Full Title: Energy Efficiency as a Pollution Control Technology and a Net Job Creator under Section 111(d) Carbon Pollution Standards for Existing Power Plants
Author(s): John “Skip” Laitner and Matthew McDonnell
Publisher(s): Environmental Defense Fund (EDF)
Publication Date: November 1, 2014
Full Text: Download Resource
Description (excerpt):
This year residences and businesses in the United States will spend an estimated $360 billion to meet our total electricity demands – to cool and light our homes, listen to music or watch television, and power our commercial and industrial equipment. Electricity purchases will further enable our access to the Internet and will filter and purify the water that is delivered to our homes, schools, and businesses each and every day.
Although we will derive many important benefits as we pay our monthly electricity bills, the current electricity generation infrastructure annually produces 3.34 million tons of sulfur dioxide. (SO2) and 1.68 million tons of nitrogen oxides (NOx) air pollution. These and other pollutants are expected to add $125 billion or more to this year’s health care costs. Power plants are also the largest source of climate-disrupting carbon pollution in the United States, emitting an estimated 2 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) each year. Due to human activities—primarily the combustion of fossil fuels and deforestation—the concentration of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere is rapidly rising. The need to mitigate CO2 emissions is truly urgent. The emerging evidence has led prominent physicist and climate scientist James Hansen to reach the “startling conclusion” that the continued exploitation of fossil fuels threatens not only the planet, but also the survival of humanity itself.