Introduction

Coal Combustion Residual or CCR is produced whenever the coal that powers coal-fired electrical units is burned. The toxins in CCR have led to contamination in the air and the groundwater, and have been proven to be linked with lung and heart diseases. There are hundreds of coal-fired electrical units and if they cause so much harm, why are there so many of them.

Operators or energy companies build so many electric units and though I cannot explain why, in this project, I plan to compare the frequency, hazard rate, the estimated volume of CCR on units, and closure plan of Operators. I Hypothesize that one operator is going to have a significant advantage over the others. I also hypothesize that the operators that own the most electrical units have a hazard rate of low. I say this because of an operator is successful enough to have frequent electrical units then they have a good chance of being less hazardous.

Method

I downloaded the CCR updated dataset from earthdata.org ‘Mapping the Coal Ash Contamination’ and exported it to Tableau and R Studio. With Tableau, I graphed two maps, one showing the hazard rate of units (with additional information about the hazards of each unit) and the other showing the closure status of each unit. In r studio I made a graph first showing the 10 operators with the most units, after this I made a table telling us the estimated volume of CCR in each unit.

Frequency of Operators

## # A tibble: 10 x 2
## # Groups:   Operator [10]
##    Operator                               n
##    <chr>                              <int>
##  1 Duke Energy                           61
##  2 Luminant (formerly Dynegy Inc.)       39
##  3 Tennessee Valley Authority            29
##  4 American Electric Power               27
##  5 Interstate Power and Light Company    26
##  6 Dominion Energy                       25
##  7 Evergy                                23
##  8 Georgia Power Company                 23
##  9 NRG                                   20
## 10 Xcel Energy                           20

This graph shows us that Duke Energy has the highest frequency of units, with 61 different units across U.S. Luminant (formerly Dynegy Inc.) is second to Duke with 39 different cities units across the U.S. Duke energy is a very well known power company whereas Luminant isn’t as discussed, so this drastic change in first two frequency of units is reasonable. you can also see Duke Energy has more than half of Tennessee Valley Authority which is third in the list of Operators with the most Units.

Closure Plan of Biggest Operators

In this graph, you can see the majority of the colors that come out are yellow and red, which are units with a closure status of ‘Open’ and ’Notice of Intent to Close. Units that are fully closed are in the minority. If you interact with the map you can see the city, state, closure status, and Operator of each unit plotted.

Hazard Rating of Frequent Operator

From this graph, we can see the hazard rate of each unit based on the color of the plot. If you select a hazard rating from the key in the top right you can isolate a rating on the map. Using that method, Hazard ratings with ‘NA’ seem to be the most frequent with the ‘Significant’ rating being second most frequent to show up.

Estimated Volume of CCR

## # A tibble: 10 x 3
## # Groups:   Current Volume Estimate (CY), Operator [10]
##    `Current Volume Estimate (CY)` Operator                                     n
##    <chr>                          <chr>                                    <int>
##  1 16100.0                        Interstate Power and Light Company           5
##  2 10000.0                        GenOn                                        4
##  3 7000.0                         GenOn                                        3
##  4 <NA>                           BWL                                          3
##  5 117000.0                       Platte River Power Authority                 2
##  6 124500.0                       Entergy                                      2
##  7 15000.0                        Kingfisher Development LLC (formerly AE~     2
##  8 15000.0                        Otter Tail Power Company                     2
##  9 153263.0                       Indianapolis Power & Light Company           2
## 10 2468396.0                      Talen Energy                                 2

From the table charting the estimated volume of CCR for Operators, we can see the operators with the most units and the amount of CCR they have. The table shows some places with fewer units in a city can hold more CCR. Interstate Power and Light Company has 5 cities with a unit in them and holds 16.100 cubic yards of waste, as compared to Talen Energy which has 2 cities with units in them but 2,468,396 volumes of CCR estimated into them.

Conclusion

After looking at the different variables of coal-fired electrical units (like frequency, hazard rate, the estimated volume of CCR, and closure plan), We have enough evidence to conclude that Operators that have more units tend to be not only less hazardous but also tend to contain less CCR than that of operators with fewer units than them. This conclusion supports my hypothesis that a well-known operator would be reliable. The data also supports my other hypothesis that one company will stick out and have a significant amount more of cities with units in them.