In the Virginian Pilot Editorial “Coal Plant Harm Swamps Benefits” (March 4, 2012), the Pilot asserts that the 1,600 acre, Cypress Creek Power Station is an environmental nightmare and, if constructed, will cause “a few dozen deaths and cost $200M a year in medical expense in Hampton Roads.” The article then lists all the pollutants emitted by the plant and their potential impact on every political constituency they can identify.
The Pilots argument is fear mongering at its worst: a text without a context.
First, the Pilot does not place these emissions within regulatory limits. Since 1990, even as US coal use more than doubled, coal-fired power plant emissions have declined: 58% for mercury, 67% for nitrogen oxides, 70% for particulates, 85% for sulfur dioxide – as well as for most of the other 80 pollutants. Second, the health impacts projected are most likely based on EPA studies that assume that the technology required to reduce mercury emissions will reduce other pollutants (primarily related to soot and particulate matter) that are already regulated elsewhere, in effect double counting. Last, the article leaves it to the reader’s imagination to come up with another economic alternative to provide 1,500 Mw to 400,000 citizens: power which provides jobs and powers all the things progressives want to give away for free to their constituents. Replacing this plant with a wind farm for example would require not 1,600 acres of land by a minimum of 800,000 acres of land.
Life is full of risks: the question is do the benefits outweigh them and are the costs reasonable.
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