Health advocates optimistic about Clean Power Plan

Correction: The United Nations’ climate change summit in December will address how to keep average global temperatures from rising 2 degrees Centigrade, or 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit. This article incorrectly described the difference between Centigrade and Fahrenheit temperatures.

As utilities and environmentalists await the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's announcement later this year of the final federal rules to reduce carbon, sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide emissions for existing power plants, health advocates are optimistic about what's in it for them.

The Clean Power Plan, as it was proposed last spring, would require Arkansas to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from existing coal plants by 44 percent -- from 2005 levels -- by 2020. Nationwide, that percentage is 30.

The plan aims to mitigate climate change, which has been attributed to carbon dioxide emissions.

The Regional Haze Rule targets visibility in national parks and wilderness areas and would require retrofitting several Arkansas coal plants with "scrubbers" reducing sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide. Proponents of the plan have lauded its health benefits, although EPA officials have said only visibility will be considered in the final rule.

Many people favor the ancillary effects on public health from reducing carbon dioxide emissions -- namely that stricter regulations would close some coal plants, removing other pollutants from the atmosphere. They also argue that climate change will have serious health effects in the future.

But utility officials argue that the EPA's timeline for complying with the proposed measures is unrealistic and that the United States will have to rely on power supplies such as coal and nuclear power for some time before renewable energy sources could replace them.

Nationwide, coal plants have closed by the dozens in the past decade over concerns related to regulations. Arkansas has bucked that trend, as the number of coal plants in the state has grown in that time frame. That growth further complicates how Arkansas will respond to the Clean Power Plan and the Regional Haze Rule.

Power plant emissions -- including fine particulates, sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide -- can create health problems for people living near plants and those already sensitive to atmospheric conditions. Carbon dioxide itself is not a major health concern, said Dr. Joe Bates, Arkansas Department of Health deputy state health officer and chief science officer, but climate change caused by carbon emissions will present health concerns for future generations.

"People with severe lung disease have CO2 concentrations go up in their blood," Bates said, "but we don't have anything like that in ambient air."

Last week, the White House released a report warning that 57,000 deaths could occur yearly by 2100 as a result of poor air quality if the country doesn't act on climate change.

In addition to climate change, Bates is concerned with fine particulates in the atmosphere, which increase when coal plants run without environmental controls called scrubbers.

The Clean Air Task Force and the American Heart Association nonprofit organizations have also said particulates cause premature deaths. The Clean Air Task Force estimated 90 deaths, 60 hospitalizations and 112 heart attacks were related to particulates -- including sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide, both targets of the Regional Haze Rule -- in Arkansas in 2012.

Carbon emissions also contribute to higher mercury levels in water -- through higher mercury levels in rain -- and then in fish, Bates said. The Arkansas Game and Fish Commission's website lists 20 water bodies in west and south Arkansas as having mercury advisories warning against eating fish from them.

"The science of this is not understood by most people, including thoughtful people," Bates said of coal plants. "The pollution is causing deaths every day, but it's just increasing the number of the things we already have, like heart disease and stroke ... and so it's not perceptible that this is a problem."

Three coal plants in Arkansas run without controls for fine particulates: Flint Creek in Gentry, Independence in Newark and White Bluff in Redfield, although the Flint Creek plant is undergoing a $408 million retrofitting for emissions-reducing scrubbers that will curb fine particulates by May 2016. That cost is being split 50-50 by co-owners Southwest Electric Power Co. and the Arkansas Electric Cooperative Corp.

The Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality and the Arkansas Public Service Commissions opposed the Clean Power Plan as proposed last spring with a 2020 target, arguing that even a 2030 deadline is "unattainable" and "technically flawed."

That response included input from stakeholders, including utility companies, which have argued that the regulatory process moves too slowly for that timeline to be feasible.

"It's not just the reduction overall, it's the time frame," Southwest Electric Power Co. spokesman Peter Main said.

Additionally, planning can be harder to do when other regulations like the Regional Haze Rule are set to come down at the end of the year, said Sandra Byrd, Arkansas Electric Cooperative Corp.'s vice president for public affairs and member services.

Time is key if the goal is to replace coal with renewable energy sources, Byrd said.

"Renewables can help, but only when they're available on the grid," Byrd said. "There's a lot of folks that don't understand that. ... Maybe in the future we'll have enough cutting-edge storage technology and renewable capacity to do that, but at this point we still need automatic fuel sources."

Utility officials also note progress within their own companies.

Entergy Arkansas spokesman Sally Graham wrote in an email to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette that Entergy has "one of the cleanest generation portfolios in the country" and that if the rest of the world were as clean, "CO2 emissions from the power sector would be reduced by approximately 45 [percent], to a level below that which many scientists say is necessary to keep warming below 2 degrees Centigrade."

Two degrees centigrade, which is 35.6 degrees Fahrenheit, is the level of temperature growth world leaders are trying to prevent in a forthcoming United Nations climate change conference in Paris.

Graham also noted that 71 percent of the electricity that Entergy Arkansas customers consumed in 2014 came from nuclear power generation, which is emissions-free. Some newly built Entergy power plants even exceed the EPA guidelines for them, Graham wrote.

Entergy Arkansas has also proposed an 81-megawatt solar project with NextEra Energy Resources near Stuttgart that would be the state's first renewable energy farm.

Southwest Electric Power Co. counts a 496-megawatt wind farm that sends electricity into Arkansas among its power sources, and the Arkansas Electric Cooperative Corp. has three hydropower generators and plans to expand its solar power offerings.

But environmental and health activists are still in a hurry to see changes.

The Sierra Club, including its Arkansas chapter, has been advocating for shutting down coal plants completely through its decade-long Beyond Coal campaign, financed in part by billionaire former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

The organization keeps a tally on the front page of its website. At the end of last week, the counter noted 195 coal plants had closed, with 328 remaining.

"There are numerous negative health impacts that come from coal plants," Sierra Club of Arkansas Chapter Director Glen Hooks said. "They lead to thousands of premature deaths."

Dina Nash, once a member of the Arkansas Alternative Energy Commission, has been a longtime advocate for carbon capture at coal plants and renewable energy, in part for the health problems attributed to coal plants.

"It's a silent epidemic that no one talks about, but it needs to be a huge issue," Nash said. "It is a huge issue in our medical expenses and our loss of life."

Bates, a health advocate, brushed aside the hesitancy over the financial impact of environmental regulations.

"I might worry about my children and my grandchildren," Bates said of climate change. "The big trouble is going to be 50 years from now, and people don't want to try to do something that's not going to happen until 50 years from now.

"They look at electricity prices and labor, but no one talks about death and disability," Bates continued. "Those are big, big costs, and they probably offset the costs of trying to do something about the pollution they're causing."

Metro on 06/29/2015

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