Clean Power Plants

Most Americans think of electricity as clean energy, but power plants are actually the single worst industrial contributor to air pollution in the United States. Nationally, power plants are responsible for 67 percent of total sulfur dioxide emissions, 23 percent of nitrogen oxide emissions, 37 percent of mercury emissions, and 40 percent of man-made carbon dioxide emissions.1

When the Clean Air Act was enacted 35 years ago, big utility companies successfully lobbied against stringent controls by claiming that their oldest, dirtiest power plants would soon be replaced by new state-of-the-art facilities.2 These old, unregulated power plants pollute up to ten times more than newer, regulated plants. Many older facilities—which were already outdated in 1970—are still in use. In some cases, power plants from 1922 are still in operation and do not come close to meeting the environmental requirements that every new facility must follow.3

Nearly 19,000 premature deaths could be avoided if loophole power plants were made to conform with modern clean air laws. Pollutants from grandfathered power plants blow from state to state and cause asthma attacks and respiratory diseases.4 Experts estimate 603,000 asthma attacks nationwide could be avoided if loophole power plants conformed with modern clean air laws.

Loophole power plants waste as much as two-thirds of the energy in the fuel they burn.5 The replacement of outdated equipment in power plants can nearly double their fuel efficiency. Just as new cars, furnaces, refrigerators, and all other power-consuming devices operate more efficiently than they did 50 years ago, power plants that modernize their equipment will dramatically increase their efficiency and pass savings onto consumers over time.

Modern power plants are less likely to break down than old loophole-protected plants. In fact, cutbacks in the efforts to modernize power plants directly contributed to power shortfalls recently experienced in California. With sufficient notice and lead time, power plant operators can schedule needed retrofits without affecting the reliability of energy output.

In December 2005, seven states (CT, DE, ME, NH, NJ, NY, VT) signed the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, a cap-and-trade program aimed at reducing total carbon dioxide emissions by ten percent over 15 years. Through a system of credits and allowances, the seven states will freeze power plant emissions at current levels through 2015, then reduce them incrementally over the following four years. In 2006, Idaho adopted a two-year moratorium on the building or permitting of coal-fired power plants. Also in 2006, the governors of Illinois, Michigan and Pennsylvania ordered state regulations that direct a 90 percent reduction in power plants’ mercury emissions over a period of years. Maryland enacted the Healthy Air Act in 2006. The Act requires upgrades to outdated power plants.