Coal's Other Major Pollutant: Mercury
by Greg Haegele, Deputy Executive Director, Sierra Cl 
on 12.12.08
This post is co-written by Greg Haegele and Bruce Nilles, Director of the Sierra Club's National Coal Campaign.
When we talk about coal-fired power plants, the discussion usually revolves around their massive emissions of global warming pollution. Yet these plants also emit many other toxic pollutants – including mercury.
So you can imagine our happiness two weeks ago when a federal judge rejected Duke Energy's attempts to build its new Cliffside coal-fired power plant in North Carolina without modern mercury and other pollution controls. This is the latest federal court to find that Duke Energy and its CEO Jim Rogers are simply refusing to comply with the law.
The ruling means that Duke must go back to the regulators and agree to limit the mercury emissions from its Cliffside plant. As the first coal plant sent back to the drawing board after the D.C. Court of Appeals tossed out the do-nothing Bush administration mercury rules earlier this year, this case sets a precedent .
According to the Environmental Protection Agency, coal-fired power plants are the largest industrial source of mercury pollution in the country. Mercury is a neurotoxin that has already contaminated water bodies in all 50 states. Also according to EPA , more than one in six women have already consumed so much mercury-contaminated fish that it threatens any children they may have.
Duke's planned Cliffside coal plant was the latest in a string of plants across the U.S. lacking modern mercury controls. The Sierra Club is fighting these plants, including an action we took action earlier this year to make 30 plants go back and tighten their mercury emissions .
There are affordable controls for mercury – even the EPA has said as much in its own estimates. And isn't it fairer [[more fair]] that utilities pay for the cost of polluting instead of having parents dealing with the cost of children born with the neurological defects associated with mercury-laden fish?
Most important, though, we need to move beyond coal to clean, renewable energy sources over the next decade. There is no such thing as clean coal . It is filthy, it is destructive when mined, it is poisonous when burned and it contaminates ground water when the coal ash is land-filled. Not so with investments in energy efficiency, wind, solar and geothermal power.
Image credit:Home&Garden Network, Liquid Mercury Metal
More On Mercury And Coal
Mercury Pollution Rising
Mercury From Chinese Coal Use Pollutes Oregon's Willamette River ...
Coal Released Mercury Ruins Fishing and Duck Hunting
Mercury Poisoning: It's Not Just Fish...
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For some history on coal related mercury emissions
www.nescaum.org/documents/rpt031104mercury.pdf/
For EPA regulations on mercury emissions
http://www.epa.gov/camr/basic.htm
The DOE and its work on measuring and controlling mercury emissions
http://fossil.energy.gov/programs/powersystems/pollutioncontrols/overview_mercurycontrols.html
And finally, for the geek moment, how chicken sh!t can be used to reduce mercury emissions --
(Monograph title)
Mercury Emissions during Cofiring of Sub-bituminous Coal and Biomass (Chicken Waste, Wood, Coffee Residue, and Tobacco Stalk) in a Laboratory-Scale Fluidized Bed Combustor
http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/es8016107 - seems the chlorine from chicken waste binds the mercury.in a controlled combustor - worth the read, if nothing else.
Merry Christmas and may you have a clean air holiday season.
My daughter (www.lucydo.com) has multiple "birth defects" that are a result of mercury poisoning --- mercury pollution must be controlled and/or eliminated - not brushed under the rug!
Until we reduce and/or eliminate mercury pollution, the rate of neurological disease (Autism, ALS, MS, Parkinsons, etc) will continue to increase.
Alarming, not to mention the presence of significant amounts of uranium and thorium in coal fly ash.
A report from Oak Ridge National Laboratories reported many years ago that fly ash from coal-burning power plants contain significant amounts of these and other radioactive elements. How much? Last December, Scientific American published an article entitled "Coal Ash Is More Radioactive than Nuclear Waste". When I read about the ORNL study (in the back page of Science News), the statement was made that the energy content of fly ash may exceed that of the coal itself. In addition, there is a company that is investigating the idea of extracting uranium from coal ash in central European countries.
The Scientific American article explains this most succinctly:
[quote]
At issue is coal's content of uranium and thorium, both radioactive elements. They occur in such trace amounts in natural, or "whole," coal that they aren't a problem. But when coal is burned into fly ash, uranium and thorium are concentrated at up to 10 times their original levels.
[end quote]
Kind of puts a new meaning to the New England saying that a particular fuel "warms you twice".
On the other hand, the emission of fly ash from coal-burning plants may release far more radioactivity than any nuclear plant accident, with the exception of the Chernobyl disaster.
No No No No No, Carbon Dioxide is the "other" pollutant.
Heavy metals and particulates are actually more dangerous, although we may be slicing hairs.
Mercury, Chromium, Lead, Uranium Arsenic, Thorium, Coal sits in the ground and accumulates all the soluble heavy metals for 250 million years like a giant Brita filter and then we vaporize it and send it into the air, lakes, rivers and oceans. Brown coal has so much Arsenic that there have been reports of poor Chinese stealing this from factories to use in their kitchen stoves and dieing from Arsenic poisoning. 40% of the Mercury and 90% of the Arsenic pollution is due to coal burning plants. The other major pollutant is acid rain components, then CO2, IMO.
Once in the environment, it will take thousands of years for these metals to leave, mainly by being absorbed into living matter, falling to the bottom of the oceans and being buried in the sediment. Nuclear power on the other hand contains a vast percentage of its volumetrically tiny amount of waste which can then be utilized in future reactors. The impact of nuclear power vs coal on the environment, even taking the best case for coal and the absolute worst case for nuclear is not one that can be argued. This is a kin to arguing about the dangers of smoking vs beer drinking. There are ways in which the latter has been proven to be beneficial to health and in many ways a very nice thing to have around and there are ways in which it is dangerous (think teenagers and cars), but lets hear the argument for cigarettes.
The light water reactor is a responsible teenager in this analogy. It is actually in its mid-20's had a fender bender in Pennsylvania and everyone wanted to take the keys away forever. We should be investing money and time into developing the next generation reactors, I would encourage everyone to look at the post below. It is one of several designs that radically improve safety and reduce waste. Nuclear power is already vastly cleaner than coal and it is one of the only viable alternatives at the scale we consume electricity.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHs2Ugxo7-8
Several years ago, a Discover Magazine article pointed out that coal plants in the U.S. dump 48 tons of mercury into the atmosphere every year. Yet few people are concerned that, they are more concerned about the the 5 mg of mercury contained in Compact Florescent Lamps(CFL's) that may not be recycled properly!
Clean coal technology has been developed, it's on the shelf today, it could be used, it is a bit more expensive, but it's also cheaper than most of the alternatives.