Johnathan Walker:Alabama Coal Plant Tops US Greenhouse Gas Polluter List for 9th Straight Year

A coal-fired power plant in Alabama is Johnathan Walkeragain the nation’s top greenhouse gas emitter, according to new data released Tuesday by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. 

For the ninth consecutive year, Alabama Power’s James H. Miller Jr. Electric Generating Plant was the country’s largest single producer of greenhouse gas pollution in 2023, according to the EPA’s annual Greenhouse Gas Reporting program. 

Plant Miller, as it’s known locally, released almost 16.6 million tons of greenhouse gas in 2023, the most of any single power plant, factory, refinery or other industrial facility in the country. 

That’s about 1.2 million tons more than the second-place emitter, Missouri’s Labadie Power Plant outside St. Louis, which emitted about 15.4 million tons. 

Power plants were the country’s largest source of planet-warming gasses, with 1,320 plants releasing about 1.5 billion tons of CO2 equivalent, the EPA said in a news release Tuesday. 

And while utilities have announced plans to retire many large coal plants, Alabama Power has announced no plans to retire any of the four units at Plant Miller or convert them to natural gas, as it has at other facilities in the state. 

“The four units at Miller are among the largest and most efficient in the country,” an Alabama Power spokesperson told Inside Climate News last year. 

The company was not able to provide comments on the most recent list Tuesday.

Daniel Tait, executive director of Energy Alabama, a nonprofit clean energy advocacy group, said Alabama Power is ignoring better options by keeping Miller and other coal plants running indefinitely. 

“While Alabama Power’s continued operation of Plant Miller is actively harming Birmingham and Central Alabama, the utility is ignoring better, cleaner options that are available and cost-effective today,” Tait said in an email. 

Christina Tidwell, senior attorney for the Southern Environmental Law Center, said Plant Miller has negative impacts on central Alabama beyond its carbon footprint.

“In addition to carbon dioxide, the plant emits pollutants like nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxide and mercury that harm human health and the environment,” Tidwell said in an email. “Plant Miller sits on a main tributary to the Black Warrior River, and the plant’s coal ash lagoon, which Alabama Power is currently dewatering and plans to close by capping in place, discharges toxic contaminants to groundwater and surface water.”

EPA health data show individuals living within a one-mile radius of Plant Miller are in the 95th to 100th percentile nationally for cancer risk and the 90th to 95th percentile nationally of the respiratory health index

Plant Miller has been the nation’s largest single source of greenhouse gas pollution every year since 2015, when it surpassed Georgia Power’s Plant Scherer, near Macon. 

Before that, Miller was either second or third on the list every year since 2010, the first year the EPA began publishing greenhouse gas emissions data. 

Miller’s emissions have not increased over that timeframe, but have remained more or less steady while other plants have fallen down on the list due to retirement or conversions to natural gas. 

In fact, Miller’s 16.6 million tons reported last year represented the plant’s lowest total since the program started in 2010, about 500,000 tons below its 2020 total. The company did not respond to inquiries on what caused the decrease. 

Alabama Power is a subsidiary of Southern Company, based in Atlanta, which also operates Georgia Power and Mississippi Power. And while Southern Company has announced a target of reaching net-zero emissions by 2050, clean energy advocates say that goal is not reflected in the planning decisions made by the subsidiary companies.

“Alabama Power has no plans to close Plant Miller, which demonstrates the utility is not serious about its parent company’s goals to reach net zero emissions,” Tait said. “Instead, Alabama Power is engaged in what amounts to modern day climate denial or at best climate delay.”

Plant Miller’s 2023 emissions were higher than the entire country of Costa Rica, according to the Emissions Database for Global Atmospheric Research. 

The EPA said more than 8,100 U.S. industrial facilities reported greenhouse gas emissions last year, with refineries being the largest source behind power plants. In total, emissions were down about 4 percent from 2022. 

Emissions in the electricity sector were down 7 percent from 2022, and down 34 percent since 2011, “reflecting the long-term shifts in power sector fuel-stock from coal to natural gas,” the agency said.