Remove Air Pollution Remove Carbon Dioxide Remove Fossil Fuels Remove Natural Gas
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Good News—and Bad—about Fossil Fuel Power Plants in 2023 

Union of Concerned Scientists

And fossil fuel power plants may not stick to their retirement schedules for a variety of reasons. In 2021 alone, the plants slated for retirement emitted more than 28,000 tonnes of nitrogen oxides (NO x ), 32,000 tonnes of sulfur dioxide (SO 2 ), and 51 million tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO 2 ), according to EIA data.

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Five Reasons “Natural” Gas is Bad for You and the Environment

Enviromental Defense

Naturalgas is not clean or green, as its misleading name implies Every reputable environmental organization and energy agency around the world is saying we can’t build new gas projects if we want to avoid complete climate chaos. Gas is a polluting fossil fuel which emits greenhouse gasses when it is produced and used.

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Don’t Believe the Lies: Five Facts to Consider as the UN’s COP27 Comes to a Close

Union of Concerned Scientists

Union of Concerned Scientists’ (UCS) research shows that top fossil fuel producers’ emissions are responsible for as much as half of global surface temperature increase. Updated analysis from 2020 shows that emissions traced to the 88 largest carbon producers contributed approximately 60 percent?of

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Too Many Gas Power Plants are the Problem Not the Solution

Union of Concerned Scientists

cranks its air conditioners to get through historic high temperatures , the need for energy that slows, not hastens, climate change is more apparent than ever. Yet, in 2022, almost 40% of electricity in the US was generated by power plants fueled by natural gas. I’ll be using the term “gas” from here on out.)

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Ask a Scientist: Gas Plants Disproportionately Harm Marginalized Communities

Union of Concerned Scientists

Just how bad is fossilnaturalgas? Responsible for 12 percent of all US global warming emissions from human activities, methane traps significantly more heat per molecule than carbon dioxide, making it 86 times more harmful for the first 20 years after it is released into the atmosphere.

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Reliance on Gas Power Plants Fuels Inequity

Union of Concerned Scientists

More recently, ongoing discrimination continues to push marginalized groups into areas with existing polluting infrastructure. In New England, the percent of people of color living near fossil fuel power plants is up to 23.5 California recently extended , for the second time, the operations of three gas plants to 2026.

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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. Just as important, cleaning up the power grid also lowers carbon dioxide emissions.