Deaths from coal pollution have fallen, but the emissions can be twice as deadly
Coal, the dirtiest fossil fuel, is far more harmful to human health than previously thought, according to a new report, which found that coal emissions are associated with double the mortality risk compared to fine airborne particles from other sources .
The study, published Thursday in the journal Science, linked coal pollution to 460,000 deaths among Medicare recipients aged 65 and older between 1999 and 2020.
Yet the study also showed that during that period the closure of coal-fired power stations in the United States, coupled with the installation of gas scrubbers in the chimneys to ‘clean’ the coal exhaust, had beneficial consequences. Deaths from coal-fired power plants among Medicare recipients fell from about 50,000 per year in 1999 to 1,600 in 2020, a decline of more than 95 percent, the researchers found.
“It was bad, it was terrible,” Lucas Henneman, lead author of the study and assistant professor of environmental engineering at George Mason University, said in an interview. “We have made progress and that is very good.”
Researchers from six universities collected emissions data from 480 coal-fired power stations between 1999 and 2020. They used atmospheric models to track how sulfur dioxide was converted into particulate matter and where it was carried by wind, then examined millions of deaths among Medicare patients by zip code.
Although the researchers couldn’t identify the exact causes of death, the statistical model showed that areas with more coal particles in the air had higher death rates.
About 138 coal-fired power plants each contributed to at least a thousand excess deaths, and ten plants were linked to more than 5,000 deaths each, the researchers found.
Although fine particles, known as PM 2.5, are often studied for their health risks, researchers found that breathing in those fine particles from coal exhaust was especially deadly.
Inhaling coal exhaust was associated with more than double the mortality risk compared to inhaling fine particles from other sources, the researchers determined.
They also published a online tool showing that deaths are attributed to individual coal-fired power stations.
“We can’t say how long these people would have lived without exposure,” said Dr. Henneman. “But we are saying they died earlier than they otherwise would have as a result of this coal pollution.”
Requiring coal-fired power plants to ‘scrub’ the pollutants they emit by removing sulfur dioxide using a cloud of water droplets has proven to be a game changer for public health.
After scrubbers were installed at the Keystone power plant in Pennsylvania in 2009 and 2010, the average number of annual deaths caused by the plant dropped from 640 to 80, the researchers found. They also found that the average PM level of 2.5 from coal in the United States fell from 2.34 micrograms per cubic meter of air in 1999 to 0.07 micrograms in 2020.
“People are living longer today without so much of this coal pollution in the air,” said Dr. Henneman. “It’s this great success story.” Coal use is declining in the United States, but increasing worldwide. The peak is expected to be in 2025, after which renewable energy sources are expected to become the largest source of electricity production.
The new study in Science adds to mounting evidence of the health benefits that come from moving away from burning fossil fuels, especially for vulnerable populations.
In California, the addition of 20 zero-emission vehicles for every 1,000 people in a given zip code correlated with a 3.2 percent decrease in asthma-related emergency room visits, a study finds previously published this year in the journal Science of the Total Environment.
In Chicago, the closure of three coal-fired power plants was followed by a 12 percent drop in asthma-related emergency room visits. children aged 4 years and under living in the area relative to rates in places further away, according to research published in 2021 in the American Journal of Public Health.
And after a major coal processing plant in Pittsburgh closed in 2016, the number of weekly hospital visits due to heart problems in local residents immediately dropped by 42 percent. another study found. The health benefits continued, with an average of 33 fewer hospital admissions for heart disease during the three years after the plant closed, compared to the three years before.
In May, the Environmental Protection Agency proposed new rules that would limit the amount of pollutants power plants could pump, estimating there would be up to $85 billion in climate and health benefits. But given how deadly coal particles are proving to be, Dr. They assume that the benefits would probably be much greater. Stronger measures against small particles in the air could also result in a 7 percent drop in mortality among black and low-income older people, who have long been exposed to the most polluted air, according to research published earlier this year of the country.