The extraction, production and processing of Dirty Energy sources too often degrades air quality at the local and regional level. Dirty Energy air pollution can directly affect the health of all living organisms.

Oil and gas

According to the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, hazardous air pollutants related to oil and gas production are released during venting, dehydration, gas processing, compression, leaks from equipment, open pit waste ponds, and land application of volatile wastes.  Vehicle emissions, gas flaring and pipeline leaks are additional sources of air pollution. 

Click for oil and gas air pollution fact sheet, including brief overview of inadequacy of current regulations.

Oil and gas production releases air pollutants such as:

• particulate matter and dust;
  
• hydrogen sulfide; ozone;
  
• carbon monoxide;
  
• nitrogen oxides;
  
• sulfur dioxide;
  
• volatile organic compounds (VOCs);
  
• benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene and xylene (BTEX);
  
• polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs); and
  
• methane.

Many landowners living close to oil and gas development have been affected by air pollution. In some cases, there have been overwhelming vapors and odors from waste pits, chemical spills, and releases of harmful gases like hydrogen sulfide. Citizens in some oil and gas producing areas have also experienced an overall decline in air quality due to the emissions from well sites and heavy equipment. A 2005-2007 Ambient Air Quality Monitoring Study in Garfield county, Colorado found that concentrations of detected VOC compounds were higher in rural oil and gas development areas than in the urban areas. In a 2007 Passive Ozone study, oil and gas producing areas were generally found to have higher ozone levels than urban areas.

Tar sands

Extracting bitumen from the earth releases air pollutants that endanger the health of workers, nearby residents and ecosystems. According to a report by Environmental Defense, every year, thousands of tonnes of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) are released from tar sands tailings ponds, including large amounts of benzene. And 158,000 tonnes of sulfur oxides and 68,000 tonnes of nitrogen oxides (NOx) are released from the tar sands -- together, these compounds react to form acid rain.

NOx are emitted by from the combustion of fossil fuels including natural gas, diesel, gasoline and, in some instances, petroleum coke for tar sands operations. Sulfur dioxide emissions occur as a result of offsite upstream natural gas production as well as offsite electricity production needed to support tar sands mining.

The upgrading and refining of tar sands bitumen also releases harmful air pollutants. According to the Environmental Integrity Project these pollutants include: sulfur dioxide, hydrogen sulfide, sulfuric acid mist, and nitrogen oxides, as well as toxic metals such as lead and nickel compounds. Other pollutants listed by the Pembina Institute’s report Upgrader Alley include particulate matter, volatile organic compounds (such as benzene), polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and carbon monoxide. Some of these pollutants combine to create secondary pollutants like ground level ozone.

Oil shale

The U.S. Department of Energy Office of Petroleum Reserves reports that the heating of oil shale rock to extract kerogen generates hydrocarbon gases and various other pollutants including: sulfur and nitrogen oxides, carbon dioxide, particulate matter and dust.

In addition to the potential release of air pollutants directly from oil shale operations, there would be offsite pollution related to the enormous amount of electricity, likely supplied by coal-fired power plants, required to support large-scale oil shale operations. Western Resource Advocates (WRA) have calculated that a one million barrel-per-day oil shale industry in Utah and Colorado would require close to three times the amount of electricity produced in all of Colorado in 2005. According to WRA, the pollution from this electricity, "would darken the skies, add mercury to water supplies, create new sources of acid rain and snow, and threaten the health of local residents who suffer from impaired respiratory systems."

Coal-to-liquids

Coal-to-liquids (CTL) plants are predicted to be major sources of air pollution. A U.S. Department of Energy study looking at the proposed Healy Coal-to-Liquids Plant in Alaska found that large volumes nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxide, carbon monoxide, particulate matter (PM10) and volatile organic compounds (VOCs) would be released; and smaller volumes of mercury, lead and hydrogen sulfide would be emitted by the proposed plant. It was also reported that the coal-to-liquids plant would release significantly more of most of these pollutants -- 12 times the amount of particulate matter -- than the coal mine that would supply coal to the CTL plant.

Coal

The most obvious form air pollution from coal mining operations is coal dust or particulate matter. But the heavy equipment used in coal mining also releases a number of air pollutants including oxides of nitrogen and sulfur.

Coal is usually shipped to power plants by rail. A typical coal plant might receive more than 4,500 railroad cars of coal a year. Railroad locomotives, which rely on diesel fuel, emit nearly 1 million tons of nitrogen oxide and 52,000 tons of coarse and small particles in the United States. Coal dust blowing from coal trains contributes additional particulate matter to the air.

Coal-fired power plants emit many more air pollutants. Hazardous compounds present in coal (e.g., mercury, arsenic, sulfur) are released through the smokestack when coal is burned; and secondary toxic pollutants are also formed during the combustion process.

According to a report by the Clean Air Task Force, 67 different pollutants have been detected in the flue gas of coal-fired power plants. Of these, 55 are known to affect the development of a child’s brain or nervous system; and 24 are known, possible, or probable human carcinogens.

The EPA reports that coal-fired power plants are the largest source of human-caused mercury emissions in the U.S., the largest source of sulfur dioxide pollution and the second largest source of nitrogen oxides. Sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides react in the atmosphere to form acidic compounds that can fall to the earth as acid rain; or they react with other compounds to form particulate matter. Particulate matter is also released directly from coal plant smokestacks.

Uranium

Significant releases of hazardous air pollutants such as radionuclides, heavy metals, and smog and acid rain-causing pollutants occur throughout the process of mining and milling. The Pembina Institute report Nuclear Power in Canada: An Examination of Risks, Impacts and Sustainability provides an in-depth report on air emissions related to uranium mining and milling (Chapter 2) and uranium processing and fuel production (Chapter 3).

According to Pembina, the sources of air pollutants associated with mining and milling include:

• Active open pit operations produce significant atmospheric releases of radon, as does milling and even waste rock and tailings areas.
• Surface mining operations and milling operations, underground ventilation systems, and waste rock and tailings storage areas can release dusts containing radionuclides, heavy metals and particulate matter. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency states that cancer is the major effect of concern from radionuclides.
• Milling operations also release of NOx and VOCs. In 2004, Canadian uranium mines uranium emitted about the yearly equivalent of VOC emissions as 302,000 cars.
• Acid plants producing acid for milling operations release large amounts of sulfur dioxide (SO2).
• The combustion of fossil fuels to operate equipment and vehicles for earth moving, transportation, heat and steam production and electricity supply results in emissions of NOx, sulfur oxides, VOCs and particulate matter.

One of the lingering and disturbing legacies of uranium mining in the U.S. is the fact that during the uranium mining boom on Navajo land, structures, including homes, hogans and storage buildings were sometimes constructed of radioactive materials from nearby mines. Building material sources included waste rock and aggregate from mine dumps; and tailings may have been used in concrete mixing. Navajo structures may also be contaminated by the presence of radiological materials in outdoor soils and dust that may have been brought into the homes on shoes and clothing.

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