– Forty percent of U.S. coal power plants lack modern emission controls—for now.
– Every year, the new regulations could prevent up to 4,700 heart attacks, 130,000 asthma attacks, and 11,000 early deaths.
IN 2012, AFTER TWO DECADES OF resistance from the coal industry, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) finally upheld a rule to control mercury emissions from power plants. Called the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards, or MATS, the stringent new regulations limit not only mercury but also acid gases like hydrochloric acid, heavy metals like arsenic, and other toxic pollutants—and require companies to comply by 2017.
When fully implemented, the standards will eliminate 90 percent of the 53 tons of mercury emitted annually by coal-fired power plants in the United States. Power generation will then finally catch up with medical waste incineration and municipal garbage burning.
Twenty years ago those activities contributed similar amounts of heavy-metal pollution but have since drastically cleaned up their acts, leaving power plants as the leading man-made source, by far, of mercury emissions in this country.
The decision has been a long time coming, says attorney John Walke, director of the Climate & Clean Air Program at the Natural Resources Defense Council. “As far back as 1990, Congress listed 189 hazardous air pollutants that it wanted the epa to regulate, but power plants were not on the list,” he says, epa administrator Carol Browner set the groundwork for establishing new mercury limits for power plants in 2000, but her efforts were set aside by the Bush administration. It adopted a cap-and-trade system instead, but a federal appeals court struck that down in 2008. Only last June did mercury regulation prevail, when its last challenge—a resolution in the Senate to invalidate MATS—fell by a 53-46 vote, allowing the EPA’s standards to stay in effect.
For now, though, the decline in coal demand is unique to the United States. In Europe and Japan, coal use may be trending up. “After the Fukushima accident, Japan shut all its reactors and has switched to other fuels, including coal,” Victor says. “And in Germany, Fukushima helped convince the government to accelerate the phaseout of nuclear power. The German government says it plans to fill the gap with renewables, but its most realistic plans still involve coal and gas.” Jill Neimark