Infographic: the power plants of a coal country

Today lands us right smack in the middle of Air Quality Awareness Week (who knew!). Many factors influence the quality of air circulating around us, but pollution is one we can do something about. In an effort to reduce coal emissions, the Sierra Clubcreated a map that zooms in on the factories from which they come.

If you live within five miles of a coal-burning power plant, you likely know it already. But for those further downwind or downstream or just curious, the map pinpoints where 491 of the nation's around 600 coal plants are, what comes out of their smokestacks, and how many people live nearby. The map covers electricity generating plants and campus boilers but not industrial boilers. A Sierra Club spokesperson told me the environmental organization gleaned their statistical information from the Energy Information Agency and the Environmental Protection Agency.

While the interactive tool catalogs emissions such as carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, hydrochloric acid, and sulfuric acid, the toxin spotlight falls on mercury—indicated with white and red Jolly Rogers. Mercury, after all, is a pretty potent neurotoxin, which contaminates waterways and works its way up the food chain. The source of half the current mercury contamination in the U.S., according to the EPA, are coal plants that lack the updated technologies to control this pollutant in their emissions.

Last month the agency proposed the first-ever standards for mercury, arsenic, chromium, nickel and other toxins that would reportedly prevent about 17,000 premature deaths and 11,000 heart attacks. Harvard University researchers recently published a study estimating the hidden costs of coal power (cancer, pollution, lost mountaintops) fall somewhere between $175 billion and $523 billion each year.

Verena Owen of the Sierra Club says in a statement:

These aging coal plants – some of which date back to the 1920's – are the largest sources of health-threatening, climate-disrupting pollution and the largest obstacles to a clean energy future. We begin this exciting new phase of the Beyond Coal Campaign on a strong foundation, having recently won important victories in the Tennessee Valley, Colorado and Washington State.

The victories she's referring to are the incoming closings of seven of Xcel Energy's Denver-area plants by 2017 and of Washington State's 1,600-megawatt Transalta Centralia Generation station (the state's only coal-fire power plant) by 2025. And then there is the huge settlement reached last month between the EPA and the Tennessee Valley Authority for Clean Air Act violations. It requires the electricity giant to close 18 of its coal plants, invest $3 to $5 billion on better pollution controls and spend another $350 million for clean energy projects.

The Sierra Club says in the summer months, it might shift the map's focus to highlight the big soot and ozone emitters. Perhaps instead of skull and crossbones, they'll use inhaler icons.

For your local particulars on particulate matter, ozone, and other pollutants, check out the EPA's daily Air Quality Index.

Related on SmartPlanet:

• The real cost of coal power
• Air pollution raises heart attack risk

Images: Sierra Club andFlickr/eflon