Biden administration announces new methane rules at COP28 climate summit

Vice President Kamala Harris speaks during the U.N. Climate Change Conference, or COP28, in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, on Saturday. Harris announced several new U.S. initiatives, including a $3 billion pledge to the Green Climate Fund. Photo by Martin Divisek/EPA-EFE

Dec. 2 (UPI) -- The Biden administration rolled out a new final rule on methane emissions to coincide with the COP28 conference in Dubai Saturday as a new international decarbonization charter was also announced.

The Environmental Protection Agency's final rule is expected to prevent an estimated 58 million tons of methane emissions between 2024 to 2038 -- the equivalent of 1.5 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide, the EPA said in a statement.

The rule is designed to achieve a nearly 80% reduction of methane emissions over what would expected without the rule "thanks to changes that strengthen provisions to limit wasteful, polluting flaring of natural gas and analytical updates that better capture the impacts of this rulemaking," administration officials said.

"On day one, President [Joe] Biden restored America's critical role as the global leader in confronting climate change, and today we've backed up that commitment with strong action, significantly slashing methane emissions and other air pollutants that endanger communities," said EPA Administrator Michael Regan.

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The White House said the United States is seeking to enhance international cooperation to combat climate change at COP28, announcing it will also participate in a parallel conference addressing methane pollution alongside representatives from China and the United Arab Emirates.

Meanwhile, Vice President Kamala Harris announced a series of U.S. climate initiatives, including a $3 billion pledge to the Green Climate Fund.

"We must do more," she told leaders at the conference, but warned that "continued progress will not be possible without a fight.

"Around the world, there are those who seek to slow or stop our progress. Leaders who deny climate science, delay climate action and spread misinformation. Corporations that greenwash their climate inaction and lobby for billions of dollars in fossil fuel subsidies," Harris said.

The U.S. actions came as dozens of global energy companies agreed to the new Oil and Gas Decarbonization Charter at COP28, which calls on the energy industry to reach net zero by 2050 and to "zero-out methane emissions."

Under the initiative announced by the UAE hosts and Saudi Arabia, 50 oil and gas companies have joined pledged "high-scale impact" and to "speed up climate action within the industry."

COP28 President Sultan Al Jabar said the launch of the charter "is a great first step -- and whilst many national oil companies have adopted net zero 2050 targets for the first time, I know that they and others, can and need to do more."

According to the organizers, the 50 companies who have agreed to the charter account for 40% of the world's oil production

US targets oil and natural gas industry’s role in global warming with new rule on methane emissions

Vice President Kamala Harris speaks at the COP28 U.N. Climate Summit, Saturday, Dec. 2, 2023, in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. (AP Photo/Kamran Jebreili)

Michael Regan, administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, speaks at the U.S. Center at the COP28 U.N. Climate Summit, Saturday, Dec. 2, 2023, in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. (AP Photo/Joshua A. Bickel)

 A flare to burn methane from oil production is seen on a well pad, Aug. 26, 2021, near Watford City, N.D. On Saturday, Dec. 2, 2023, the Biden administration issued a final rule aimed at reducing methane emissions, targeting the U.S. oil and natural gas industry for its role in global warming as President Joe Biden seeks to advance his climate legacy. 

(AP Photo/Matthew Brown, File)

BY MATTHEW DALY
 December 2, 2023

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Biden administration on Saturday issued a final rule aimed at reducing methane emissions, targeting the U.S. oil and natural gas industry for its role in global warming as President Joe Biden seeks to advance his climate legacy.

The Environmental Protection Agency said the rule will sharply reduce methane and other harmful air pollutants generated by the oil and gas industry, promote use of cutting-edge methane detection technologies and deliver significant public health benefits in the form of reduced hospital visits, lost school days and even deaths. Air pollution from oil and gas operations can cause cancer, harm the nervous and respiratory systems and contribute to birth defects.

EPA Administrator Michael Regan and White House climate adviser Ali Zaidi announced the final rule at the U.N. climate conference in the United Arab Emirates. Separately, the president of the climate summit announced Saturday that 50 oil companies representing nearly half of global production have pledged to reach near-zero methane emissions and end routine flaring in their operations by 2030.

Vice President Kamala Harris, the top American representative at the summit, said the U.S. and other nations must act boldly to confront the fallout from climate change.

“The urgency of this moment is clear,” Harris said. “The clock is no longer just ticking. It is banging. And we must make up for lost time.”

The U.S. rule on methane emissions is part of a broader effort by the Biden administration that includes financial incentives to buy electric vehicles and upgrade infrastructure — spending that Harris said will total roughly $1 trillion over 10 years.

Oil and gas operations are the largest industrial source of methane, the main component in natural gas and far more potent than carbon dioxide in the short term. It is responsible for about one-third of planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions. Sharp cuts in methane emissions are a global priority to slow the rate of climate change and are a major topic at the conference, known as COP28.

Presidents, prime ministers and royals from nations rich and poor have vowed to reduce how much their countries spew heat-trapping gases and asked their colleagues to do better.

“On Day One, President Biden restored America’s critical role as the global leader in confronting climate change,’' Regan said, referring to Biden’s actions returning the U.S. to the Paris climate agreement and ordering an immediate review of environmental regulations rolled back by the previous administration.

The methane rule finalizes a proposal Biden made at a UN climate conference in Scotland in 2021 and expanded a year later at a climate conference in Egypt. It targets emissions from existing oil and gas wells nationwide, rather than focusing only on new wells, as previous EPA regulations have done. It also regulates smaller wells that will be required to find and plug methane leaks. Such wells currently are subject to an initial inspection but are rarely checked again for leaks.

