May. 14, 2005
Pollution producers
Clean up power plants before building more
The administrations in Frankfort and Washington boost "clean
coal" technologies for increasing the supply of electricity and the
demand for coal.
But as long as Kentucky has eight of the nation's dirtiest power plants,
it's hard to want new ones.
Even if the new generators are dramatically cleaner, they'll still
pollute. And when the power is intended for export to other states, it
gets even harder to justify damaging Kentuckians' health to make
electricity that Kentuckians don't need.
That's one point to draw from "Dirty Kilowatts: America's Most
Polluting Power Plants," by the Environmental Integrity Project
(www.environmentalintegrity.org).
Another point: Kentucky power plants are cleaner than just a few years
ago. Too bad the Bush administration wants to ease the pressure to keep
improving.
The report considered data from the nation's largest power plants, those
producing more than 2 million megawatt hours. It analyzed four kinds of
pollution -- sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, mercury and carbon dioxide
-- that contribute to smog and soot, put a brain-damaging toxin into the
environment and contribute to global warming.
The dirtiest plants produce 14 percent of the nation's power but a much
higher proportion of the pollution.
Kentucky has 15 power plants producing more than 2 million megawatt
hours. Eight were among the top 50 producers of at least one of the
pollutants. A sign of progress, only two in Kentucky -- TVA's Paradise
and Shawnee power plants -- were among the 50 largest producers of
nitrogen oxides or NOx. The others avoided this blacklist because they
were required to invest more than $1 billion in better NOx controls,
which had the added benefit of providing hundreds of good-paying
construction jobs.
The best way to make way for the next generation of coal-fired power
plants is for the Bush and Fletcher administrations to insist on cleaning
up the ones we already have.
John Blair
800 Adams Avenue
Evansville, IN 47713
812-464-5663
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