The health benefits of replacing fossil fuel-burning power plants with wind energy are quantifiable, says the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, but if the US got more choosy about which plants it switches off in favor of wind, those benefits could quadruple.
The MIT team examined historical data on hourly wind turbine activity and emissions reports from fossil fuel-based power plants across the US from between 2011 and 2017. Based on their analysis, they concluded that wind power associated with state-level policies generally improved air quality, resulting in approximately $2 billion in health benefits across the US.
Scenarios in which plants were curtailed in favor of wind energy were adjusted in three ways: To turn down plants that produce the most sulfur dioxide, those that produce the most carbon dioxide, and those that were generally considered"the most health-damaging." All three scenarios showed an improvement, but the latter was where the quadrupled health savings appeared.
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