This report estimates the adverse human health effects due to exposure to particulate matter from power plants. Power plants are significant emitters of sulfur dioxide (SO2) and nitrogen oxides (NOx). In many parts of the country, especially the Midwest, power plants are the largest contributors. These gases are harmful themselves, and they contribute to the formation of acid rain and particulate matter. Particulate matter reduces visibility, often producing a milky haze that blankets wide regions, and it is a serious public health problem. Over the past decade and more, numerous studies have linked particulate matter to a wide range of adverse health effects in people of all ages.

Utilities Industry Epidemiologists have consistently linked particulate matter with effects ranging from premature death, hospital admissions and asthma attacks to chronic bronchitis. This study documents the health impacts from power plant air pollution emissions. Using the best available emissions and air quality modeling programs, we forecast ambient air quality for a business-as-usual “baseline” scenario for 2007, assuming full implementation of the Acid Rain program and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Summer Smog rule (the 1999 NOx SIP Call). We then estimate the attributable health impacts from all power plant emissions (the “All Power Plant Scenario”). Finally, we estimate air quality for a specific policy alternative: reducing total power plant emissions of SO2 and NOx 75 percent from the levels emitted in 1997. The difference between this “75 Percent Reduction Scenario” and the baseline provides an estimate of the health effects that would be avoided by this reduction in power plant emissions.

In addition to this policy scenario, we perform sensitivity analyses to examine alternative emission reductions and forecast ambient air quality using a second air quality model. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) uses both air quality models extensively, and both suggest that power plants make a large contribution to ambient particulate matter levels in the Eastern U.S. To put the power plant results in context, we also examine air pollution from all on-road and off-road diesel engine emissions. The results suggest that both power plants and diesel engines make a large contribution to ambient particulate matter levels and the associated health effects.

Chapter 2 describes the development of the emissions inventory. Chapter 3 describes the methods we used to estimate changes in particulate matter concentrations. Chapter 4 describes general issues arising in estimating and valuing changes in adverse health effects associated with changes in particulate matter. Chapter 5 describes in some detail the methods used for estimating and valuing adverse health effects, and in Chapter 6 we present the results of these analyses.

This study has six appendices. Appendix A provides results of this analysis for all metropolitan areas in the U.S. and a list of the counties in each metropolitan area. Appendices B, C and D present a detailed examination of how we derived our pollution emission estimates and translated emissions into forecasts of ambient particulate matter levels. Appendix E presents the results of an alternative air quality model. Appendix F presents a derivation of the particulate matter concentration-response functions used in all the analyses.

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