Report: Environmental concerns outweigh job creation by coal-fired power plants

Friday, April 1, 2011

photo In this file photo, Ray Smith cleans the muck from inside one of the tubes in the turbine room at the Bull Run Fossil Plant, which is a coal-fired power station operated by TVA near Oak Ridge, Tennessee.

Chattanooga's Ochs Center for Metropolitan Studies has completed a first-ever report to compare the number of jobs promised by coal-fired power plants to the actual number of jobs brought to a community where one is built.

And the jobs are few, especially when compared to the environmental and health concerns that accompany coal-fired plants, according to the study.

In four of the five areas were new coal-fired power plants came on line between 2005 and 2009, the plants' construction and operations delivered only a fraction of the jobs projected by officials touting the power plant benefits to local residents and county officials, said Ochs President and CEO David Eichenthal.

Read the full story in Saturday's Chattanooga Times Free Press.