Former E.P.A. enforcement lawyers group Environmental Integrity Project showed in a report based in the E.P.A.’s “Clean Air Markets” Web site that electricity generators spewed 2.423 billion tons of carbon dioxide in 2010, compared with 2.295 billion tons in 2009.
Last year’s growth was partly driven by a 4-percent net increase in total electricity generation for 12 months starting in December 2009 and ending in November 2010, as the country recovers from the recession and unusual warm weather reported in some parts of the country. Last year was the warmest year on record according to the report.
Still, power plant emissions were still below 2.565 million tons, the highest carbon dioxide emissions in the country recorded in 2007.
The environmental group said phasing out highly-polluting energy sources like coal would make room for cleaner technologies like renewable energy. However, from a 12-month period ending November 2010, the number of coal-fired plants rose to 5.2 percent – a rate faster compared with total net electricity generation which grew just 3 percent over the same period.
Roughly a third of the total emissions in 2010, or 750 million tons of carbon dioxide, came from 50 coal-fired power plants alone. Coal-fired power plants provided 45 percent of the country’s electricity in 2010, but were responsible for 81 percent of total carbon dioxide emissions from electricity generation last year.
Tallying emission reports from power plants in the country, the group confirmed that Texas is the most carbon dioxide polluting state. The rest of the top ten includes Florida, Ohio, Indiana, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Kentucky, Georgia, Alabama, and Missouri.
Texas power plants led the pack emitting nearly 257 million tons of carbon dioxide, as much as the next two states – Florida and Ohio – combined. The Texas power plants also released more than seven times the total carbon emissions from power plants in California, which produced only 37.1 million tons.
Nearly 4.5 gigawatts of new coal-fired electric plants came online in 2010, about half of that in Texas. The state opened three new coal power plants toward the end of 2010, with a combined capacity of 2,156 megawatts, despite opportunities to invest in wind energy and taking advantage of falling natural gas prices, according to the report.
Meanwhile, Georgia was home to the country’s two largest polluting power plants – the Scherer and Bowen coal-fired power plants – together releasing more than 48 million tons of carbon dioxide in 2010.
Coal’s days could be numbered
Despite coal power’s continued popularity, companies have announced plans to retire almost 12 gigawatts of coal-fired capacity within the next few years. The group expects more such plans this year, spurred by stringent federal air, waste, and water standards.
The group said that most of the more than one hundred proposals to build new coal plants in several years have been withdrawn due to local opposition and huge reductions on advantages that coal-fired power used to enjoy in the market.
Wind energy generation still trails behind coal, accounting for a much smaller fraction of total electricity output. However, net generation from wind sources jumped to 92.7 million MW from 73.6 million MW, a 26 percent increase through the end of November.
Net generation from natural gas fired plants, which release less than half as much carbon dioxide as coal plants on a per megawatt basis, also rose 6.8 percent over the same period.
In addition, emissions of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide emissions, two other heat trapping gases being regulated by the E.P.A., have declined more than 50 percent over the past 10 years, according to the report.
Sulfur dioxide emissions, which are a major component of acid rain, from power plants decreased from 5.72 million to 5.11 million tons from 2009 to 2010. However, nitrogen oxide emissions, which are 300 times more potent than carbon dioxide as a heat trapping gas, increased slightly over the same time span.
The group commented that the overall trend is encouraging, though progress is uneven. For instance, sulfur dioxide emission has actually increased slightly in Missouri, while declining more than 85 percent in Maryland.
Carbon dioxide remains the most prevalent of the greenhouse gases that cause global warming. Burning fossil fuels like coal for electricity generation in the United States accounts for more than one third of the country’s emission, and about five percent of carbon dioxide emissions worldwide.
The report was published amid fierce debate in the U.S. Congress about whether or not to take away the E.P.A.’s current capacity to regulate with coal-fired power plants. By June, the agency will propose standards to limit carbon dioxide emissions from power plants under the Clean Air Act.
“The industry’s allies on Capitol Hill are working hard to turn back the clock by repealing environmental standards for coal plants that are already many years overdue,” Eric Schaeffer, director of the Environmental Integrity Project, said.
“Congress may weaken or even eliminate E.P.A.’s ability to stop coal plant pollution, and block further study of climate change. But even the most powerful legislature in the world is subject to the laws of science, and global warming will not disappear because our politicians choose to pretend that it does not exist,” Mr. Schaeffer added.
