The New England states are trying to force the US federal government to crack down harder on mercury polluters and FuturePundit cheers them on.
New York and six other Northeastern states announced yesterday that they have joined in a regional pact to try to force the federal government to enact tougher standards on mercury emissions.
New England can't get mercury pollution down far enough because much of its mercury is getting blown in from other states and presumably Canada as well. The Bush Administration has opposed more rapid reductions in emissions. SO the New England states are looking for ways to force changes in federal environmental policy.
Calculations of those maximum levels would recognize that the majority of mercury pollution in the region comes from other states.
Thus, for the Northeastern states to meet federal clean water standards, the other states would have to reduce the amount of mercury they put into the air.
The New England states want a reduction large enough to make their fish safe to eat.
According to the draft plan, reducing the amount of mercury contamination in the region by 86 percent to 98 percent would cause the amount of mercury in fish to decline to levels at which consumption advisories could be lifted.
This seems a reasonable goal. Our fish shouldn't contain toxic quantities of mercury. Mercury is bad, 'mmmmkay?
This move by New England states ends up targetting coal electric plants in other states..Nationwide, power plants account for two thirds of all SO2, 22 percent of NOx, 40 percent of CO2, and a third of all mercury emissions."
Current regulations will not bring down mercury emissions from coal burners by the order of magnitude or more that the New England states seek.
Mercury: Emissions levels remain steady. Power plant mercury emissions remain steady as compared to previous years. EIP's report ranks plants based on 2004 data, which is the most recent publicly available information from EPA's Toxics Release Inventory. Roughly 400 plants emitted just over 47 tons of mercury. Many plants are installing scrubbers to control sulfur dioxide, and mercury emissions will decline with SO2 controls at these plants. But, EPA's new power plant mercury rule is unlikely to have any effect in the short-term. Power plant mercury emissions are expected to decline to roughly 24 tons in 2020 - significantly higher than EPA's so-called cap of 15 tons by 2018, as power plants "bank" pollution allowances in the early years of the rule's implementation. Widespread use of banked allowances means that EPA's cap of 15 tons will likely not be met until 2026 or beyond.
For all plants ranked for mercury, the top 50 plants with the highest emission rates together emitted 15 tons of mercury, just over 30 percent of all power plant mercury pollution, but generated only about 17 percent of the electricity. Plants in Texas and Pennsylvania topped the list for the nation's highest power plant mercury emission rates. AEP's Pirkey plant (Texas) and Reliant's Shawville plant (Pennsylvania) are the top two dirtiest plants based on mercury emission rates. The top 50 power plant mercury polluters accounted for more than 20 tons, or 43 percent of the industry's mercury emissions, and generated 33 percent of the electricity. TXU's Martin Lake (Texas) plant ranked number one, with more than 1,700 pounds of mercury emissions. Southern Company's Miller plant (Alabama) and Scherer plant (Georgia) came in second and third, emitting 1,544 and 1,465 pounds, respectively. Twenty-three plants in 13 states ranked in the top 50 for both emission rate and total pounds emitted. Two Texas power plants, TXU's Big Brown and American Electric Power's Pirkey, rank in the top 10 for both emission rate and total pounds.
Chlorine plants which use the chlor-alkali process are another big source of mercury pollution.
Two of the biggest sources of mercury pollution are chlorine chemical plants and coal-fired power plants. Chlorine plants, which use massive quantities of mercury to extract chlorine from salt, "lose" dozens of tons of mercury each year; power plants emit around 50 tons of mercury pollution annually. Facilities that recycle auto scrap are another big source of mercury pollution, pouring 10 to 12 tons of mercury into the air every year. The most common way Americans are exposed to mercury is through tuna fish.
The auto scrap yards do not try hard enough to remove mercury switches from old cars before they crush and melt them. They shouldn't be allowed to get away with that. The chlorine plants emit about as much as the coal electric plants. But that understates the contribution from coal since industrial coal-fired boilers are big mercury emitters.
Mercury is a neurotoxin. We shouldn't let mercury polluters turn fresh water fish into health hazards. First off, the pollutants violate our rights. Second, anything that reduces cognitive function imposes huge costs. Our brains matter far more than the cost of any capital equipment in determining how much economic output we'll produce in the future. Fish bestow brain benefits due to omega 3 fatty acids. We shouldn't let mercury polluters take away that benefit.
Tougher emissions regulations on coal use will reduce coal usage and increase usage of substitutes. The emissions regulations will increase the cost of coal electric and coal heat. That'll improve the competitiveness of nuclear, wind, and technologies that increase energy efficiency. Increased demand for the competitors will provide incentives to develop cheaper technologies for delivering energy from nuclear, solar, wind, geothermal, and other non-fossil fuel energy sources.
If you are concerned about greenhouse gas emissions then take note: to the extent that restrictions on conventional pollutant emissions make non-fossil fuel energy sources more attractive those emissions restrictions reduce greenhouse gases. Conventional emissions restrictions do not clearly reduce greenhouse gases. Some of the scrubber technologies used in coal plants take energy to run and therefore increase the amount of coal used per amount of electricity generated. But severe restrictions on conventional emissions would so raise the price of coal electric that nuclear electric might become cost competitive.
By Randall Parker at 2007 April 14 10:50 AM Policy Pollution | TrackBackAs I am fond of pointing out, it is categorically impossible to improve the standard of living and quality of life by making things more expensive thru increased costs. Obliterating coal to make nuclear cost-competitive can be done only at making oneself worse off.
The correct approach to get rid of coal plants, and mercury, and particulates, (greenhouse gases are utterly irrelevant), is to deregulate the nuclear industry and remove all the asinine environmental jack-boot thug regulations that presently makes nuclear power plants way too expensive and risky, businesswise, to build.
Now, difficult as it is for many, go take a real hard look at the literature on the topic. And I mean the real literature, not what pops up as a result of Google sifting the environmental whackos. Get back to me when you reach the obvious conclusion that the mercury level in fish is essentially constant and has been for about a quarter of a century. Like the ozone hole, mercury in fish is a natural phenomenon.
Or, regarding the overblown dangers, you could go look at the most intensive study on the topic in The Lancet. Let me give you a third-party parting quote:
The "gold standard in mercury research" according to the Wall Street Journal is a study published last year in the medical journal The Lancet. It intensively studied women and their children in the Seychelles Islands, where they eat fish with the same levels of mercury as the fish consumed in the United States. Actually, they eat about ten times as much fish as the typical American (an average of 12 times a week). Even though the women in this study had six times as much mercury in their bodies as typical Americans, it still wasn't enough to pose any health risk. The Lancet study concluded: "We've found no evidence that the low levels of mercury in seafood are harmful."
UNFCCC has not taken this aspect into CDM mechanisms & guidlines, could you throw some light. this area has to be taken .
UNFCCC has not taken this aspect into CDM mechanisms & guidlines, could you throw some light. this area has to be taken up.