How Many People Die from Coal Plants Near You?

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Where Soot Pollution Kills

From coast to coast, soot pollution impacts us all, although not equally.

This map shows where soot pollution is causing the most harm. Every gray dot on this map is a coal plant, and the size of the dot represents how many lives are lost every year due to soot pollution from that plant. Shades of red represent deaths per capita, with darker colors demonstrating higher premature mortality per capita.

The Wide Reach of Soot Pollution

Coal plants have smokestacks that reach hundreds of feet into the sky, spewing pollution into windy air high above ground. Soot and other pollutants can travel hundreds of miles away, subjecting communities far from a coal plant to its deadly impacts. 

On average, we estimate that only 4% of premature mortality from remaining coal-fired power plants occurs in the same county where the plant is located. The distribution of remaining plants and prevailing wind patterns result in a number of counties that experience an outsized burden.

Who carries the burden of soot pollution?

Far from being an isolated problem in “coal country,” soot pollution harms everyone, driving the need for strong federal action.

Alleghany County in Pennsylvania and Cook County in Illinois are roughly tied for the most premature deaths from coal. However, Cook County is hundreds of miles away from any large coal-fired power plants - an example of the extent to which particulate pollution from coal blankets the country.

Soot’s Importers and Exporters

When it comes to soot pollution, some states are “importers” of soot pollution’s burdens, meaning they experience more harm than they cause. Other states “export” a lot of soot pollution and its burden to other states. Only a handful of states experience a high amount of premature mortality from coal plants located in their own borders.

On average, we estimate that only 18% of premature mortality from remaining coal-fired power plants occurs in the same state where the plant is located.

Biggest importer of premature mortality from soot:
Despite having no coal plants in New York, 234 people die prematurely in the state every year thanks to soot pollution from coal plants outside the state’s borders.

Biggest exporter of premature mortality from soot:
Kentucky is the largest “exporter” of premature mortality from soot pollution in the country. Soot from Kentucky coal plants is responsible for 307 deaths outside of the state each year. An additional 136 lives are lost prematurely in the state thanks to its soot pollution.

Follow the Money: Who Profits from Soot Pollution

Electric utilities are often owned by a larger parent or holding company. We estimate that the 15 most deadly parent companies own half of remaining coal capacity and are responsible for over 60% of premature mortality from PM2.5 pollution.

Tennessee Valley Authority: The Most Deadly Parent Company
The most deadly parent company is Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) - which is not owned by investors, but by the U.S. government. Soot pollution from TVA’s four remaining coal plants (Shawnee, Cumberland, Gallatin and Kingston) affects a large swath of counties in the midwest and Great Lakes. In early January 2023, TVA announced that it would be retiring its largest coal plant - the 2.6 GW Cumberland plant - by the end of 2028. TVA also has plans to retire all of its coal plants by the end of 2033. However, it's important to note that until their planned retirement year, these plants continue to burden Americans with high amounts of PM2.5 pollution. If just these four plants continued to emit air pollution at 2019 levels, they would cause another 2,176 premature deaths until they were all retired.

Life-Saving Administrative Actions

President Biden and his Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) have promised to implement a bold, multipollutant, strategy that has the potential to save thousands of lives, improve the wellbeing of millions across the country–including vulnerable communities of color and low-income communities–and stimulate the economy by reducing healthcare costs, missed school days, and work days.

EPA has the authority to directly impact the highest polluting power plants through existing rules on cross-state air pollution, regional haze, and others - ensuring that the most deadly plants have modern pollution controls or are shut down for good. Unfortunately, over half of coal generating units online today still lack these controls.

The Clean Air Act requires the EPA to set strong standards protecting Americans from exposure to harmful levels of air pollution. However, the latest draft proposal addressing soot pollution falls short of a safe standard, and does not account for the public health benefits from retiring the remaining coal fleet. For many counties with high soot levels, retiring coal could make the difference between having safe air to breathe or not.

Now, it’s time for President Biden to finish the job and ensure we have strong air quality rules and standards.