Resource Type
Reports & Papers
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The Last Straw: Water Use by Power Plants in the Arid West
Fossil-fueled power plants are widely recognized as major sources of air pollutants that damage human health and the environment. But they also have a significant impact on water, both as large users and polluters. Water has always been scarce in the West and subject to fierce competition between various users,…
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Climate Change and Midwest Power Plants
Our climate is an ever-changing natural system of complexly linked relationships between the atmosphere, the land and the oceans. But as population has spiraled upward in the past century, our use of energy and other resources has disrupted the delicate balance in the Earth’s systems. We must begin to right…
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Scraping the “Bottom of the Barrel” for Power: Why there is No Need to Relax Clean Air Safeguards on Dirty Power Plants to “Keep the Lights On”
In May 2001, the National Coal Council, an organization little-known outside Washington, D.C. energy circles, released a report claiming that: Approximately 40,000 megawatts of electrical production capacity is readily available from existing coal-fired power plants and could be recovered in about 36 months; and Relaxation of the requirements of the…
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Unfinished Business: Why the Acid Rain Problem is Not Solved
What is acid rain? Acid rain is the common term used to describe wet, dry and fog deposition of sulfates and nitrates. When sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides are emitted through the burning of fossil fuels into the atmosphere, they come into contact with water where they are converted to…
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Sulfur Emissions and Midwest Power Plants
Sulfur emissions from power plants form some of the most harmful common air pollutants. Power plants release more sulfur into the atmosphere than any other emissions sources. Sulfur emissions form some of the most harmful and environmentally damaging pollutants in our air. Each year, uncontrolled power plants release twice as…
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Power to Kill: Death and Disease from Power Plants Charged with Violating the Clean Air Act
There are more than 500 major coal-fired power plants in the U.S. today, and the vast majority are decades old. Because of a “grandfathering” loophole in the Clean Air Act, these oldest, dirtiest plants have been able to avoid modern pollution controls. This loophole was granted because it was expected…
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Cradle to Grave: The Environmental Impacts from Coal
The electric power industry is the largest toxic polluter in the country, and coal, which is used to generate over half of the electricity produced in the U.S., is the dirtiest of all fuels. From mining to coal cleaning, from transportation to electricity generation to disposal, coal releases numerous toxic…
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Out of Sight: Haze in our National Parks
Wilderness is at the heart of our national identity. The sheer beauty and variety of America’s natural environment, the vastness of her natural resources – and our responses to them throughout our history – define us as a nation. In Walden, Henry David Thoreau wrote: “Our village life would stagnate…
