American scientists from George Mason University in Virginia have discovered that emissions from coal-fired power plants are twice as dangerous to life as similar pollution from any other source. The study was published in the scientific journal magazine Science.
We are talking about the impact of PM2.5 small particulate matter (diameter not exceeding 2.5 micrometers) formed when burning coal in power plants.
An analysis of emissions data from 480 coal-fired power plants showed that 460,000 deaths in the United States alone from 1999 to 2020 were caused by the emissions of these businesses. This represents 25% of all deaths from air pollution-related causes during the specified period.
“PM2.5 from coal has been treated as if it were just another air pollutant. But they are much more harmful than we thought, and their life-threatening nature has been seriously underestimated,” says Lucas Henneman, lead author of the study.
The researchers were also able to quantify the number of deaths associated with specific power plants and ranked the coal-fired power plants studied according to their contribution to the burden of premature death.
They discovered 10 stations, each of whose emissions killed at least 5,000 people. But by 2020, the harrowing statistics of deaths from smoke from coal plants had dropped by 95% as many of these plants closed.
Previous scientists determined It is the most toxic type of microdust in the air.