Coal Power Killed Half a Million People in U.S. over Two Decades

November 25, 2023 • by Marc Airhart

Deaths from coal were highest in 1999, but by 2020 decreased by about 95%, as coal plants have installed scrubbers or shut down.

A white plume of exhaust spews from power plant smokestacks

From 1999–2020, approximately 460,000 deaths in the Medicare population were attributable to coal electricity-generating emissions in the U.S., according to a new study.


A map of the United States with each state having a different shade of red, indicating the number of deaths attributable to coal-fired power plants. It also indicates the number of deaths attributable to each individual facility.

This map indicates the number of deaths among U.S. seniors attributable to coal-fired power plants from 1999-2020, by state and by facility. Visualization from the Coal Pollution Impacts Explorer, created by co-author Jessica Roberts: https://cpieatgt.github.io/cpie/

A graph of annual deaths from coal-power pollution shows a dramatic decline from 1999 to 2020.

Spurred by EPA regulations and progressively cheaper alternatives to coal, like natural gas, pollution from coal-fired power plants has fallen dramatically in recent years. This trend is associated with a drop in annual coal-power deaths among U.S. seniors. Visualization from the Coal Pollution Impacts Explorer, created by co-author Jessica Roberts: https://cpieatgt.github.io/cpie/

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