Studies have found that smaller wells produce just 6% of the nation’s oil and gas but account for up to half the methane emissions from well sites.

The plan also will phase in a requirement for energy companies to eliminate routine flaring, or burning of natural gas that is produced by new oil wells.

The new methane rule will help ensure that the United States meets a goal set by more than 100 nations to cut methane emissions by 30% by 2030 from 2020 levels, Regan said.

The EPA rule is just one of more than 100 actions the Biden administration has taken to reduce methane emissions, Zaidi added.

“From mobilizing billions in investment to plug orphaned wells, patch leaky pipes and reclaim abandoned mines, to setting strong standards that will cut pollution from the oil and gas sector, the Biden-Harris Administration is putting the full throw-weight of the federal government into slashing harmful methane pollution,’' he said.

The new rule will be coordinated with a methane fee approved in the 2022 climate law. The fee, set to take effect next year, will charge energy producers that exceed a certain level of methane emissions as much as $1,500 per metric ton of methane. The plan marks the first time the U.S. government has directly imposed a fee, or tax, on greenhouse gas emissions.

The law allows exemptions for companies that comply with the EPA’s standards or fall below a certain emissions threshold. It also includes $1.5 billon in grants and other spending to help companies and local communities improve monitoring and data collection, and find and repair natural gas leaks.

Harold Wimmer, president and CEO of the American Lung Association, called the new rule a victory for public health.

“EPA heeded the urgent guidance of health experts across the country and finalized a strong methane rule that, when fully implemented, will significantly reduce hazardous air pollutants and climate-warming methane pollution from the oil and gas industry,’' he said in a statement.

Methane has been shown to leak into the atmosphere during every stage of oil and gas production, Wimmer said, and people who live near oil and gas wells are especially vulnerable to these exposure risks.

David Doniger, a climate expert at the Natural Resources Defense Council, called methane a “super-polluter.” He said in an interview that the Biden plan “takes a very solid whack at climate pollution. I wish this had happened 10 years ago (under the Obama administration), but I’m really happy it’s happening now.’'

Fred Krupp, president of the Environmental Defense Fund, said the new rule ensures that “the U.S. now has the most protective methane pollution limits on the books. With other countries also zeroing in on methane as a key climate risk, it’s a signal to operators worldwide that clean-up time is here,’' he said.

The American Petroleum Institute, the oil industry’s top lobbying group, said it was reviewing the rule to see whether it meets a dual goal of reducing emissions while meeting rising energy demand.

“Smart federal regulation can help build on industry’s progress to date,’' said Dustin Meyer, an API vice president.

The oil industry has generally welcomed direct federal regulation on methane, preferring a national standard to a hodgepodge of state rules. Even so, energy companies have asked EPA to exempt hundreds of thousands of the nation’s smallest wells from the pending rule.
__

Associated Press writer Will Weissert in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, contributed to this report.

Michael Regan, administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, speaks at the U.S. Center at the COP28 U.N. Climate Summit, Saturday, Dec. 2, 2023, in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. (AP Photo/Joshua A. Bickel)


Michael Regan, administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, speaks at the U.S. Center at the COP28 U.N. Climate Summit, Saturday, Dec. 2, 2023, in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. (AP Photo/Joshua A. Bickel)

 White House climate adviser Ali Zaidi attends a speech by President Joe Biden about supply chain issues in the Indian Treaty Room on the White House complex in Washington, Nov. 27, 2023. The Biden administration has issued a final rule aimed at reducing methane emissions, targeting the US oil and natural gas industry for its role in global warming. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

US joins in other nations in swearing off coal power to clean the climate


AES Indiana Petersburg Generating Station, a coal-fired power plant, operates in Petersburg, Ind., on Wednesday, Oct. 25, 2023. (AP Photo/Joshua A. Bickel)

John Kerry, U.S. Special Presidential Envoy for Climate, attends an event on nuclear energy at the COP28 U.N. Climate Summit, Saturday, Dec. 2, 2023, in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. (AP Photo/Peter Dejong)

John Kerry, U.S. Special Presidential Envoy for Climate, center right, attends an event in support of tripling global nuclear capacity by 2050 at the COP28 U.N. Climate Summit, Saturday, Dec. 2, 2023, in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. (AP Photo/Peter Dejong)


BY SETH BORENSTEIN
 December 2, 2023

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — The United States committed Saturday to the idea of phasing out coal power plants, joining 56 other nations in kicking the coal habit that’s a huge factor in global warming.

U.S. Special Envoy John Kerry announced that America was joining the Powering Past Coal Alliance, which means the Biden Administration commits to building no new coal plants and phasing out existing plants. No date was given for when the existing plants would have to go, but other Biden regulatory actions and international commitments already in the works had meant no coal by 2035.

“We will be working to accelerate unabated coal phase-out across the world, building stronger economies and more resilient communities,” Kerry said in a statement. “The first step is to stop making the problem worse: stop building new unabated coal power plants.”

Coal power plants have already been shutting down across the nation due to economics, and no new coal facilities were in the works, so “we were heading to retiring coal by the end of the decade anyway,” said climate analyst Alden Meyer of the European think-tank E3G. That’s because natural gas and renewable energy are cheaper, so it was market forces, he said.


At COP28 meeting, oil companies pledge to combat methane. Environmentalists call it a “smokescreen”

As of October, just under 20% of the U.S. electricity is powered by coal, according to the U.S. Department of Energy. The amount of coal burned in the United States last year is less than half what it was in 2008.

Coal produces about 211 pounds (96 kilograms) of heat-trapping carbon dioxide per million BTUs of energy produced, compared to natural gas which produces about 117 pounds (53 kilograms) and gasoline which is about 156 pounds (71 kilograms), according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

The U.S. had been pushing other nations, especially China and India which are building new coal plants pell-mell, to get rid of the fuel, which causes more heat-trapping carbon emissions than other power systems.

