Farris Willingham
GHG Monitor
06/15/12
The social costs of the pollution emitted from 18 of the nation’s dirtiest coal-fired power plants far exceed the retail cost of the electricity produced onsite, according to an Environmental Integrity Project report released this week. In the study, Boston University Professor of Environmental Health Jonathan Levy examined 51 coal-fired plants lacking modern pollution-control technologies for sulfur dioxide (SO2), nitrogen oxide (NOx) and fine particulate matter. He applied Environmental Protection Agency equations—calculations already controversial among many of the agency’s critics—to create upper-and lower-bound values for the cost of premature mortality from emissions from each coal-fired facility. Levy also incorporated data from the Department of Energy’s statistical arm, the Energy Information Administration, to determine the retail value of electricity generated at each plant in 2011. He found that pollution from those 51 facilities in total contributed to 2,700 to 5,700 premature deaths in 2011, which created a social cost between $23 billion and $47 billion. Of those 51 plants, 18 of them “contribute to premature deaths that cost society more than the estimated retail value of the electricity they generated in 2011,” according to the report.
The report says that due to the extreme social costs of the pollution generated from many of the assessed coal units, the retail value of electricity generated often dropped below zero into the negative millions. It also concludes that the upper bound of social costs surpassed retail values at nearly all the plants, producing a net loss for utilities in the hundreds of millions of dollars. “The social cost of premature deaths alone, excluding all other costs, can outweigh the entire retail value of electricity at a plant,” the report says.
Maintenance Periods Particularly Damaging, Study Says
The study says that the public is particularly vulnerable when plants go down during startup, shutdown and maintenance periods when utilities are not required to report emissions levels. “During these periods, pollution control technologies are typically not fully operated, if at all, and significant amounts of pollution can be emitted,” the study says. “Baghouses or electrostatic precipitators typically eliminate 99 percent of the fly ash from coal combustion that would otherwise be released as particle pollution. Failing to operate these controls for even a few hours can have a dramatic impact on emissions.”
EPI’s research excludes other factors that would affect the social costs and number of premature deaths at each plant, such as respiratory disease-related expenses connected to particulate matter and climate change. The omission of this data decreases the results depicted results, Levy said. “Most of the studies that EIP has done that are similar to this, that assign monetary values to help outcome find that premature mortality contributes a significant amount of the total,” he said. “We were confident that we captured a large amount of the impact by characterizing mortality, but clearly we left some things out, including all those items listed in the report. We felt this was a reasonable calculation that was slightly conservative, meaning not overestimating what the damages could be.”
In an interview with GHG Monitor, Levy said the report highlights a part of the pollution control debate that is often all but ignored. “What this study really contributed was, first, a focus on a small number of power plants that are not using modern pollution-control devices, and then especially comparing the cost of electricity generated versus the economic value of the health damages caused by the plant,” he said. “Seeing those numbers on the same scale for the subset of plants really emphasizes that there are aspects other than our bills that may be important in thinking about power plants.”
CSAPR Remains Stayed in Federal Court
The Environmental Protection Agency aimed to regulate SO2, NOx and fine particulate emissions as part of its Cross-State Air Pollution Rule as required under court-order. The Agency rolled out a final standard in July 2011 that compelled utilities in 28 Eastern and Midwestern states to install pollution-control technology and reduce SO2 emissions by 73 percent compared to 2005 levels and NOx by 54 percent. EPA said the rule would cost utilities $800 million annually to comply but would help lead to $280 billion in annual health benefits. However, the standard drew legal challenges and days before the rule was supposed to go into implementation on Jan. 1, 2012, a federal appeals court stayed the rulemaking until the case could be heard. A verdict is expected this summer. In the meantime, the rule remains stayed.
Opponents of CSAPR have argued that the standards are unnecessary and overly burdensome on utilities, killing jobs and stopping fragile economic recovery. Last fall, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) moved to halt the regulation via a resolution of disapproval, but his measure was defeated 56-41. He previously said the regulations were “so onerous” that they would “put utility plants out of business” and lead to the “inability to supply electricity to this country.”
