Southern Company continues to support ongoing air quality studies to determine what impact, if any, our plant emissions may be having on human health and the environment. Learn more at: - EPA - EPRI - Edison Electric Institute
What is studies say
Studies of power plant emissions included in the TRI show that emissions are not at levels that pose a significant public health concern.
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency:
The EPA reports that based on the overall assessment — considering local and longer range analyses for the maximally exposed person — no greater than 1.3 additional cancer cases annually would occur in the U.S. due to inhalation exposure to air emissions from all utilities that use coal and/or oil. [The "maximally exposed" person is defined as an individual who lives his or her entire life outdoors at the point of highest contact with power plant emissions.
"The vast majority of coal-fired plants are estimated to pose lifetime cancer risks — increased probability of an exposed person getting cancer during a lifetime — of less than one in 1 million due to inhalation exposure…"
Non-cancer health risks from power plant emissions were estimated to be even lower.
Source: U.S. EPA report to Congress, February 1998.
Electric Power Research Institute:
A four-year study by EPRI, carried out in close collaboration with the Utility Air Regulatory Group and the U.S. Department of Energy, "concluded that the nationwide utility emissions of the chemicals targeted for study pose no significant health risks to humans."
Overall risk posed by inhaling emissions from power plants that use coal — given more reasonable exposure conditions than for the "maximally exposed person" - is 0.08 of a cancer occurrence per year for the entire U.S. population. [EPRI's assessment accounts for the overlapping of emissions from the stacks of multiple power plants.]
Even under worst-case assumptions, according to EPRI, 99.5 percent of power plants analyzed pose no cancer risks above the one in 1 million level.
Source: EPRI study "Assessing the Risks of Utility Hazardous Air Pollutants."
(Note: For both EPA and EPRI studies, only the substances classified as metals are considered carcinogens or possibly cancer causing; acid aerosols — such as hydrochloric acid — are considered non-carcinogenic.)
Putting risk into perspective
What others say
2004 TRI data for Southern Company
TRI Historical Data