Saturday’s action “sends a pretty powerful international signal that the U.S. is putting its money where its mouth is,” Meyer said.

The Powering Past Coal Alliance started six years ago and had 50 country members until Saturday when the United States and six others joined, said alliance spokeswoman Anna Drazkiewicz. Others joining Saturday include the Czech Republic and the Dominican Republic.

“Energy transition is not an easy task and as such requires strong cooperation and support,” said Kosovo environment minister Artane Rizvanolli. “Joining the Powering Past Coal Alliance reiterates Kosovo’s clear commitment and ongoing efforts towards a socially just and clean energy sector.”
___

Read more of AP’s climate coverage at http://www.apnews.com/climate-and-environment.

‘Unbearable’: Lorry drivers and environment pay price of air pollution at Bulgaria-Romania border

By Cristian GherasimPublished on 26/11/2023 -

Hours-long border queues are taking a climate toll in Bulgaria and Romania. Could entry into the Schengen Area help?

Pollution is on the rise as lorries queue for kilometres on both sides of the crossing between Romania and Bulgaria.

People in Giurgiu, a border town in southern Romania have for years felt that the air they breathe is no longer as clean as it used to be. It gets worse nearest to the checkpoint with Bulgaria where hundreds of lorries wait for hours to be inspected and allowed passage.

Romania and Bulgaria have been EU member states since 2007. Their campaign to become part of the Schengen Zone - an area that allows people and goods to travel freely between member countries without going through border controls - however, is ongoing.

Being admitted into Schengen would slash border waiting times, congestion and emissions from running engines.

For tourists going on vacation, long queues are an inconvenience. But for drivers of heavy duty vehicles that transit EU borders on a daily basis, the economic and health impact is huge.
Slow-moving traffic makes air ‘unbearable’ at Bulgaria and Romania’s borders

“The seven kilometre bypass stretching from Giurgiu in Romania to the border with Bulgaria is packed day and night with hundreds of lorries,” Bogdan Priceputu, born and raised in Giurgiu, tells Euronews Green.

“Not only is the air dirtiest in that vicinity but the field nearby gets littered with garbage as drivers wait by the side of the road for hours, without amenities and sanitation facilities, to cross the border into Bulgaria.”

Until recently, Bogdan’s father worked as a customs officer on the Romanian side of the border. “I know that several times a day the air got unbearable due to the slow moving traffic,” he says.


Albania, Colombia, Moldova: Which countries are doing the most for air pollution and climate?

This English city is banning gas stoves in new homes. Here’s why

Things are not much better on the Bulgarian side of the border. For years the border town of Ruse has been trying to curb its air pollution problem but to no avail. People have taken to the streets to protest against the issue and it has even become a topic of debate in the European Parliament.

The river Danube acts as the border between Romania and Bulgaria. Bogdan explains that when he gets on his boat and goes out on the river he can sometimes see smog plumes gliding across the nearby canal. “I don’t know if it’s from the traffic, but the increasing number of lorries waiting nearby at the border sure doesn’t help.”

Lorry drivers don’t have it any easier.

“A couple of weeks ago I ended up waiting for over 24 hours to cross the border from Bulgaria into Romania,” a Romanian lorry driver tells Euronews Green. “Of course it was unbearable, of course there’s pollution. I am driving a chiller lorry and the engine needs to be running almost all of the time otherwise the shipment goes bad.”

What are the health risks of traffic pollution in Bulgaria and Romania?

According to Eurostat southeastern Europe has some of the EU's most polluted cities. Bulgaria and Romania have the first and third highest values of fine particulate matter - also known as PM2.5 - in the entire European Union.

This is only set to worsen as winter descends: studies show levels of the larger PM 10 rise as temperatures drop in Bulgaria, fuelled by transport, industry and domestic heating.

Pollutants such as particulate matter suspended in the air are particularly worrisome as they reduce people’s life expectancy, aggravating many chronic and acute respiratory and cardiovascular diseases, according to the European Environment Agency.

Excess traffic emissions put border communities at risk of pollution-related health problems.
Can the Balkans steer away from fossil fuels? Albania and Romania are banking on it

“Air pollution is one of the leading causes for pulmonary cancer,” oncologist Roxana Macarie, tells Euronews Green. “It also increases the risk of breast, liver and pancreatic cancer in all age groups.”

Roxana practises medicine in Bucharest, Romania’s capital, but travels frequently to the border city of Giurgiu where some of her relatives live.

“Traffic has increased significantly over the past years. There are hundreds of lorries waiting each day around the city, some with their engines running, to cross into Bulgaria. That can’t be good for air quality in the area,” she says.

PM 2.5 can also have long-term impacts on children’s lung function and development. This can lead to respiratory and cardiovascular diseases, including asthma, which affects nine per cent of young people in Europe.

The environmental toll of keeping Romania and Bulgaria outside the Schengen area is adding up.
What’s keeping Bulgaria and Romania out of the Schengen area?

Both Bulgaria and Romania met the necessary criteria to join the passport-free zone over a decade ago.

They have received backing from the European Commission and the European Parliament. But the final green light has to come from the Council of the European Union.

They need approval from all 27 EU countries but still face opposition from Austria and the Netherlands.

Austria’s resistance stems from a broader dissatisfaction with Schengen and flows of migrants that cross into the EU. The Netherlands has signalled it might approve Bulgaria's bid if a series of conditions on judicial reform and anti-corruption fight is met.

A new vote is slated to be held next month.
What is the environmental impact of border crossing delays?

