“There’s no such thing as clean coal,” says Ilan Levin, legal counsel for the Environmental Integrity Project (EIP) in Austin, Texas.
Some coal plants are far dirtier than others, however. The 50 coal-fired power plants producing the highest sulphur dioxide emissions per megawatt-hour spewed out 40 per cent of the US’s SO2 pollution while providing just 14 per cent of its electricity, says a new from the EIP.
Similarly, one-third of power-plant emissions of mercury comes from plants responsible for 18 per cent of the electricity generated in the country.
Sulphur dioxide, mercury and emissions of nitrogen oxides…
