How Close do You Live to America’s Dirtiest Power Plants?
How Close do You Live to America’s Dirtiest Power Plants?
September 18, 2013
by John Light - http://billmoyers.com/2013/09/18/are-the-dirtiest-polluters-near-you/
Emphasis added.
The massive Plant Scherer near Juliette, Ga. puts 21.3 million metric tons of carbon dioxide into the air every year, more than any other power plant in America.
Our energy comes from 6,000 power plants which together produce about 40 percent of the country’s carbon dioxide emissions, the main greenhouse gas driving climate change. But a handful of very large, very dirty plants are responsible for a disproportionate share of the problem.
A new report from two think tanks — the Frontier Group and the Environment America Research & Policy Center — takes a look at this small group of heavy polluters. The researchers found that the 50 dirtiest power plants in the U.S. are responsible for 30 percent of the energy industry’s CO2 emissions, and a full two percent of all emissions worldwide — these 50 plants were responsible for more climate change than all but six countries in the world.
The top 100 dirtiest plants in America produce 3.2 percent of the world’s carbon emissions — or roughly the same amount as all passenger vehicles in the U.S.
Ninety-eight of the top 100 plants burn coal — the other two use natural gas — and currently there aren’t any standardized limits on the amount of emissions these plants spew out. But that looks likely to change. .........
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