page_title: Coal-fired power station
section_title: Pollution
hierarchical_section_title: Coal-fired power station / Pollution
caption_attribution_description: English: Illustration of water pollution wastestreams at typical coal-fired electric power plants in the United States. The wastestreams include: flue gas desulfurization, fly ash, bottom ash, flue gas mercury control, landfill leachate, and gasification of fuels such as coal and petroleum coke. (POTW: Publicly owned treatment works; a municipal sewage treatment plant).
context_page_description: A coal-fired power station or coal power plant is a thermal power station which burns coal to generate electricity. Coal-fired power stations generate over a third of the world's electricity but cause hundreds of thousands of early deaths each year, mainly from air pollution.
  A coal-fired power station is a type of fossil fuel power station. The coal is usually pulverized and then burned in a pulverized coal-fired boiler. The furnace heat converts boiler water to steam, which is then used to spin turbines that turn generators. Thus chemical energy stored in coal is converted successively into thermal energy, mechanical energy and, finally, electrical energy.
  Coal-fired power stations emit over 10 Gt of carbon dioxide each year, almost one fifth of total emissions, so are the single largest source of the greenhouse gases which are causing global warming. In 2020 the total number of plants started falling as they are being retired in Europe and America despite still being built in Asia, almost all funded by China. There is the risk these plants may become stranded assets.
context_section_description: In some countries pollution is controlled by best available techniques, for example those in the EU through its Industrial Emissions Directive. In the United States, coal-fired plants are governed at the national level by several air pollution regulations, including the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS) regulation, by effluent guidelines for water pollution, and by solid waste regulations under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA).
  Coal-fired power stations continue to pollute in lightly regulated countries such as the Western Balkans, India, Russia and South Africa, causing hundreds of thousands of early deaths each year.
caption: Coal power plant wastestreams
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