LOS ANGELES, July 5 (Xinhua) -- A recent U.S. study has found that just transporting and storing coal can adversely affect the health of people living nearby.
While the negative health and environmental effects of burning coal are well-known, a new working paper of the U.S. National Bureau of Economic Research, written by Akshaya Jha of Carnegie Mellon University's Heinz College and Nicholas Muller of Middlebury College, shows that the increase of coal stockpiles can raise the air pollution level, which in turn increases the average infant and adult mortality rates in the communities near these power plants.
"Despite the thicket of environmental regulations relevant to coal, our paper uncovers an as yet unstudied dimension of coal use that we argue requires policy intervention -- the environmental consequences of the coal purchase and storage behavior of U.S. power plants," Jha said in a statement.
Jha and Muller used monthly plant-level data on coal purchases and stockpiles provided by the U.S. Energy Information Administration as well as air quality data from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for the period of 2002 to 2012 to demonstrate that a 10 percent increase in coal stockpiles results in a 0.07 percent increase in the average concentration of fine particulate matter (PM2.5) for communities up to 25 miles (40.2 km) away and downwind from coal plants.
Based on mortality data provided by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, researchers then demonstrated that a 10 percent increase in PM2.5 levels causes average adult mortality rates to rise by 1.1 percent and average infant mortality rates to rise by 6.6 percent in those communities.
The results suggest that most of the local air pollution costs of coal procurement and storage are borne by nearby communities. The paper stated that residents living near power plants have lower incomes and educational attainment on average.
