The greenhouse-gas emissions of conventional coal-fired power plants are up to 17% higher when emissions relating to mountain-top coal-mining operations are factored in, research suggests.
The Southern Appalachian Mountains in the United States are the source of almost one-quarter of the country's coal. Using published data on factors such as forest and soil carbon, James Fox of the University of Kentucky in Lexington and Elliott Campbell at the University of California, Merced, calculated the carbon emitted when companies cut down trees and sheer off mountain tops to access coal.
The authors show that land disturbance increases emissions by 2–12%, depending on the practice. Those figures increase to 7–17% if emissions produced during coal extraction and transport are included.
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Energy: Carbon from the mountains. Nature 463, 1002 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1038/4631002a
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/4631002a
