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Just across the Locust Fork of the Black Warrior River from West Jefferson, towering over the relatively rural Alabama landscape, is the coal-fired James H. Miller Jr. Electric Generating Plant. This year, as in years past, the plant is the single largest greenhouse gas polluter in the United States, according to U.S. Environmental Protection Agency data released in October.
The utility’s economic weight in the community is tangible in the parking lot of the Dollar General as residents come and go, unwilling to go on the record about health and other impacts of the plant on their lives. More than 300 people are employed at the Miller Plant.
Data for 2022 released by the EPA shows that the Jefferson County plant emitted nearly 22 million metric tons of greenhouse gas pollutants that year, including over 21 million tons of carbon dioxide, 62,000 CO2-equivalent metric tons of methane and 108,000 CO2-equivalent metric tons of nitrous oxide.
Generally, greenhouse gases refer to gases that trap heat in the atmosphere, thereby contributing to climate change.
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📸: Lee Hedgepeth/ Inside Climate News
