WASHINGTON (CN) - The EPA plans to remove 13,000 tons per year of hazardous air pollutants such as formaldehyde, acrolein, methanol, and acetaldehyde, by regulating the emissions from more than 1 million reciprocating internal combustion engines that generate electricity for industry, hospitals and power companies.
Although the agency predicts that owners will have to spend $528 million to retrofit existing units with catalytic technology to trap pollutants, it also expects the proposed regulations to yield benefits worth between $800 million and $2 billion as the result of reduced health care costs, and a reduction in the number of cancer deaths caused by toxic emissions.
In addition to removing the most directly toxic pollutants from the air, the operating changes required by the proposed rule are expected to substantially reduce emissions of green house gases such as carbon monoxide, nitrous oxide, sulfur dioxide, and mono-nitrogen oxides. In the case of carbon monoxide, the reduction is estimated to be more than 510,000 tons per year in 2013.
Click the document icon on the front page for details and links to the regulations. The document icon under the "Fuel Economy Standards, Pesticides & More" heading leads to other new regulations.
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