The fact that coal-fired power plants kill people, and harm many more, is probably not spoken out loud enough. Their literal existence is responsible for, according to one study, almost half a million deaths between 1999 and 2020 alone, and that’s completely ignoring their impacts on the climate. In a sane country, it would not be in any way controversial to be trying, every day, to close them all down in favor of cleaner sources of electricity. That country sounds nice.
The proclamation went on to list three plants incorporating six individual “units” operating in Ohio, Illinois, and Colorado. In a classic Trumpworld display of the mix of malevolence with incompetence, it managed to mix up which companies own which of the plants, though the point does get across.
There’s the Cardinal plant’s three operating units, located on the Ohio River about 50 miles west of Pittsburgh. Per the Clean Air Task Force’s Toll From Coal dashboard, 120,000 people live within 12 miles of the plant; its emissions, now allowed to kinda do whatever, cause 61 heart attacks, 1,454 asthma attacks, and 7,424 lost work days every year. It also kills 168 people. The company that owns it says one of the three units is planned for retirement in 2028; the Trump administration has already proven it has an appetite to try and force coal plants to keep killing beyond those planned retirements.
Then there’s the Craig Generating Station in Colorado. It’s a bit more remote, to the west of Steamboat Springs, but it’s still within 12 miles of more than 12,000 people. As such, this one will spur on 14 annual cases of acute bronchitis, 270 asthma attacks, and five asthma-related ER visits. It will kill 21 people each year. Its owners too have a plan for a 2028 retirement, recently moved up by two years in response to its customers demanding cleaner power sources; that owner, Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association, also won $970 million in late 2023 as part of the Empowering Rural America program to build out renewable energy. You will not be shocked to learn that the $9.7 billion in funding overall was frozen for months once Trump took over, though various rulings have forced some of it to flow again, if recipients are “aligned” with the president’s bullshit energy policies.
Finally, Springfield, Illinois’s Dallman plant’s last remaining unit pictured above also gets to keep belching out whatever for two years. That one is inside the city limits of the state capital, with 176,818 people nearby. But all but one of the plant’s units is already closed, leaving a diminished impact — “only” 604 lost work days, five heart attacks, 127 asthma attacks. It will still kill 12 people this year. This is also the specific unit where in 2021 a failed maintenance operation resulted in a coal ash cloud released into the sky — precisely when the state’s General Assembly was discussing plans to shutter it on an accelerated timeline.
The regulation in question, Trump proclaimed, “places severe burdens on coal-fired power plants.” Yes. That is the idea. They kill people, every year, until we regulate them out of existence.
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