Exposure to emissions from coal-fired power plants over a long period of time is significantly more harmful to the heart than other forms of carbon pollution, a new study says.
The risk of death from heart disease, including heart attacks, was five times higher for people who breathed pollution from coal emissions over 20 years than for those who were exposed to other types of air pollution, according to the study's findings. The burning of coal releases fine particles with a potent mix of toxins, including arsenic and selenium.
“Our results indicate that, pound for pound, coal-burning particles contribute roughly five times as much to heart disease mortality risk as the average air pollution particle in the United States,” said George D. Thurston, a professor of population health and environmental medicine at New York University and lead author of the study.
Thurston and the study's 10 other authors said that their findings should end assumptions in previous studies that carbon “particles have the same toxicity, irrespective of their source.”
And they said the findings show the US Environmental Protection Agency’s effort to strengthen regulation of power plant emissions standards - as part of the White House's Clean Power Plan - does not go far enough.
The EPA’s calculations for lowering air pollution with stricter coal emission standards nationwide are wrong, the research shows, because the estimates are based on the assumption that particles from all sources of carbon pollutions are equally toxic and carry the same risks.
Windblown particles from dust in Phoenix is far less toxic than emissions from coal-burning power plants in Pittsburgh. And urban motor traffic in Los Angeles produces emissions that are about half as toxic as coal, Thurston said.