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Good News—and Bad—about Fossil Fuel Power Plants in 2023 

Union of Concerned Scientists

GW record from 2021. And fossil fuel power plants may not stick to their retirement schedules for a variety of reasons. Note: this is adjusted for inflation to 2022 dollars and is based on the amount those plants emitted in 2021, the EIA’s most recent year of finalized data. A bit more on those reasons later.

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The State of the Air in 2024? Not Great

Union of Concerned Scientists

The air quality for this report was calculated using data reviewed by EPA from 2020, 2021, and 2022. That means it includes the extreme wildfires exacerbated by the fossil fuel industry that burned more than 4% of California in 2021 and 2022. come from burning fossil fuels and pesticide use, and ultrafine particles (PM0.1)

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Diesel is the Reason for the Sneezin’: Cleaner Holiday Deliveries are on the Horizon

Union of Concerned Scientists

A 2021 meta-analysis of over 40 peer-reviewed studies on the subject concluded that “there is no particular type of shopping that has an absolute environmental advantage and it is in no way possible to shop ourselves out of the environmental crisis.” How would that change if I hopped on the electric bus route at the end of my block?

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Ask a Scientist: The US Has to Do More to Meet Its Carbon Emissions Reduction Goals

Union of Concerned Scientists

It also will save US consumers money because they will spend less on fossil fuels. First, decarbonizing the electricity sector mainly with wind and solar to replace coal and fossil gas. Second, replacing fossil fuels with clean electricity in the transportation, building, and industrial sectors. Your thoughts?

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Ask a Scientist: Two Dozen States Can Meet 100 Percent of Electricity Demand with Renewables by 2035

Union of Concerned Scientists

The shift from fossil fuels in the 100-percent RES scenario reduces the amount of toxic power plant air pollution much more than what we called a “no-new-policy,” or business-as-usual, scenario. Emissions of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides from power plants in alliance states drop 88 percent and 77 percent respectively by 2040.

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Reliance on Gas Power Plants Fuels Inequity

Union of Concerned Scientists

In New England, the percent of people of color living near fossil fuel power plants is up to 23.5 Even as some parts of the country transition away from fossil fuel infrastructure, the retirement of gas plants has become another driver of inequity. Most notable of these polluting emissions are nitrogen oxides (NOx).

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Ask a Scientist: Gas Plants Disproportionately Harm Marginalized Communities

Union of Concerned Scientists

They accounted for most of the failed generating capacity in a number of recent extreme weather events, including Winter Storm Uri in 2021 and Winter Storm Elliott in 2022, according to Gas Malfunction , a new Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) issue brief. First, there’s air pollution.