The results: A total of 460,000 excess deaths from 1999 to 2020 were linked to "fine particulate matter" from coal plants.

Labadie, the researchers found, was associated with about 4,000 excess deaths — more, by far, than any other coal plant across seven Midwestern states.

But a vast majority of U.S. coal plants now have scrubbers that eliminate sulfur from emissions before they exit through the smokestacks. One method, for example, sends the gas through a fine mist of water and crushed limestone that reacts with the sulfur, causing it to form gypsum that gets collected, instead of staying in a gaseous state with the rest of the plant's airborne emissions.

The technology does not come cheap, with costs that can reach hundreds of millions of dollars at a single coal plant.

Even so, a rising portion of the nation's coal plants now have them, either because the plants are newer, or because they had to comply with air quality standards to continue operating — or because older plants have simply closed.

Of the 210 coal plants across the U.S., only 25 — or 12% — lack scrubbers, according to the latest EPA data. Ten others have scrubbers on some of their units but not all.

That makes Ameren's plants like Labadie and Rush Island stand out more and more from the rest of the U.S. coal fleet.

Companywide, Ameren, the second-biggest emitter of SO2 across all companies that own a U.S. coal plant, just barely trails Vistra, a far bigger Texas-based utility that has about double Ameren's annual revenues and twice as much power generation from coal.

The bulk of Ameren's SO2 emissions come from Labadie, which emits about 40% more than the nation's next closest plant, according to EPA data. Even if Labadie's SO2 emissions were cut in half, it would still emit more than every U.S. coal plant except two.

Missouri as a whole has six coal plants without scrubbers, more than any other state. And five of those are totally devoid of the pollution controls. Other major Missouri coal plants, such as the Thomas Hill Energy Center, north of Columbia, Missouri, and the New Madrid Power Plant, on the Kentucky border, also rank among the top 15 in the nation for SO2 emissions, although they each emit less than a third of Labadie's total.

...continued

©2024 STLtoday.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.