US power station emissions up 3 per cent

Carbon dioxide emissions from American power plants leapt by nearly three per cent last year, the biggest annual increase in nearly a decade, according to analysis of government figures by an environmental watchdog.

The Environmental Integrity Project (EIP), a Washington DC-based non-profit advocacy group, reviewed data collected by the US Environmental Protection Agency from more than 1,000 power plants burning coal, oil and natural gas.

The analysis showed the amount of CO2, the leading greenhouse gas, emitted by the plants rose by 2.7 per cent in 2007, outstripping the year’s 2.3 per cent increase in electricity production.

The EIP claimed the electric power industry was now “the single largest factor in US climate change pollution” and that CO2 emissions from the nation’s plants have risen 5.9 per cent since 2002 and 11.7 per cent since 1997.

Telegraph