The true costs of coal
Coal’s decline and its polluting legacy
As the economics of coal continue to decline and the urgency of climate change intensifies, electric utilities are forced to reckon with the reality of moving away from the South’s fossil fuel-dependent past. Even as we transition to cleaner sources of energy. it is essential to maintain and strengthen air and water pollution safeguards to protect communities from coal plants that remain in operation.
Faced with pressure from regulators and the public, as well as economic realities, utilities have retired many of their oldest, dirtiest coal-fired power plants. As a result, coal’s footprint in the South has been more than halved over the last decade, with 130 coal-fired units shuttered. However, 60 active coal-fired units remain in SELC’s region and increasing demand for power and pro-fossil-fuel policies at the federal level threaten to prolong the operating lives of some coal units.
Our region’s historic reliance on coal has exposed it’s devastating and long-lasting impacts —from its initial extraction to the waste left behind after it is burned—to the detriment of our air, water, land, and communities.
“Even as we move toward cleaner, more affordable energy sources, communities are living with the legacy of coal’s toxic air and water pollution throughout our region. We will keep working to strengthen and enforce critical safeguards for the health of communities, our air, and our water and make sure that utilities to clean up their act.”
Gudrun Thompson, Senior Attorney and Energy Program Leader
The lifecycle of coal: true costs
Historically much of the coal burned in plants in the South has been obtained through mountaintop removal coal mining, a devastating practice that has destroyed countless mountains, forests, and streams.
Past and current mining operations have taken a toll on our region’s water quality: from filling miles of streams, tributaries and wetlands under lax state and federal permits, to abandoned mining sites that continue to degrade streams and contaminate groundwater with unpermitted discharges containing high levels of sediment, heavy metals like iron and aluminum, and other pollutants.
Burning coal in power plants produces staggering amounts of air and water pollution harmful to human health—often disproportionately impacting nearby communities of color—and has led our region to become one of the world’s largest contributors to climate change.
Coal burning also generates vast quantities of coal ash waste that contains dangerous heavy metals like arsenic—toxic pollution that is often stored in unlined pits on or near the plant sites. Many of these sites leak—some silently seep into our rivers and groundwater; some fail catastrophically, like the Kingston spill of 2008 in Tennessee and Dan River in 2014 in North Carolina—putting communities, our waterways and wildlife at risk.
The South’s shift to a cleaner, healthier future
We are focused on advancing our region toward a cleaner, smarter, zero- carbon energy future by reducing our dependence on fossil fuels like coal and gas, while also working to address the ongoing impacts of coal’s legacy and to hold utilities and other polluters accountable.
We have been a leading voice urging utilities to consider the long-term economic benefits of retiring coal plants and investing in cleaner and more cost-efficient technologies, such as energy efficiency, solar, and wind. As a result, carbon emissions from power generation in our region declined 50 percent since 2005.
We will continue to defend against and challenge rollbacks to air and water pollution regulations at the state and federal levels, strengthening environmental safeguards and their enforcement. At the federal level, we will work to defend EPA rules that strengthen pollution safeguards for the power sector, including: a rule strengthening standards for toxic air pollution, a rule reducing pollution in wastewater discharge, and a rule requiring safe management of coal ash waste at inactive coal plants.
We remain committed to advocating for responsible, effective coal ash clean ups. As a result of SELC’s coal ash advocacy, Southern utilities are now required or have committed to remove over 270 million tons of coal ash—including 70 percent of leaking, unlined pits covered under federal protections—to dry, lined storage away from our rivers, lakes and streams. These outcomes have not been achieved in any other region.
Additional Resources
Tip of the Ashberg
