Wednesday
September 18, 2024 
The statewide nonprofit group PennEnvironment Research & Policy Center released a new study Tuesday – Pennsylvania’s Dirty Dozen, which ranks the largest climate polluters in the Philadelphia region, as well as across the commonwealth.
“The old adage, ‘cheaper by the dozen’ doesn’t apply to Pennsylvania’s 12 largest global warming polluters,” said Stephanie Wein. “The Dirty Dozen’s climate-changing emissions are costly to Pennsylvanians and our planet.”
The 12 “Dirty Dozen” facilities in Pennsylvania released nearly 46 million metric tons of greenhouse gasses in 2021, the equivalent of 18% of the state’s total greenhouse gas emissions in 2020 (the last year for which the center has complete statistics).
The report also finds that:
• The top climate polluter in the greater Philadelphia area is Fairless Energy in Fairless Hills, which emitted the carbon dioxide equivalent of more than 600,000 typical passenger vehicles driven for one year. This was the ninth-highest GHG emitter in the commonwealth in 2021.
• The next three were in Delaware County - the Marcus Hook Energy Center, Liberty Electric Power Plant and Trainer Refinery, while Covanta’s waste-to-energy facility in the City of Chester came in sixth.
• The highest emitter within the City of Philadelphia is Vicinity Energy’s power plant in Grays Ferry.
• The Philadelphia and Southeast region has 37 industrial polluters that report greenhouse gas emissions to the EPA.
• The worst climate polluter in Pennsylvania in 2021 was the Keystone Generating Station, (Plumcreek Township, Armstrong County) wwose greenhouse gas pollution that year was equivalent to 724,000 trips around the earth in an average gasoline-powered passenger vehicle.
All but one of the Dirty Dozen facilities are power plants fueled by coal or gas. The report also finds that in 2020, industrial facilities and power plants were responsible for 60% of Pennsylvania’s total greenhouse gas emissions.
The report also includes recommendations on how Pennsylvania can reduce its overall greenhouse gas emissions, including:
• Accelerating the transition to clean, renewable energy: Pennsylvania should commit to obtaining at least 30% of its electricity from clean, renewable sources by 2030 on the way to powering the commonwealth with 100% renewable energy by 2050.
• Continue Pennsylvania’s commitment to and participation in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI): In April 2022, Pennsylvania finalized a rule that formally allows the state to link with RGGI, a bipartisan market-based effort that includes 11 neighboring Northeast and Mid-Atlantic states that has dramatically cut carbon pollution from power plants since 2009.
In addition, PennEnvironment and its allies plan to urge the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to finalize the strongest possible standards to cut carbon emissions from power plants. The EPA will release a new draft rule as soon as this week.
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