the new electric generation planned for the United States from now to 2005, as much as 16 percent is to come from coal. That is a major increase from two years ago when no coal-fired power plants were on the drawing board, and it is a sign that coal, whose reserves are estimated to be enough to power the country for the next 275 years, is on the rebound.

The worst polluters are older coal plants. Most of the units are in the Southeast and Midwest. After more than 30 years of operation, they are still exempt from the federal Clean Air Act's pollution controls.

Recently, the Environmental Protection Agency decided that older plants would not have to upgrade pollution-control equipment even if major improvements are made at the plants. Although the ruling is being appealed, it has undermined lawsuits that the Justice Department brought against utilities that own the plants.

Coal is the principal power-plant fuel. It is used to produce 50 percent of Virginia's electricity and 56 percent of the nation's power. But coal-fired electrical generation has severe adverse effects on public health and the environment. Besides emitting sulfur dioxide--which forms acid rain, and nitrogen oxides, which create smog--coal-burning releases large amounts of chemicals and toxic particles into the air, including arsenic, mercury, and lead.

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Date published: 10/14/2002