According to data from the EPA, air pollution from older, dirtier power plants leads to thousands of premature deaths each year. Now, environmental watchdog groups worry that recent changes to Clean Air Act regulations will allow these aging power plants to continue to pollute. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Annie MacDowell reports:
Transcript
According to EPA estimates, air pollution from older, dirtier power plants leads to thousands of
premature deaths each year. Now, environmental watchdog groups worry that recent changes to
Clean Air Act regulations will allow these aging power plants to continue to pollute. The Great
Lakes Radio Consortium’s Annie MacDowell reports:
Most of the coal-burning power plants in the Midwest are more than 25 years old.
Under EPA regulations, called New Source Review, these grandfathered power plants would
have to install modern pollution controls if they undergo any major upgrades.
Recently, the EPA relaxed standards on New Source Review regulations.
The EPA says the changes will cut through a lot of red tape and will provide flexibility for power
plants to improve and modernize their operations.
But environmentalists say the Bush Administration is catering to big business.
Howard, Lerner is Executive Director of the Environmental Law and Policy Center. He says the
changes to New Source Review regulations will let old power plants stay dirty.
“This is a break that’s being given by the Bush Administration for the coal industry, for the
utilities, the oil refineries and it comes down to a classic case of what’s good here for some of the
highly-polluting power plants is bad for the public when it comes to clean air and good health.”
Meanwhile, a group of Northeastern states that say they receive air pollution from Midwest
power plants plans to file suit challenging the changes.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Annie MacDowell.
The invention of electric lights at the end of the 19th Century ended the ancient tyranny of darkness over our lives. Turning on the lights at night has allowed us to make every hour count. But while nighttime lighting has given us unprecedented security and uncountable opportunities, we may be reaching the point where we have too much of a good thing. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Ed Janus reports on two people involved in an international effort to turn the lights down a little and take back the night:
The Great Lakes region is home to major power producers. But along with the electricity they make comes some amount of air pollution. When coal-fired power plants in Illinois and Ohio emit sulfur dioxides, prevailing winds blow them to the Northeast, where they can fall as acid rain. Several northeast states are suing those power plants to clean up their emissions. Earlier this summer, a professor at Clarkson University in northern New York coordinated a unique study to learn more about the life cycle of air pollution, from where it’s produced to where it lands. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s David Sommerstein has the story:
Transcript
The Great Lakes region is home to major power producers. But along with the electricity they make comes some amount of air pollution. When coal-fired power plants in Illinois and Ohio emit sulfur dioxides, prevailing winds blow them to the Northeast, where they can fall as acid rain. Several northeast states are suing those power plants to clean up their emissions.
Earlier this summer, a professor at Clarkson University in northern New York coordinated a unique study to learn more about the life cycle of air pollution, from where it’s produced to where it lands. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s David Sommerstein has the story.
Chemical engineering professor Phil Hopke will take any opportunity to get out of his office and over to his field lab. It consists of a concrete slab amongst the weeds in a corner of the local airport. Installed on the concrete are monitors he uses to find out exactly what’s in the air we breathe.
(sound of opening lock)
Hopke unlocks a gate in a chainlink fence. You can already hear a strange hum in the distance. It gets louder as Hopke strides up to one of three white machines the size of dishwashers.
“Come out and change the filters once a day. This one’s for organic constituents in the air.”
He pulls out what looks like an air filter for your furnace. These machines suck in air. They leave a unique footprint of chemicals on the filter that represents what was in the air in this place on this day — chemicals like sulfur dioxide and mercury. Hopke will send these filters to specialty labs around the world to be analyzed.
There are hundreds of stations like this in North America. Groups of researchers study daily air quality for every region of the country. They examine how things like traffic and smokestacks might affect the air we breathe.
But Hopke says they mostly focus on their own areas. They don’t often coordinate studies to see how the chemicals they find move from region to region.
“It struck me a couple of years ago, particularly in the Northeast, that we have these groups talking to one another.”
Working with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Hopke convinced 26 sites in the East, from Texas to Toronto, to measure the same stuff on the same days. They chose the whole month of July.
It’s perhaps the largest simultaneous air sampling effort ever conducted in this country. When the data’s complete, the study will track the lifespan of pollution, from when it leaves a smokestack or a car’s tailpipe to when it is taken up by a tree or your lungs.
