October 9, 2007 -- Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal today announced a landmark settlement requiring one of the nation's largest power plant operators to install $4.6 billion worth of pollution controls and invest $60 million in environmental projects - significantly reducing harmful pollution.
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Pollution control at the production site is only a small part of the total coal pollution continuum. Extraction destroys landscape and poisons ground water in addition to increasing the flooding risk in coal mine areas. Transportation created pollution is the other area not addressed by systems to "clean up" a coal plant. It takes over 200 rail cars full of coal to power a medium-sized plant every day. Illinois is a coal/nuke state but fortunately we have clean options available to individuals today. Check out http://www.ChicagoRenewableEnergy.com to learn more.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts. To be honest, 200 rail cars sounded to me like an exaggeration so I did the math and...wow!
Coal energy content 6.7 kW-h/kg
Power plant size 1000 MW
plant efficiency 30%
req'd input 8.0E+07 kW-h
coal req'd 1.2E+07 kg = 1.3E+04 tons
railcar capacity 100 tons
railcars req'd 131
That's a lot of coal!
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