In a statement calling for Bulgaria and Romania’s Schengen ascension by the end of 2023, the European Parliament highlights the environmental and health burden of delaying the decision.

MEPs say that queues faced at two countries’ border crossings can last from a few hours to even days. This translates into 46,000 tonnes of CO2 emitted each year, according to recent analysis by accounting organisation KPMG.

The added pollution inflicts “irreparable damages” on the environment and will have health repercussions for drivers, customs agents and people living near border crossings, the statement continues.

The European Parliament believes that limiting border crossings and obstructing the free flow of goods between EU member states do not align with the bloc’s climate neutrality goal, which aims for net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.

Already, the years of delays have led to half a million tonnes of excess CO2 emissions, according to KPMG. This is the equivalent of over 600 GWh of electricity produced from climate-wrecking coal sources, or enough to power 60,000 homes for a year.

Heat, disease, air pollution: How climate change impacts health

Paris (AFP) – Growing calls for the world to come to grips with the many ways that global warming affects human health have prompted the first day dedicated to the issue at crunch UN climate talks starting next week.

Issued on: 26/11/2023 -

Air pollution, such as the extremes seen in India's capital New Delhi, are just one way that fossil fuels affect human health © Arun SANKAR / AFP/File

Extreme heat, air pollution and the increasing spread of deadly infectious diseases are just some of the reasons why the World Health Organization has called climate change the single biggest health threat facing humanity.

Global warming must be limited to the Paris Agreement target of 1.5 degrees Celsius "to avert catastrophic health impacts and prevent millions of climate change-related deaths", according to the WHO.

However, under current national carbon-cutting plans, the world is on track to warm up to 2.9C this century, the UN said this week.

While no one will be completely safe from the effects of climate change, experts expect that most at risk will be children, women, the elderly, migrants and people in less developed countries which have emitted the least planet-warming greenhouse gases.

On December 3, the COP28 negotiations in Dubai will host the first "health day" ever held at the climate negotiations.

- Extreme heat -

This year is widely expected to be the hottest on record. And as the world continues to warm, even more frequent and intense heatwaves are expected to follow.

Heat is believed to have caused more than 70,000 deaths in Europe during summer last year, researchers said this week, revising the previous number up from 62,000.

Climate change increasing dangerous heat © Maxence D'AVERSA, Sabrina BLANCHARD / AFP

Worldwide, people were exposed to an average of 86 days of life-threatening temperatures last year, according to the Lancet Countdown report earlier this week.

The number of people over 65 who died from heat rose by 85 percent from 1991-2000 to 2013-2022, it added.

And by 2050, more than five times more people will die from the heat each year under a 2C warming scenario, the Lancet Countdown projected.

More droughts will also drive rising hunger. Under the scenario of 2C warming by the end of the century, 520 million more people will experience moderate or severe food insecurity by 2050.

Meanwhile, other extreme weather events such as storms, floods and fires will continue to threaten the health of people across the world.
Air pollution

Almost 99 percent of the world's population breathes air that exceeds the WHO's guidelines for air pollution.

Outdoor air pollution driven by fossil fuel emissions kills more than four million people every year, according to the WHO.

It increases the risk of respiratory diseases, strokes, heart disease, lung cancer, diabetes and other health problems, posing a threat that has been compared to tobacco.

The damage is caused partly by PM2.5 microparticles, which are mostly from fossil fuels. People breathe these tiny particles into their lungs, where they can then enter the bloodstream.

World map showing the concentration of fine PM2.5 particles in the air © Valentin RAKOVSKY, Sabrina BLANCHARD / AFP

While spikes in air pollution, such as extremes seen in India's capital New Delhi earlier this month, trigger respiratory problems and allergies, long-term exposure is believed to be even more harmful.

However it is not all bad news.

The Lancet Countdown report found that deaths from air pollution due to fossil fuels have fallen 16 percent since 2005, mostly due to efforts to reduce the impact of coal burning.

Infectious diseases

The changing climate means that mosquitoes, birds and mammals will roam beyond their previous habitats, raising the threat that they could spread infectious diseases with them.

Mosquito-borne diseases that pose a greater risk of spreading due to climate change include dengue, chikungunya, Zika, West Nile virus and malaria.

Health risks linked to climate change © Gal ROMA / AFP

The transmission potential for dengue alone will increase by 36 percent with 2C warming, the Lancet Countdown report warned.

Storms and floods create stagnant water that are breeding grounds for mosquitoes, and also increase the risk of water-borne diseases such as cholera, typhoid and diarrhoea.

Scientists also fear that mammals straying into new areas could share diseases with each other, potentially creating new viruses that could then jump over to humans.
Mental health

Worrying about the present and future of our warming planet has also provoked rising anxiety, depression and even post-traumatic stress -- particularly for people already struggling with these disorders, psychologists have warned.

In the first 10 months of the year, people searched online for the term "climate anxiety" 27 times more than during the same period in 2017, according to data from Google Trends cited by the BBC this week.

© 2023 AFP

US coal power plants killed at least 460,000 people in past 20 years – report

Nina Lakhani climate justice reporter
Thu, November 23, 2023 

Photograph: Scott Olson/Getty Images

Coal-fired power plants killed at least 460,000 Americans during the past two decades, causing twice as many premature deaths as previously thought, new research has found.

Cars, factories, fire smoke and electricity plants emit tiny toxic air pollutants known as fine particulate matter or PM2.5, which elevate the risk of an array of life-shortening medical conditions including asthma, heart disease, low birth weight and some cancers.

