A new study indicates that air pollution dropped significantly the day after last year’s power blackout in the Northeast and upper Midwest. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:
Transcript
A new study indicates that air pollution dropped significantly the day after last year’s
power blackout in the Northeast and upper Midwest. The Great Lakes Radio
Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:
Researchers at the University of Maryland took air samples during the blackout last
August. They found air pollution was dramatically reduced downwind of the blackout
area. They say the better air quality was at least in part due to more than 100 coal-
burning power plants shutting down.
Scott Segal is with the Electric Reliability Coordinating Council, an electric utilities
industry group. He suggests power plants were only part of the reason.
“Not only do power plants go off line. Typically, people don’t go to work, which means
that automobile traffic is depressed. In addition, there are 20 industrial sectors that are
non-utilities that utilize coal-fired capacity or other fossil fuels that are sources of sulfur
dioxide and those are all taken off line in the event of a blackout.”
But the researchers maintain the study shows power plants play a dominant role in haze
and ozone pollution.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Lester Graham.