The 'Toxic 20' States Suffering Air Pollution From Power Plants (PHOTOS)

New analysis from the Natural Resources Defense Council has made a list of the top 20 states with the most toxic air pollution from coal- and oil-fired power plants.

The study looked at toxic emissions data from 2009, released last month by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Among the findings are that almost half of all the toxic air pollution from industrial sources reported in the U.S. comes from coal and oil-fired power plants.

As Reuters reported while citing the study, toxic emissions can lead to or worsen asthma and cancer.

This week, New York Mayor Bloomberg donated $50 million to help end coal power production. In March, the American Lung Association estimated that particle pollution from power plants kills approximately 13,000 people a year.

Check to see if your state is on the list. The states are ranked from #1-20, with #1 being the state with the most toxic air pollution from power plants.

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20. Iowa

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[sunsetter]

02:48 PM on 08/19/2011

Gee, where are all the green energy jobs? Many of those companies are going bankrupt. It was all too easy to predict. State controlled decision making for business is ALWAYS a failure. Successful businesses are organically grown to meet demand - there has been negligible demand for green energy, since most people can't afford it.

[Robert Secrist]

05:03 PM on 08/17/2011

Cut pollution, create jobs, reduce dependence on fossil fuels, encourage new industries, and much more all at the same time. How? Create national charging system for electric cars. Mandate that the power come from non-nuclear & non-fossil fuel. Kill many birds with one stone. Too sensible for our politicians? Probably. Too bad for America? Definitely!

[Kenz300]

01:35 PM on 08/14/2011

Republicans hate regulation and think business can self regulate. They want to end the EPA.

The financial collapse needed more regulation not less.......

The BP disaster in the Gulf needed more regulation not less.........

The Massey coal mine disaster needed more regulation not less.......

The Nuclear disaster in Japan needed more regulation not less.....

We all need clean air, safe water and safe food. Republicans are interested in giving more tax breaks to the top 2% and corporations at the expense of the average American.

When will average Americans wake up from their FAUX NOISE induced coma and see what Republicans are doing to our country in the name of greed.

Republicans will end medicare and give you a voucher if they get a chance. Good luck finding an insurance company that will insure you at a price you can afford. They will also end social security and replace it with a 201K. You children will never be able to retire.

Wake up America and stop listening to the simple minded slogans of the right. You are voting against you own self interests.

[rpr]

10:35 PM on 08/06/2011

Somebody elected the officials who voted for or against limits. You get what you sow. End of story.

[mamacat]

09:52 PM on 08/05/2011

California is not even in the top 20. Yea for us!!

We have been working to get off of coal and to clean up our air for 40 years now, and it is showing dividends. It can be done. Can't be done overnight, but the longest journey starts with a single step, as the Chinese say.

BTW, Los Angeles basin will always have smog, because the mountains form a basin that inhibits the movement of air laterally, and the summer time inversion prevents the upward movement of air. Back in the day when the Spanish first came here, it has been reported, the indigenous Indians had a name for the Los Angeles area that referred to it as a place of smoke, or bad air.

[catlover68]

12:19 AM on 07/31/2011

I'm glad to not see NJ on one of these lists for a change...

[energydem]

05:35 PM on 07/30/2011

We could reduce CO2 emissions by 20%, mercury emissions by 33%, and NOX emissions by 32% if we simply forced the dispatch of surplus NGCC gas capacity. This would require no new investment in generation, it is currently under-utilized. It is the only large scale option we have for immediate reduction of GHGs from power generation.

[atomicrod]

04:34 AM on 07/31/2011

I'll do you one better - what if we replaced the ancient coal plants that need to be retired anyway with brand new nuclear plants that will be providing reliable, affordable electricity for the next 60-80 years using fuel that does not emit any air pollution at all?

Instead of enriching the multinational petroleum pushers by burning natural gas in power plants, we could redirect the use of gas into filling up vehicles and reducing our dependence on oil that is supplied by unstable places in the world or by a vastly destructive mining of the Boreal forests in Alberta. Natural gas makes good vehicle fuel - why waste it in power plants when there is a much cleaner and cheaper alternative?

Did you know that the heat from emission free commercial nuclear fuel only costs about $0.60 per million BTU while even "cheap" natural gas is selling for $4.50 per million BTU here in the US and $13 per million BTU as LNG in Japan?

