Cogentrix Portsmouth Facility

Cogentrix Portsmouth Facility, also known as the Cogentrix Virginia Leasing Corporation plant, is a coal-fired power station owned and operated by Cogentrix (which is owned by Goldman Sachs) near Portsmouth, Virginia.

Cogentrix Portsmouth Facility and Environmental Justice
The Cogentrix Portsmouth Facility has 53,186 residents within a 3-mile radius and 4,244 within a one-mile radius. Within the 3-mile radius, 40.4% of residents are non-white with a per capita income of $19,424, below the U.S. per capita income of $21,587, raising issues around environmental justice and coal. Cogentrix Portsmouth Facility is among over 100 coal plants near residential areas.

Plant Data

 * Owner: Cogentrix-Virginia Leasing Corp.
 * Parent Company: Cogentrix (owned by Goldman Sachs)
 * Plant Nameplate Capacity: 115 MW (Megawatts)
 * Units and In-Service Dates: 57 MW (1988), 57 MW (1988)
 * Location: 1 Wild Duck Ln., Portsmouth, VA 23703
 * GPS Coordinates: 36.868746, -76.36034
 * Coal Consumption:
 * Coal Source:
 * Number of Employees:

Emissions Data

 * 2006 CO2 Emissions: 941,945 tons
 * 2006 SO2 Emissions:
 * 2006 SO2 Emissions per MWh:
 * 2006 NOx Emissions:
 * 2005 Mercury Emissions:

Death and disease attributable to fine particle pollution from Cogentrix Portsmouth Facility
In 2010, Abt Associates issued a study commissioned by the Clean Air Task Force, a nonprofit research and advocacy organization, quantifying the deaths and other health effects attributable to fine particle pollution from coal-fired power plants. Fine particle pollution consists of a complex mixture of soot, heavy metals, sulfur dioxide, and nitrogen oxides. Among these particles, the most dangerous are those less than 2.5 microns in diameter, which are so tiny that they can evade the lung's natural defenses, enter the bloodstream, and be transported to vital organs. Impacts are especially severe among the elderly, children, and those with respiratory disease. The study found that over 13,000 deaths and tens of thousands of cases of chronic bronchitis, acute bronchitis, asthma, congestive heart failure, acute myocardial infarction, dysrhythmia, ischemic heart disease, chronic lung disease, and pneumonia each year are attributable to fine particle pollution from U.S. coal plant emissions. These deaths and illnesses are major examples of coal's external costs, i.e. uncompensated harms inflicted upon the public at large. Low-income and minority populations are disproportionately impacted as well, due to the tendency of companies to avoid locating power plants upwind of affluent communities. To monetize the health impact of fine particle pollution from each coal plant, Abt assigned a value of $7,300,000 to each 2010 mortality, based on a range of government and private studies. Valuations of illnesses ranged from $52 for an asthma episode to $440,000 for a case of chronic bronchitis.

Table 1: Death and disease attributable to fine particle pollution from Cogentrix Portsmouth Facility
Source: "Find Your Risk from Power Plant Pollution," Clean Air Task Force interactive table, accessed February 2011

Related SourceWatch Articles

 * Existing U.S. Coal Plants
 * Virginia and coal
 * Cogentrix
 * Goldman Sachs
 * United States and coal
 * Global warming