COAL DEATHS
Researchers found the deadliest pollutant of the three to be PM2.5, which was estimated to cause more deaths than SOx or NOx for equal amounts of each pollutant. Having said that however, the researchers also point out that plants typically emit much larger quantities of SOx so that in terms of the number of deaths, they are found to be the cause of the most number of deaths. and the resultant impact on their health. The methodology involves measuring the rate of pollutant emissions from the source (in this case a power plant), modeling the atmospheric dispersion of the pollutant across a given human population density (the receivers of the pollutants), measuring the change in ambient concentrations of the pollutant in air and examining how such changes in the ambient concentrations correspond with increase in incidence of various pollutionrelated deaths and ailments among the receivers. In this context, ambient concentrations refer to the marginal increase in prevailing concentrations of specific toxins in the air due to the operations of the power plant. Optionally, contingent valuation techniques can be used to arrive at monetary estimates of the morbidity and mortality damages to human health through the measured pollution. For example, medical costs associated with ailments (along with the costs of productivity losses) are used for monetary estimates of morbidity. The willingness of people to pay for an
additional year of life is estimated through surveys and is used as the monetary value of mortality. The Impact Pathway Approach framework has been used in Europe, US, China and many other countries to arrive at monetary estimates of health damages through polluting activities such as transportation, electricity generation, industrial activities etc. In June 2012, a team of researchers led by Maureen Cropper of the ‘Resources for the Future,’ a leading policy thinktank based in Washington DC, applied this analytical framework
to the Indian context in a paper titled ‘The Health Effects of Coal Electricity Generation in India.’ For this study, which went largely unreported, the 54 |www.indiatogether.org| 03 Jun 2013
researchers collected operating data for about 92 coal-based power plants located in 17 states for the period 2000-2008. In 2008, these power plants together accounted for about 88% of the total installed thermal capacity in the country. Given that much of the data required to model the health damage from each power plant was unavailable (technical details such as stack heights and diameters of plants, meteorological data, population grid distributions, intake fractions and local dose-response functions), the researchers opted to make inferences from available data based on similar studies in the US and China. After making adjustments to the international models to incorporate local conditions, they concluded that the mortality impact of coal power generation plants in India was approximately 650 deaths per plant per year. They found the deadliest pollutant of the three to be PM2.5, which was estimated to cause more deaths than SOx or NOx for equal amounts of each pollutant. Having said that however, the researchers also point out that plants typically emit much larger quantities of SOxÂ