Researchers analyzed Medicare and emissions data from 1999 and 2020, and for the first time found that coal PM2.5 is twice as deadly as fine particle pollutants from other sources. Previous studies quantifying the death toll from air pollution assumed all PM2.5 sources posed the same risk, and therefore probably underestimated the dangers of coal plants.

Related: ‘Insanity’: petrostates planning huge expansion of fossil fuels, says UN report

Government regulations save lives, according to the research, which is published in Science, as most deaths happened when environmental standards were weakest and PM2.5 levels from coal-fired power stations highest.

“Air pollution from coal is much more harmful than we thought, and we’ve been treating it like it’s just another air pollutant,” said the lead author, Lucas Henneman, an assistant professor in the Sid and Reva Dewberry department of civil, environmental and infrastructure engineering at George Mason University. “This type of evidence is important to policymakers like EPA [the US Environmental Protection Agency] as they identify cost-effective solutions for cleaning up the country’s air, like requiring emissions controls or encouraging renewables.”

Henneman led a group of researchers who used publicly available data to track air pollution – and its health effects – from the 480 US coal power plants that operated at some point between 1999 and 2020. A model was used to track the wind direction and reach of the toxins from each power station. Annual exposure levels were then connected with more than 650m Medicare health records that covered most people over age 65 in the US.

The coal plants associated with most deaths were located east of the Mississippi River in industrialized states like Ohio and Pennsylvania, where power stations were historically constructed close to population hubs. But every region had at least one plant linked to 600 deaths, while 10 were associated with more than 5,000 deaths across the study period.






About 85% of the total 460,000 coal plant-related deaths occurred between 1999 and 2007, an average of more than 43,000 deaths per year. The death toll declined drastically as plants closed or scrubbers – a type of sulphur filter – were installed to comply with new environmental rules. By 2020, the coal PM2.5 death toll had dropped 95%, to 1,600 people.

“By linking records of where Medicare beneficiaries lived and when they died, we found that risks due to PM2.5 from coal were more than double the risks related to PM2.5 from all sources,” said co-author Francesca Dominici, a professor of biostatistics, population and data science at the Harvard TC Chan school of public health.

Coal use has declined in the US, but there are still more than 200 coal-fired power plants, accounting for 20% of electricity generation in 2022, according to the US Energy Information Administration (EIA). Indiana, Kentucky and Texas have the most operational coal plants, followed by Illinois, Missouri and Pennsylvania.

Globally, coal-generated power is still rising, with South Africa, China, India and Poland among the countries most dependent on the dirtiest of fossil fuels.

“As countries debate their energy sources – and as coal maintains a powerful, almost mythical status in American energy lore – our findings are highly valuable to policymakers and regulators as they weigh the need for cheap energy with the significant environmental and health costs,” said Dominici.

Mortality burden of air pollution from coal-burning power plants has been underestimated

Peer-Reviewed Publication

AMERICAN ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE (AAAS)

Between 1999 and 2020, more than 460,000 deaths in the United States were attributable to exposure to air pollution emissions from coal-burning power plants, according to the longest-term national study of its kind. While the findings highlight the increased mortality risks from coal electricity generation, they also underscore the effectiveness of emission-reduction policies in preventing excess death. Exposure to air pollution is associated with poor health and an increased risk of death. Coal-burning electricity-generating units (EGUs), also known as power plants, are a major contributor to poor air quality. Although coal EGU air pollution emissions have declined in the U.S. in recent decades, global coal use for electricity generation is projected to increase. Recent studies have suggested that exposure to fine particulate matter (PM2.5) containing sulfur dioxide (SO2) from coal-burning emissions is more deadly than PM2.5 from other sources. Policymakers seeking to limit the impact of coal use justify regulations by quantifying the health burden attributable to exposure to these sources. However, measuring the magnitude of the impact of coal EGU-derived air pollution on human health, as well as the success of measures to mitigate such impacts, is challenging. Efforts have been hampered by the limited availability of large-scale health databases and source-specific exposure estimates.

 

To better estimate U.S. deaths attributable to exposure to PM2.5 emitted from coal-burning power plants, and how related mortality patterns have changed over time, Lucas Henneman and colleagues combined a reduced complexity atmospheric transport model, which they used to estimate emissions from 480 individual coal EGUs, with historical individual-level US Medicare death records encompassing more than 650 million person-years. They found that exposure to coal-derived PM2.5 was associated with 2.1 times greater mortality risk than exposure to PM2.5 from all other sources. And, coal-derived PM2.5 was responsible for 460,000 cumulative deaths among those over 65 years of age over the past two decades, accounting for ~25% of the total deaths attributable to PM2.5. According to the findings, the mortality burden of coal PM2.5 has been underestimated. Critically, Henneman et al. also show that the rapid decline of sulfur dioxide (SO2) emissions from coal power plants over the last 20 years – through emissions reduction regulations and coal EGU closures – has led to a large reduction in excess deaths. In a related Perspective, Robert Mendelsohn and Seung Min Kim discuss the study and its limitations in greater detail. Note: The authors have provided an interactive online tool that illustrates how deaths attributed to each individual U.S. coal EGU have changed over time.

---

JOURNAL

Science

DOI

10.1126/science.adf4915 

ARTICLE TITLE

Mortality risk from United States coal electricity generation

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

24-Nov-2023

Pollution from coal power plants contributes to far more deaths than scientists realized, study show

Lucas Henneman, George Mason University
Thu, November 23, 2023 

Kids jump on a trampoline as steam rises from a coal power plant in Adamsville, Ala., in 2021. Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images


Air pollution particles from coal-fired power plants are more harmful to human health than many experts realized, and it’s more than twice as likely to contribute to premature deaths as air pollution particles from other sources, new research demonstrates.

