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The Conversation
The Conversation
Lucas Henneman, Assistant Professor of Engineering, George Mason University

Pollution from coal power plants contributes to far more deaths than scientists realized, study shows

Kids jump on a trampoline as steam rises from a coal power plant in Adamsville, Ala., in 2021. Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images

Air pollution particles from coal-fired power plants are more harmful to human health than many experts realized, and it’s more than twice as likely to contribute to premature deaths as air pollution particles from other sources, new research demonstrates.

In the study, published in the journal Science, colleagues and I mapped how U.S. coal power plant emissions traveled through the atmosphere, then linked each power plant’s emissions with death records of Americans over 65 years old on Medicare.

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