President Trump’s push to save coal-fired power plants would put miners back to work, but it would also cause more premature deaths that could cancel out those benefits, according to a new study by environmental economists.
Resources for the Future issued the study Thursday focused on the effects of the Trump administration’s proposal on emissions, mortality from those emissions, and coal mine jobs.
“Our simulation results indicate that, each year, one American would die from air pollution for every 2 to 4.5 coal mining jobs supported by the policy,” according to the authors of the study, Daniel Shawhan and Paul Picciano.
The study is titled “Retirements and Funerals: The Emission, Mortality, and Coal-Mine Employment Effects of a Two-Year Delay in Coal and Nuclear Power Plant Retirements.” It shows that the Trump policy would cause 353 to 815 premature deaths between 2019 and 2020 from increased sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide emissions, which are the most common and hazardous air pollutants that come from burning coal.
The policy would also support 790 coal mine jobs, “though it would be likely to reduce economy-wide employment” by curbing job growth in other sectors, according to the report’s summary.
The study examines the implications of Trump’s June 1 order directing Energy Secretary Rick Perry to take immediate action to prevent the closure of both coal and nuclear power plants.
The study looks at 2019 and 2020 based on a White House memo disclosed to the media ahead of the June 1 announcement that discusses a two-year plan started by the Department of Energy.
The study assumes that the policy will be in effect for at least two years and delays most, or all, previously announced retirements of coal and nuclear power plants until at least the end of 2020. “Under this assumption, the policy would, on average over the two years, be delaying the retirement of 7.8 gigawatts (GW) of coal-fired generation capacity and 1.1 GW of nuclear generation capacity,” according to the group.
The number of power plant closures examined by the study represents almost 3 percent of U.S. coal generation capacity and 1 percent of the country’s nuclear power plant electricity production.
On the upside, the study estimates that keeping nuclear power plants afloat for longer would reduce the number of yearly premature deaths by 24-53.
It would also cut an additional estimated 9 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions, the principal cause of global warming. Yet because of the coal power plants, those emissions reductions will likely be canceled out, according to the study.
“Over the two years, the policy would increase CO2 emissions by 22 million tons, equivalent to the amount emitted by 4.3 million cars in a year,” according to the study’s summary.