In the study, published in the journal Science, colleagues and I mapped how U.S. coal power plant emissions traveled through the atmosphere, then linked each power plant’s emissions with death records of Americans over 65 years old on Medicare.

Our results suggest that air pollutants released from coal power plants were associated with nearly half a million premature deaths of elderly Americans from 1999 to 2020.

It’s a staggering number, but the study also has good news: Annual deaths associated with U.S. coal power plants have fallen sharply since the mid-2000s as federal regulations compelled operators to install emissions scrubbers and many utilities shut down coal plants entirely.

In 1999, 55,000 deaths were attributable to coal air pollution in the U.S., according to our findings. By 2020, that number had fallen to 1,600.

How PM2.5 levels from coal power plants in the U.S. have declined since 1999 as more plants installed pollution-control devices or shut down. Lucas Henneman.

In the U.S., coal is being displaced by natural gas and renewable energy for generating electricity. Globally, however, coal use is projected to increase in coming years. That makes our results all the more urgent for global decision-makers to understand as they develop future policies.
Coal air pollution: What makes it so bad?

A landmark study in the 1990s, known as the Harvard Six Cities Study, linked tiny airborne particles called PM2.5 to increased risk of early death. Other studies have since linked PM2.5 to lung and heart disease, cancer, dementia and other diseases.

Following that research, the Environmental Protection Agency began regulating PM2.5 concentrations in 1997 and has lowered the acceptable limit over time.

PM2.5 – particles small enough to be inhaled deep into our lungs – comes from several different sources, including gasoline combustion in vehicles and smoke from wood fires and power plants. It is made up of many different chemicals.

Coal is also a mix of many chemicals – carbon, hydrogen, sulfur, even metals. When coal is burned, all of these chemicals are emitted to the atmosphere either as gases or particles. Once there, they are transported by the wind and interact with other chemicals already in the atmosphere.

As a result, anyone downwind of a coal plant may be breathing a complex cocktail of chemicals, each with its own potential effects on human health.

Two months of emissions from Plant Bowen, a coal-fired power station near Atlanta, show how wind influences the spread of air pollution. Lucas Henneman.
Tracking coal PM2.5

To understand the risks coal emissions pose to human health, we tracked how sulfur dioxide emissions from each of the 480 largest U.S. coal power plants operating at any point since 1999 traveled with the wind and turned into tiny particles – coal PM2.5. We used sulfur dioxide because of its known health effects and drastic decreases in emissions over the study period.

We then used a statistical model to link coal PM2.5 exposure to Medicare records of nearly 70 million people from 1999 to 2020. This model allowed us to calculate the number of deaths associated with coal PM2.5.

In our statistical model, we controlled for other pollution sources and accounted for many other known risk factors, like smoking status, local meteorology and income level. We tested multiple statistical approaches that all yielded consistent results. We compared the results of our statistical model with previous results testing the health impacts of PM2.5 from other sources and found that PM2.5 from coal is twice as harmful as PM2.5 from all other sources.

Residents living near the Cheswick coal-fired power plant in Springdale, Pa., publicly complained about the amount of sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide and coal particles from the plant for years. Robert Nickelsberg/Getty Images

The number of deaths associated with individual power plants depended on multiple factors – how much the plant emits, which way the wind blows and how many people breathe in the pollution. Unfortunately, U.S. utilities located many of their plants upwind of major population centers on the East Coast. This siting amplified these plants’ impacts.

In an interactive online tool, users can look up our estimates of annual deaths associated with each U.S. power plant and also see how those numbers have fallen over time at most U.S. coal plants.

A US success story and the global future of coal

Engineers have been designing effective scrubbers and other pollution-control devices that can reduce pollution from coal-fired power plants for several years. And the EPA has rules specifically to encourage utilities that used coal to install them, and most facilities that did not install scrubbers have shut down.

The results have been dramatic: Sulfur dioxide emissions decreased about 90% in facilities that reported installing scrubbers. Nationwide, sulfur dioxide emissions decreased 95% since 1999. According to our tally, deaths attributable to each facility that installed a scrubber or shut down decreased drastically.

As advances in fracking techniques reduced the cost of natural gas, and regulations made running coal plants more expensive, utilities began replacing coal with natural gas plants and renewable energy. The shift to natural gas – a cleaner-burning fossil fuel than coal but still a greenhouse gas contributing to climate change – led to even further air pollution reductions.

Today, coal contributes about 27% of electricity in the U.S., down from 56% in 1999.

Globally, however, the outlook for coal is mixed. While the U.S. and other nations are headed toward a future with substantially less coal, the International Energy Agency expects global coal use to increase through at least 2025.

Our study and others like it make clear that increases in coal use will harm human health and the climate. Making full use of emissions controls and a turn toward renewables are surefire ways to reduce coal’s negative impacts.

This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit, independent news organization bringing you facts and analysis to help you make sense of our complex world.

It was written by: Lucas Henneman, George Mason University.

Read more:


3 reasons US coal power is disappearing – and a Supreme Court ruling won’t save it


How poisonous mercury gets from coal-fired power plants into the fish you eat


Soot pollution from coal-fired power plants is more deadly than soot from other sources, study shows

Michael Hawthorne, Chicago Tribune
Thu, November 23, 2023 


Brian Cassella/Chicago Tribune/TNS


Burning coal to generate electricity is on the way out in the United States, but the nation’s long dependence on the fossil fuel took a devastating toll.

A new study determined for the first time that soot pollution from coal-fired power plants is more dangerous than soot from other sources. During the past two decades, the researchers found, coal plant soot contributed to the deaths of at least 460,000 Americans, including 25% of all deaths among Medicare recipients before 2009.

