Thursday, September 12, 2013

Biggest Polluters In U.S. Ranked By Greenhouse Gas Emissions In New Report

Biggest Polluters In U.S. Ranked By Greenhouse Gas Emissions In New Report

If the 50 dirtiest power plants in the United States were their own sovereign country, they would qualify as the seventh-biggest polluter in the world, according to a new report released on Tuesday. Those power plants alone emit more than all of South Korea or Canada.

The new report, from the group Environment America, ranks the 100 dirtiest power plants in the U.S. Overall, nearly 6,000 different power generation facilities are located in the U.S., which in total account for 41 percent of the greenhouse gas emissions produced here. But the 100 dirtiest alone -- all but two of which are coal-fired power plants -- create nearly half of those planet-warming emissions.

The data in the report is drawn from the Department of Energy's Energy Information Center. The list is similar to one created last year using the Environmental Protection Agency's inventory of biggest polluters, though the rankings do vary slightly.

Texas, Ohio, Florida and Pennsylvania ranked highest for overall carbon pollution from power plants.

The top five individual plants were:
  1. Georgia Power Company's Plant Scherer
  2. Alabama Power Company's James H. Miller Jr. Plant
  3. Luminant Generation Company's Martin Lake Plant in Texas
  4. Union Electric Company's Labadie Plant in Missouri
  5. NRG Texas Power's W.A. Parish Plant


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