Tag Archives: greenhouse gases

Plant Scherer country’s dirtiest again!

Southern Company #1 and #2! We get most of our electricity from #1 coal Plant Scherer near Macon, and 1/4 of its power goes to Florida, dirtying our air. SO says it’s worst only because it’s one of the biggest. But it still emits more greenhouse gases than any other power plant in the country. #2 is only about twice as far away, and it’s also Southern Company.

Kate Sheppard wrote for Huffpost 10 September 2013, Biggest Polluters In U.S. Ranked By Greenhouse Gas Emissions In New Report,

The top five individual plants were:
  1. Georgia Power Company’s Plant Scherer
  2. Alabama Power Company’s James H. Miller Jr. Plant
  3. Luminant Generation Company’s Martin Lake Plant in Texas
  4. Union Electric Company’s Labadie Plant in Missouri
  5. NRG Texas Power’s W.A. Parish Plant
These power plants, said Julian Boggs, Environment America’s global warming program director, “are the elephant in the room when it comes to global warming.”

The report, America’s Dirtiest Power Plants, by Environment America, says (page 5) Plant Scherer alone produces 0.4% of all U.S. CO2 emissions and 0.1% of all the world’s. Plant Miller emits almost as much, so that’s 0.8% of U.S. and 0.2% of world CO2 emissions from just the top 2 Southern Company coal plants.

How about we insist Georgia Power and Southern Company get on with solar power inland and wind off the coast to replace all those coal plants and the water-sucking nukes, too?

-jsq

Southern Company has 3 biggest CO2 plants in U.S.

David Ibala wrote for the AJC 11 January 2012, Study: Southern Company plants are 3 biggest greenhouse gas emitters
Two Southern Company coal-fired electric generating plants near Atlanta are the biggest contributors to global greenhouse gases in the United States, and a third Southern plant in Alabama is the third-biggest emitter, an analysis of environmental data found Wednesday.

The nation’s No. 1 producer of carbon dioxide — the heat-trapping gas that is held chiefly responsible in models of global warming — is Plant Scherer in Juliette, about 65 miles southeast of downtown Atlanta, according to the Associated Press analysis of data reported to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for 2010.

That’s the plant that supplies most of our power in south Georgia, whether you get it through Georgia Power or Colquitt EMC.
The No. 2 producer is Plant Bowen, just west of Cartersville, about 50 miles northwest of central Atlanta, and the third-largest is Plant Miller in Quinton, Ala., about 165 miles west of Atlanta near Birmingham, the AP said.
The story also notes (as a picture caption):
Georgia Power recently installed pollution-control equipment, called baghouses, to curb mercury pollution at Plant Scherer. EPA rules that will regulate mercury likely will lead to the utility to install additional baghouses at other coal-fired plants
Hm, that’s exactly what Southern Company said it was incompetent to do. Apparently it figured out to do what other power companies already knew how to do.

Anyway, pumping out CO2 from coal plants is what Southern Company is doing instead of solar and wind.

-jsq