Rod Adams
Publisher, Atomic Insights

[energydem]

07:55 PM on 07/31/2011

Nuclear is way too expensive, the cost per ton of CO2 emissions would be much higher. Furthermore, it would take 10 years at least to get nuclear plants approved and built. As I said, switching from coal to NGCC plants is the only thing we can do immediately, at scale, to reduce CO2 emissions. This is critical because we need to start now, not in 10 years.

[mamacat]

09:59 PM on 08/05/2011

There was an article in Scientific American magazine earlier this year reporting that the Tennessee Valley Authority had closed down fully 1% of America's coal fired electrical plants in one swoop. Eighteen coal plants, closed down. Getting off of coal will go a long way toward cleaning up the air.

I know we can't afford to shut down our nuclear plants over night, but most Americans are now convinced that nuclear was a bad idea to begin with. The true cost of nuclear is very high, and the potential for disaster is like a strung arrow, just waiting to be shot from the bow. We don't know when the next nuclear accident will happen, but we can be pretty sure that it will definitely happen, again and again and again, until we finally shut them all down.

[mamacat]

10:27 PM on 08/05/2011

Using natural gas is better than using coal, but using it only postpones the inevitable. It does not solve our problems. We need to stop taking the carbon that was sequestered in the ground over hundreds of millions of years, and, as a byproduct of producing energy, dumping it back into the atmosphere from whence it came.

The technology to use alternative sources of power is being developed, despite efforts by some of the carbon selling industries to prevent it.

[MrHeatXchange]

10:55 AM on 07/29/2011

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[Michael Mann]

12:01 PM on 07/25/2011

Nuclear energy is the answer, the boondoggle that coal fired plants must be used to refine uranium is ridiculus. The best answer is build more nuclear plants to enrich the uranium without burning any coal! The amount of energy needed to enrich uranium is insignificant when compared to the energy output of a nuclear power plant, which is why fuel cost is a minor expense for nuclear energy. LFTR reactors do not require any enrichment, thorium is currently a byproduct of rare earth mining, totally eliminating that already weak argument.

[Anthony C Stewart]

09:39 AM on 07/26/2011

personally, i vote hell no to nuke plants..... lets find some other, natural sources that dont run the risk of Chernobyling

[Michael Mann]

10:52 AM on 07/26/2011

Chernobyl was an inferior design, dual use for weapons making capability coupled with poor training, violation of safety procedures and over-ride of automatic safety functions, plants in the USA do NOT run the risk of "Chernobyli­ng" Nuclear power plants are as "natural" as any electrical generation, have you ever heard of the "Oklo" reactor? The more you know about nuclear energy, the more you realize the advantages it has over the other ways to produce electricity, it has shown to be safer, cleaner, and more reliable than any other method currently in use. Know Nukes!

[atomicrod]

04:21 AM on 07/31/2011

One Chernobyl in 50 years of commercial nuclear power plant operation sure beats decades and decades of continuous dumping of toxic waste material from routine operation of coal fired power plants.

Besides, it is not like coal plants themselves are very safe or that their fuel is magically extracted and transported without a rather poor safety record. Even in our much enlightened times with better mine safety rules, there are still several thousand people killed every year in coal mine accidents and there are several tens of thousands of new cases of black lung and other mining related diseases.

Nuclear fission is clean enough to run inside sealed submarines and buildings. It is safe enough that I encouraged my son-in-law to become a submarine officer so he could spend months at a time with a plant less than 200 feet away. I enjoyed my own time on submarines and thought he would too.

Rod Adams
Publisher, Atomic Insights

[toxicity]

08:57 PM on 08/02/2011

I am for higher efficiency on the consumption side.

[Josephus]

10:04 AM on 07/25/2011

Interesting that Illinois, Ohio and Kentucky are on the list considering that there are huge coal fired plants in each state that provide the needed electricity for the enrichment of uranium. Contrary to the industry's propaganda, nuclear energy is responsible for a significant amount of greenhouse gases in the Ohio Valley region where these states and coal fired plants are located.

[atomicrod]

04:29 AM on 07/31/2011

You are spouting nonsense. The total energy invested in enriching uranium in the United States is approximately equal to the output of two large coal fired power plants. It is an average of about 2,000 MWe. That number, however, is soon to fall rather dramatically when the last remaining Korean Era gaseous diffusion enrichment facility is replaced by the centrifuge plants. One new centrifuge plant started up last year in Eunice, New Mexico and another one is being built at Eagle Rock, ID.

