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Waste Projections for Proposed Plants

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Around the country, 70 new conventional coal-fired power plants have been proposed. If built, these plants would produce more than 15 million tons of coal waste per year, contaminated by over 15 thousand tons of toxic metals. Waste projections for new and proposed plants only include fly and bottom ash.

Some new and proposed plants convert coal into a gas before combustion, a process called gasification, which results in a significantly different solid waste than that from conventional coal plants, with a much lower environmental risk. Those plants are not included on this page.

* Plant has been successfully challenged in the courts or in regulatory proceedings, or has experienced other regulatory or financial setbacks that have put the project on hold. However, a plant should not be considered truly cancelled until all pending regulatory approvals have been withdrawn and the project has been categorically abandoned, and a plant will remain on the proposed list until NRDC can confirm that it has been cancelled in this manner.

** The Northampton plant is an existing plant that has applied to renew its operating permit. As a result, the plant is treated as both an existing plant, and a proposed plant.

For summary projections by state, click here. To download more data in Excel, including detailed plant-level information for both existing and proposed plants, click here.

Sources: Permit applications and news reports for new plants; Energy Information Administration data; NRDC estimates. The most recent data available from the EIA is from 2005 and it is possible that operational changes at particular plants will have changed the yearly waste volumes and disposal methods. Click here for detailed glossary of terms and our methodology.

last revised 3/12/2009