But scientists can’t just follow one molecule of pollution from a car in St. Louis to a lake in Michigan. They have to make models of how the chemicals move, like how meteorologists make weather maps to trace storm systems. As if that’s not complicated enough, says Hopke, naturally occurring chemicals make the job even tougher.
“You have to keep in mind that the Blue Ridge Mountains in Virginia are blue because of natural photochemical smog, particles being formed because of the pine materials that come off. Those materials that you smell are chemically reactive and will undergo the same type of smog reactions as human emitted materials.”
So researchers use techniques to separate out the “man-made” pollutants from the “natural” pollutants. Next they look for high concentrations of, say, sulfur dioxide in Chicago on July 15th. Then they follow those high levels east with prevailing winds. They look for high sulfur dioxide levels in Ohio or New York a few days later. After doing this many times in July for many types of chemicals, the researchers hope patterns will begin to emerge.
Hopke sits on a scientific advisory committee that helps the EPA develop pollution standards. He says this coordinated study will bring stronger science to the EPA’s sometimes controversial decisions.
“Suppose I require all power plants to reduce their sulfur dioxide emissions by twenty percent. What does that do for me for particle concentrations in New York City? What will that do? Will that get us where we want in terms of clean air?”
With a study this large in scope, the answers to those questions won’t come quickly. The massive amount of data gathered in the study will take a few years to interpret.
In the meantime, Hopke and the EPA are planning another cooperative sampling effort for wintertime, when temperatures and people’s habits are different from summer.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m David Sommerstein.
Great Lakes states are slowly complying with new EPA rules designed to reduce smog. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Jonathan Ahl explains:
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Great Lakes states are slowly complying with new EPA rules designed to reduce smog. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Jonathan Ahl reports:
The US EPA is requiring states to reduce emissions of Nitrogen Oxides, a main component in smog and ground level ozone. Coal-fired power plants and industrial boilers are the main producers of the pollutants. John Summerhays is an environmental scientist with the EPA’s Midwest Office. He says the reduction is an attempt to improve public health:
“The smog and ozone can cause a variety of health effects that are principally hard on the lungs. It can contribute to various lung diseases, so this is a big step forward for public health protection.”
Illinois and Indiana recently had their emission reduction plans approved by the Federal Government. Pennsylvania and New York have also been approved. Ohio and Michigan still have yet to submit reduction plans. The deadline for implementing the measures is 2004. For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Jonathan Ahl.
A new study suggests wind power is cheaper to produce than coal or natural gas. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Jonathan Ahl reports:
Transcript
A new study suggests wind power is cheaper to produce than coal or natural gas. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Jonathan Ahl reports.
The report from Stanford University shows creating electricity using wind power costs about three and a half cents per kilowatt-hour. That compares to coal and natural gas costs of almost four cents per kilowatt-hour. Mark Jacobson is an engineering professor at Stanford, and the author of the study. He says the government needs to pursue using more wind power over coal and natural gas.
“ …and also, wind energy is more efficient than solar, or other renewable energy sources. So all of the renewable energy sources, you would want to exploit wind first.”
Jacobson says wind power is even a better deal when the environmental costs of pollutants from coal and gas plants are taken into consideration. But there is a downside. To convert two thirds of the nation’s coal generated electricity to wind power would take an up front investment of more then 330-billion dollars. For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Jonathan Ahl.
Mercury emissions from more than 150 coal-burning power plants across the Great Lakes are coming under greater scrutiny this summer. Several states are considering ways to reduce those emissions. Wisconsin could become the first state in the nation to issue rules requiring large mercury reductions. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Chuck Quirmbach has the story:
Last month (April) the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency decided
against regulating ash and sludge from coal-burning power plants as a
toxic hazardous waste. Instead, the EPA will develop voluntary coal-ash
disposal standards. Great Lakes Radio Consortium commentator Suzanne
Elston says the move is a major setback in the war against global
warming:
Electric power plants in some of the Great Lakes states are the
biggest contributors to pollution in the nation. That’s the bottom line
of
the latest study from the Public Interest Research Group. The Great
Lakes Radio Consortium’s Bill Cohen reports:
No one likes the idea of a major powerline running through their
backyard. But a proposed bulk transmission line in Wisconsin is
generating more than the usual amount of controversy. The Great Lakes
Radio Consortium’s Stephanie Hemphill reports:
Transcript
No one likes the idea of a major power line running through their backyard.
