XPost: alt.global-warming, alt.fan.rush-limbaugh, alt.atheism   
   XPost: alt.politics.trump   
   From: katt@gmail.com   
      
   Coal is the answer to all our needs, and it kills more Americans than any   
   ICE agent can do anywhere in the USA so it has a great population control   
   component that rarely gets credit.   Thankfully most of those deaths occur   
   in Red States because they're reliant on 18th century coal fired technology   
   for power.   Trump plans to raise tariffs to fund government subsidies for   
   Peabody Coal.  An act of pure laissez-faire capitalism straight from the   
   top!   
      
   Coal Power Killed Half a Million People in U. S. over Two Decades   
   November 25, 2023 • by Marc Airhart   
      
   Deaths from coal were highest in 1999, but by 2020 decreased by about 95%,   
   as coal plants have installed scrubbers or shut down.   
   A white plume of exhaust spews from power plant smokestacks   
      
   From 1999–2020, approximately 460,000 deaths in the Medicare population   
   were attributable to coal electricity-generating emissions in the U. S. ,   
   according to a new study.   
      
   It's no secret that small particles in the air from coal-fired power plants   
   are harmful, but a new paper published in Science shows these particles are   
   more than twice as harmful as previously thought. In fact, since 1999 coal-   
   fired power plants in two states—Ohio and Pennsylvania—caused more than   
   103,000 deaths nationwide.   
      
   A team of researchers from six universities, including The University of   
   Texas at Austin, examined data from the United States' 480 coal-fired power   
   plants and found that from 1999–2020, approximately 460,000 deaths in the   
   Medicare population were attributable to coal electricity-generating   
   emissions, a number far higher than previous estimates. The researchers   
   also ranked coal plants and found the 10 deadliest were each associated   
   with more than 5,000 deaths. The research does not account for any   
   additional deaths among individuals under age 65 or among uninsured people.   
      
   Senior author Cory Zigler, an associate professor in UT's Department of   
   Statistics and Data Sciences and founding member of the UT Center for   
   Health & Environment: Education and Research, conceived of the overall   
   analysis strategy of developing a new air quality model and deploying it   
   for large-scale epidemiological studies. He noted one bit of good news:   
   Deaths from coal were highest in 1999 but by 2020 decreased by about 95%,   
   as coal plants installed scrubbers or shut down.   
      
   "I see this as a success story, " Zigler said. "Coal power plants were this   
   major burden that U. S. policies have already significantly reduced. But we   
   haven't completely eliminated the burden. So, this study provides us a   
   better understanding of how health will continue to improve and lives will   
   be saved if we move further toward a clean energy future. "   
      
   For example, deaths from the Keystone power plant in Pennsylvania averaged   
   over 600 per year before emissions scrubbers were installed, and dropped to   
   below 100 deaths per year after that. Spurred by EPA regulations and   
   progressively cheaper alternatives to coal, such as natural gas, coal   
   facilities across the country achieved similar successes.   
      
   "Fine particle air pollution from coal has been treated as if it's just   
   another air pollutant, but it's much more harmful than we thought and its   
   mortality burden has been seriously underestimated, " said lead author   
   Lucas Henneman, an assistant professor of environmental engineering at   
   George Mason University.   
      
   This work shows that cutting emissions from coal power plants can save   
   lives in downwind communities.   
   A map of the United States with each state having a different shade of red,   
   indicating the number of deaths attributable to coal-fired power plants. It   
   also indicates the number of deaths attributable to each individual   
   facility.   
      
   This map indicates the number of deaths among U. S. seniors attributable to   
   coal-fired power plants from 1999-2020, by state and by facility.   
   Visualization from the Coal Pollution Impacts Explorer, created by co-   
   author Jessica Roberts: https: //cpieatgt. github. io/cpie/   
      
   Deaths from each power plant happened both nearby and farther away, as can   
   be visualized with an online tool created by co-author Jessica Roberts,   
   assistant professor in the College of Computing at the Georgia Institute of   
   Technology. The tool shows, for example, that coal-fired power plants   
   operating inside Texas caused 27,000 deaths nationwide during the study   
   period, the majority of them outside of the state's borders. Other state's   
   power plants also caused deaths within Texas, though: Of the 19,600 Texans   
   who died between 1999 and 2020, 10,880 of the deaths could be attributed to   
   Texas power plants, while the remainder were linked to power plants in   
   other states.   
      
   The team used publicly available data to track coal pollution and its   
   effects over time. Approximately 480 coal power plants operated in the U.   
   S. at some time from 1999 to 2020, and all of them are required to report   
   their sulfur dioxide emissions to the EPA.   
      
   The researchers used a model to track which way the wind was taking the   
   sulfur dioxide from each individual coal power plant, often hundreds of   
   miles, and how atmospheric processes converted the sulfur dioxide into fine   
   particles less than 2.5 microns (one millionth of a meter) wide, known as   
   PM2.5. These data were aggregated to produce annual exposure fields from   
   each power plant. By linking coal emissions exposure to where Medicare   
   beneficiaries lived and when they died, the researchers found that risks   
   due to PM2.5 from coal were more than double the risks related to PM2.5   
   from all sources.   
   A graph of annual deaths from coal-power pollution shows a dramatic decline   
   from 1999 to 2020.   
      
   Spurred by EPA regulations and progressively cheaper alternatives to coal,   
   like natural gas, pollution from coal-fired power plants has fallen   
   dramatically in recent years. This trend is associated with a drop in   
   annual coal-power deaths among U. S. seniors. Visualization from the Coal   
   Pollution Impacts Explorer, created by co-author Jessica Roberts: https:   
   //cpieatgt. github. io/cpie/   
      
   "As countries debate their energy sources—and as coal maintains a powerful,   
   almost mythical status in American energy lore—our findings are highly   
   valuable to policymakers and regulators as they weigh the need for cheap   
   energy with the significant environmental and health costs, " said co-   
   author Francesca Dominici, a professor of biostatistics, population and   
   data science at Harvard Chan School and director of the Harvard Data   
   Science Initiative.   
      
   The work was funded by the EPA, the National Institutes of Health, the   
   EmPOWER Air Data Challenge, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and the Health   
   Effects Institute.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
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