Only Pennsylvania, New York and Ohio recorded more deaths associated with coal plant pollution than the 25,000 deaths in Illinois during the period studied.

An interactive map accompanying the study, published Thursday in the journal Science, reveals glimmers of hope amid the grim statistics.

Deaths attributed to coal plant soot have declined dramatically in recent years as utilities closed scores of their dirtiest plants and cleaned up others — changes prompted by more stringent federal clean air regulations, competition from less expensive gas-fired power plants and legal pressure from environmental groups.

“The fact that they estimated more than 40,000 deaths a year two decades ago and the number is now down to 1,600 a year is a pretty remarkable success story,” said Jonathan Levy, chair of the Department of Environmental Health at Boston University, who wasn’t involved in the study.

Soot, also known as particulate matter, is a byproduct of incomplete combustion and can be formed by chemical reactions between sulfur dioxide emitted by fossil fuel power plants and other compounds in the atmosphere. The type of soot that most concerns public health researchers — PM 2.5 — is so tiny that thousands of the fine particles could fit on the period at the end of this sentence.

Breathing even small amounts can inflame the lungs and trigger asthma attacks. Previous studies have linked soot exposure with heart attacks and premature death.

The latest study comes as President Joe Biden’s administration is moving to tighten a national limit on soot pollution, which in turn could force new regulations on power plants and other industrial sources.

Utilities fiercely opposed clean air laws for decades. But in one of a series of stark departures from previous debates about anti-pollution rules, the chief trade group for investor-owned utilities appears to be more concerned about how the Biden proposal would be implemented rather than opposing it outright.

“The electric industry has significantly reduced air pollutants such as (sulfur dioxide), (nitrogen oxide), and hazardous air pollutants such as mercury,” Sarah Durdaller, a spokeswoman for the Edison Electric Institute, said in an email. “Additional emissions reductions are expected as the industry continues its clean energy transition.”

A Chicago Tribune review of the new study’s interactive map shows why former President Donald Trump’s attempts to gut the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, roll back clean air laws and leave regulatory decisions to the states could have made it difficult to continue reducing deaths from coal plant pollution.

For instance, Illinois coal plants were responsible for more deaths associated with soot-related deaths in Wisconsin and Iowa than coal plants in the two other states, the researchers found.



At the same time, the study shows, several Wisconsin coal plants were responsible for more Illinois deaths than those in Wisconsin.

While researchers linked most of the Illinois deaths to coal plants within the state, others as far away as North Carolina, North Dakota and Texas contributed.

“Pollution doesn’t respect state boundaries,” said the study’s lead author, Lucas Henneman, a professor of environmental engineering at George Mason University.

The EPA found similar dynamics at work earlier this year when it took a new look at smog, another type of air pollution.

Chicago and the rest of Cook County are the nation’s worst neighbors when it comes to smog, the EPA concluded in research supporting its proposed “good neighbor rule” pending before the U.S. Supreme Court.

Henneman and his colleagues based their analysis on emissions data reported to the EPA and a massive database of Medicare enrollees. They used well-tested computer models to track how emissions from individual coal plants contributed to soot-related deaths in every state.

In an editorial published in the same issue of Science, researchers at Yale and Columbia said Henneman’s study showed that reducing coal plant pollution has been more beneficial than previously thought.

Though PM 2.5 can’t be seen with the naked eye, the spread of smoke from Canadian wildfires during the summer provided a vivid example of how soot pollution can make the air so dirty that even healthy people have trouble breathing, said Francesca Dominici, a Harvard biostatistics professor who contributed to the study and previously linked soot exposure to COVID-19 deaths.

Bruce Nilles, former director of the Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal campaign, said the declining number of deaths associated with coal plant pollution is a result of a long battle that led utilities to close or announce the retirement of 374 power plants that burned the fossil fuel.

About a fifth of the nation’s electric generation now comes from coal plants, down from more than half a decade ago.

All but two coal plants in Illinois are expected to be closed by the end of the decade. Eight that already have closed in and near Chicago were responsible for 5,660 soot-related deaths between 1999 and 2020, the new study found.

“We’ve come a long way,” Nilles said. “But this study shows there are still some big problems out there, and that means we need the EPA to step in and ensure everyone is protected.”

Particulate pollution from coal associated with double the risk of mortality than PM2.5 from other sources

Peer-Reviewed Publication

HARVARD T.H. CHAN SCHOOL OF PUBLIC HEALTH

Key points:

• In an examination of emissions data and Medicare records, researchers calculated that exposure to fine particulate air pollutants emitted by coal-fired power plants (coal PM2.5) is associated with a mortality risk 2.1 times greater than that of PM2.5 from other sources.
• Between 1999 and 2020, 460,000 deaths among Medicare enrollees were attributable to coal-fired power plants; 10 of these plants each contributed at least 5,000 deaths.
• The vast majority of deaths took place between 1999 and 2007, and by 2020 deaths from coal-fired power plants decreased substantially—pointing to the efficacy of regulations on coal PM2.5, researchers say.

Exposure to fine particulate air pollutants from coal-fired power plants (coal PM2.5) is associated with a risk of mortality more than double that of exposure to PM2.5 from other sources, according to a new study led by George Mason University, The University of Texas at Austin, and Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Examining Medicare and emissions data in the U.S. from 1999 to 2020, the researchers also found that 460,000 deaths were attributable to coal PM2.5 during the study period—most of them occurring between 1999 and 2007, when coal PM2.5 levels were highest.

The study will be published on November 23, 2023, in Science.

While previous studies have quantified the mortality burden from coal-fired power plants, much of this research has assumed that coal PM2.5 has the same toxicity as PM2.5 from other sources.