But a proposed bulk transmission line in Wisconsin is generating more than
the usual amount of controversy. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s
Stephanie Hemphill reports:
Steve Olson will never forget the night of June 25, 1998. He was working
the overnight shift at Minnesota power’s control center when something went
very wrong.
“I really didn’t know exactly what was going on at the time but I knew it was
serious. I knew it was something bigger than Minnesota power. It’s within
a matter of a minute or two we had half a dozen lines opening.”
The open lines meant the electric grid was breaking apart. The grid
connects Minnesota power to eight states and three Canadian provinces.
lightning strikes in Wisconsin – 200 miles away – caused the breakup. Over
40,000 people lost power.
John Heino is a spokesman for Minnesota power. He says that kind of
situation is one step away from a regional blackout.
“Normally this system is designed to work together so neighboring states and
systems can support each other, but in that situation, it just breaks up
into pieces and there’s no guarantee the power plants in that area are
enough to supply the load that’s left.”
The near miss convinced Minnesota power to do something to shore up the weak
link in the regional electric grid.
The Duluth-based company joined with Wisconsin Public Service to propose a
345-kilovolt transmission line from Duluth Minnesota to Wausau Wisconsin.
It would tap into cheap coal and hydro power from western Minnesota and
Manitoba. Heino says the new link would lighten the load on existing lines
and make service more reliable.
“With all these sources to the north and the west, and you have the Twin
Cities, Milwaukee and Chicago, to the south and the east, so there’s this
general day in and day out tendency for the power to flow to the south and
the east.”
The plan has attracted a lot of opposition along the proposed route. Eight
counties and over fifty local governments have gone on record against it.
Opponents worry about property values, loss of farmland, and health issues.
(sound of meeting)
At a recent meeting in superior Wisconsin, nearly 200 angry people showed up
to confront Minnesota power officials.
Person 1: “Both of these proposed routes would go through our property. We sunk our
life savings into it and we thought we could protect it. Lo and behold,
what did we know?”
Person 2: “As far as I’m concerned, this is a dinosaur. We’re looking at smaller
leading edge technologies that are more adapted to local generation.
Person 3: “I have a very nice neighbor and the power line is going across his land
and
he said to me, if it comes across my land, I’ll shoot’em.
Some Wisconsin farmers oppose the line because of problems they’re having
with other electric lines. Debbie Beyrl says ground currents have made her
cows sick. That’s reduced milk production and made it harder to keep the
business going. She’s also worried about her family’s health.
“I worry about my kids because they’re in the barn helping us. And I think
it’ll put us out of business, not that we’d want to quit but I think it
would finish us off, yeah.”
Power company officials say ground currents are caused by improper wiring or
local distribution lines, not large transmission lines.
But environmentalists question the need for the line. Chris Laforge sells
wind and solar electric generating systems. He says utilities could avoid
building expensive power lines by using alternative systems.
“It’s a perfect match. Distributed photovoltaic generation on rooftops of
large buildings can meet peak air conditioning demand because electricity
gets made right when you need it.”
Power companies say there’s great potential in alternative technologies, but
the current need is acute. Jim Loock is the chief electrical engineer
at the Wisconsin Public Service Commission. That agency has the authority
to approve the line.
“Our electrical system is growing at 2-3% a year, so we need 200-300
megawatts of additional supply every year. That’s why we say part of the
equation is energy conservation and demand side management, we feel strongly
that the consumer needs to conserve energy and use it as wisely as possible.”
Hearings are scheduled this month in Minnesota and this summer in Wisconsin.
if approved, construction could start in September 2001.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Stephanie Hemphill.
Earlier this month (November), the U-S justice department filed the
latest in a string of lawsuits aimed at reducing pollution from coal
fired generating stations. As Great Lakes Radio Consortium
commentator Suzanne Elston points out, instead off wasting all their
time suing each other, the jurisdictions involved should follow the
example set by New York State:
