Death and Disease from Power Plants

[wtmusic]

"In 2000 and again in 2004, Abt Associates issued a study commissioned by the Clean Air Task Force quantifying the deaths and other health affects attributable to the fine particle pollution from power plants. In this newly updated study, CATF examines the progress towards cleaning up one of the nation's leading sources of pollution. The report finds that over 13,000 deaths each year are attributable to fine particle pollution from U.S. power plants. This is almost half the impact that our 2004 study found and is reflective of the impact that state and federal actions have had in reducing power plant emissions by roughly half. However, much more still needs to be done.

The interactive map below allows you to learn of the risk in your state or county simply by clicking on the Google Map below. You can click on your state, zoom into your county, or click on a power plant to view a variety of health impacts and other data. A new tool also available is a downloadable Google Earth file, which once downloaded and launched in Google Earth, will allow you to explore a whole host of data and health impacts around the country."

http://www.catf.us/coal/problems/power_plants/existing/

[hunter]

1. Coal ought to be left in the ground.

Digging it up and burning it is dirty and stupid and may ultimately be the root cause of several billion human deaths and the extinction of a significant fraction of earth's species.

[txlibdem]

2. That's only the deaths from fine particulates, the total coal deaths are over 40,000 a year

Don't forget about the Mercury, Arsenic, Lead, Selenium, radioactive materials and the other toxic pollutants that float freely out of the coal plant smokestacks.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal#Environmental_effects

My favorite quote from the link: "Coal-fired power plants without effective fly ash capture are one of the largest sources of human-caused background radiation exposure."

[wtmusic]

3. Where are you getting your 40,000 figure?

24,000 deaths in Wikipedia is old; they've been approximately cut in half since 2004 by fly ash capture.

[txlibdem]

4. Harvard University study

http://www.catf.us/resources/publications/files/The_Toll_from_Coal.pdf
"Secondly, EPA estimated the lives saved by the Transport Rule as a range
(i.e., 14,000 to 36,000 lives annually). The lower number of this range is
based on the results from the American Cancer Society study (Pope et al.
2002) and the higher number is based on the Harvard Six-Cities Study
(Laden et al. 2006)." -- page 7 of 16

[txlibdem]

5. The Toll From Coal

http://www.catf.us/resources/publications/view/138
The Toll from Coal: An Updated Assessment of Death and Disease from America's Dirtiest Energy Source
Published: September 2010

Among all industrial sources of air pollution, none poses greater risks to human health and the environment than coal-fired power plants. Emissions from coalfired power plants contribute to global warming, ozone smog, acid rain, regional haze, and–perhaps most consequential of all from a public health standpoint – fine particle pollution.

Forgot to add the source article where I found the PDF. Sorry.

[wtmusic]

6. Thanks, I hadn't seen this. nt

[txlibdem]

7. You're welcome. Funny how the Bush administration chose to go with the smaller number...

Two oil men at the helm may have had something to do with that: don't want to open a fossil fuels pollution death count can of worms, right?