That technology is the best example of an energy efficiency improvement made anywhere in the world. The 2,000 MWe or so required to operate a gaseous diffusion plant becomes closer to 50 MWe for the same output when running centrifuges.

I visited the George Bessee II construction site in France last summer. They were replacing George Bessee I (a gaseous diffusion plant consuming an average of 2,700 MWe) with a multi-stage centrifuge facility that will consume just 50 MWe. The site included three 900 MWe nuclear power plants that had been built to supply the enrichment plant. By investing about $3 billion euros in the new technology, Areva was essentially "building" the equivalent of almost three new nuclear plants because their output would be able to be directed to suppling other customers instead of using the output of three plants to provide the fuel for 59 plants.

Rod Adams
Publisher, Atomic Insights

[LastStar]

09:30 AM on 07/25/2011

So glad we live in the North West! Like so many issues the "denier"republican party "owns" the anti-environment label. Kinda like their mindless mantra "leesss regulaaaation!" Clearly, the party of the st*pids.

[Steelsil]

05:05 PM on 07/24/2011

The title should be, "Koch Brothers poison people in 20 states."

[getoffmedz]

02:34 PM on 07/24/2011

The title should be Toxic America.

[usaxyzhosay]

05:39 AM on 07/24/2011

LA has smog (ozone - good for the atmosphere, not your lungs (burns them up) but great for UV sunscreen and sun burn reduction. It is the mercury in burning coal that is at issue. California doesn't use the coal. But mind you if as some people say, this is merely a tree hugging environmental issue, then why do they have 1000' chimneys? Cut those chimneys down to 50' or just above the boiler (100') and while they are at it, remove the scrubbers and dust precipitators! It is people like this that would love 100 octane gasoline with tetraethyl lead in it and the lead emissions all along the road sides. I don't know anyone with lead or mercury poisoning, do you. All a big hype! (And if you believe the hype, I have a bridge to sell you)

[Dave McRae]

04:34 AM on 08/01/2011

The chimneys are that high because it burns the fuel more efficiently and completely that way. It's a design issue. There are books on the topic in the library.

[mamacat]

10:19 PM on 08/05/2011

High octane gasoline is no longer made with lead. High octane gas is available, but it is unleaded, like it says on the side of the pump.

Studies were published back in the day of leaded gasoline, showing that the 300 feet on either side of major throughways were heavily contaminated with lead fallout from burning leaded gasoline. It is not a myth, or a hypothetical, but a fact. Anyone who had to spend a lot of time in a house, school, car, or factory in that zone, or use the products made in that zone, were exposed to lead fallout from the gasoline.

It would be difficult to find anyone in the 21st century who has suffered lead poisoning from gasoline, since we have been using mostly lead free gasoline for a few decades now. A long time ago I talked to people who worked on the development of leaded gasoline, and they told me that many people suffered lead poisoning during the development of using leaded gas.

Ozone at low altitude is not good for animals or plants. It is a corrosive irritant. As you say, it is a matter of where it is located.

It isn't only the mercury in coal that is the issue, although mercury is not good for humans. The CO2, the particulates, the increased acidity in surface water caused by the coal plants, the sulfur, and the other heavy metals besides mercury, are all dangerous pollutants.

[Malcolm Hensley]

12:58 PM on 07/23/2011

So let me see if I got this right the air quality in Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, etc, etc. is worse than L.A.?

Seems to be one of those reports; "This is our conclusion lets gather the facts to support our conclusions!"

[wm1]

10:21 PM on 07/23/2011

Let us also read carefully. This is not about "air quality" it is about specific discharges. Might the article mislead? Sure, but is that a valid reason for your own?

[snarkwaupaca]

08:02 AM on 07/24/2011

Your right because if it was about air quality they missed out on cars and near roadway toxicity which EPA's monitoring network is poor at recognizing and that the TRI does a poor job of recognizing anything smaller than a county.

[snarkwaupaca]

07:58 AM on 07/24/2011

The article has just informed you what states are top of the list for 50% of industrial emissions(other studies show it is as low as 15%) which are 20% of all air toxic emissions. It also fails to include the states that use that power. For example do you think Ohio uses all that power they generate, but New York is not on the list? No Ohio sends the power to smug New Yorkers who still complain about the pollution from Ohio plants and then say look at us we're clean.