“PM2.5 from coal has been treated as if it’s just another air pollutant. But it’s much more harmful than we thought, and its mortality burden has been seriously underestimated,” said lead author Lucas Henneman, assistant professor in the Sid and Reva Dewberry Department of Civil, Environmental, and Infrastructure Engineering at Mason. “These findings can help policymakers and regulators identify cost-effective solutions for cleaning up the country’s air, for example, by requiring emissions controls or encouraging utilities to use other energy sources, like renewables.” 

Using emissions data from 480 coal power plants in the U.S. between 1999 and 2020, the researchers modeled where wind carried coal sulfur dioxide throughout the week after it was emitted and how atmospheric processes converted the sulfur dioxide into PM2.5. This model produced annual coal PM2.5 exposure fields for each power plant. They then examined individual-level Medicare records from 1999 to 2016, representing the health statuses of Americans ages 65 and older and representing a total of more than 650 million person-years. By linking the exposure fields to the Medicare records, inclusive of where enrollees lived and when they died, the researchers were able to understand individuals’ exposure to coal PM2.5 and calculate the impact it had on their health.

They found that across the U.S. in 1999, the average level of coal PM2.5 was 2.34 micrograms per cubic meter of air (μg/m3). This level decreased significantly by 2020, to 0.07 μg/m3. The researchers calculated that a one μg/m3 increase in annual average coal PM2.5 was associated with a 1.12% increase in all-cause mortality, a risk 2.1 times greater than that of PM2.5 from any other source. They also found that 460,000 deaths were attributable to coal PM2.5, representing 25% of all PM2.5-related deaths among Medicare enrollees before 2009.

The researchers were also able to quantify deaths attributable to specific power plants, producing a ranking of the coal-fired power plants studied based on their contribution to coal PM2.5’s mortality burden. They found that 10 of these plants each contributed at least 5,000 deaths during the study period. They visualized the deaths from each power plant in a publicly available online tool (https://cpieatgt.github.io/cpie/).

The study also found that 390,000 of the 460,000 deaths attributable to coal-fired power plants took place between 1999 and 2007, averaging more than 43,000 deaths per year.  After 2007, these deaths declined drastically, to an annual total of 1,600 by 2020.

“Beyond showing just how harmful coal pollution has been, we also show good news: Deaths from coal were highest in 1999 but by 2020 decreased by about 95%, as coal plants have installed scrubbers or shut down,” Henneman said.

“I see this as a success story,” added senior author Corwin Zigler, associate professor in the Department of Statistics and Data Sciences at UT Austin and founding member of the UT Center for Health & Environment: Education & Research. “Coal power plants were this major burden that U.S. policies have already significantly reduced. But we haven’t completely eliminated the burden—so this study provides us a better understanding of how health will continue to improve and lives will be saved if we move further toward a clean energy future.”

The researchers pointed out the study’s continuing urgency and relevance, writing in the paper that coal power is still part of some U.S. states’ energy portfolios and that global coal use for electricity generation is even projected to increase.

“As countries debate their energy sources—and as coal maintains a powerful, almost mythical status in American energy lore—our findings are highly valuable to policymakers and regulators as they weigh the need for cheap energy with the significant environmental and health costs,” said co-author Francesca Dominici, Clarence James Gamble Professor of Biostatistics, Population, and Data Science at Harvard Chan School and director of the Harvard Data Science Initiative.

Funding for the study came from the National Institutes of Health (grants R01ES026217, R01MD012769, R01ES028033, 1R01ES030616, 1R01AG066793, 1R01MD016054-01A1, 1R01ES 034373-01, 1RF1AG080948, and 1R01ES029950); the Environmental Protection Agency (grant 835872); the EmPOWER Air Data Challenge (grant LRFH); the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation (grant G-2020-13946); and the Health Effects Institute (grants R-82811201 and 4953).

“Mortality risk from United States coal electricity generation,” Lucas Henneman, Christine Choirat, Irene Dedoussi, Francesca Dominici, Jessica Roberts, Corwin Zigler, Science, online November 23, 2023, doi: 10.1126/science.adf4915.

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Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health brings together dedicated experts from many disciplines to educate new generations of global health leaders and produce powerful ideas that improve the lives and health of people everywhere. As a community of leading scientists, educators, and students, we work together to take innovative ideas from the laboratory to people’s lives—not only making scientific breakthroughs, but also working to change individual behaviors, public policies, and health care practices. Each year, more than 400 faculty members at Harvard Chan School teach 1,000-plus full-time students from around the world and train thousands more through online and executive education courses. Founded in 1913 as the Harvard-MIT School of Health Officers, the School is recognized as America’s oldest professional training program in public health.

George Mason University is Virginia’s largest public research university. Located near Washington, D.C., Mason enrolled over 40,000 students from 130 countries and all 50 states for the fall 2023 semester. Mason has grown rapidly over the last half-century and is recognized for its innovation and entrepreneurship, remarkable diversity, and commitment to accessibility. Also in 2023, the university launched Mason Now: Power the Possible, a $1 billion comprehensive campaign to support student success, research, innovation, community, and sustainability. Learn more at gmu.edu.

The University of Texas at Austin is a bold, ambitious leader supporting some 52,000 diverse students, 3,000 teaching faculty, and top national programs across 19 colleges and schools. As Texas’ leading research university, UT attracts more than $650 million annually for discovery. Amid the backdrop of Austin, Texas, a city recognized for its creative and entrepreneurial spirit, the university provides a place to explore countless opportunities for tomorrow’s artists, scientists, athletes, doctors, entrepreneurs and engineers.

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JOURNAL

Science

DOI

10.1126/science.adf4915 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Observational study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE TITLE

Mortality risk from United States coal electricity generation

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

23-Nov-2023