Editor's note: This is part two of the three-part "State of Energy" series from WOSU. Read part one: '25% generation by 2025': Where did Ohio’s Clean Energy Law go?
The air quality in Ohio is getting worse.
Brittany Sinzinger has been the executive director for the American Lung Association of Columbus for 13 years.
“If you look at our newest report, the 26th annual "State of Air" report that came out, it is showing that about 50% of the population is breathing air that is not good for them," Sinzinger said.
Several Ohio metro areas made the lung association’s top 25 list for worst year-round particle pollution, including Cincinnati, Cleveland and Akron.
The lung association ranks the air quality in Columbus as an overall “C,” but it gets an “F” for particle pollution.
Sinzinger said there’s a reason these particles and the human body shouldn’t mix.
“They are various sizes, so there are teeny, teeny, tiny ones and then there are some that are larger and when we inhale those, the larger ones, our bodies are made to expel those so we cough or we sneeze, but there's tiny, tiny little particles that can wedge themselves down into our lungs and get into that tissue and that can be very dangerous for people," Sinzinger said.
Particle pollution has a bigger impact on the human body than other types of pollution like ozone. It's the most dangerous type of air pollution to human health, according to the lung association. The pollution can cause lung cancer, asthma, heart attack, stroke and can impair cognitive function.
As previously written in part one of this series on Monday, Ohio was supposed to generate 25% percent of its energy with renewable sources by 2025. It’s 2025, and the state has only reached a fifth of that goal.
After that bipartisan goal was made in 2008, the fossil fuel lobby and global forces shifted state energy policy against the renewable market. Experts report the move hurt a once-growing industry in Ohio, and damaged public health and the environment.
Some industries create more particle pollution than others.
Sinzinger said factories, power plants, manufacturing, vehicles powered by diesel and gasoline and anything that burns raw materials on a large scale create the large particles that are bad for human health.
These bad particles can blow in from production centers elsewhere and can get trapped because of geological features of the land.
Ohio's electric power sector is one of the state’s most emissive because of how much coal is still in the mix, and coal power plants are a top producer of particulate pollution, according to the National Institute of Health. Researchers there found a direct correlation between burning coal and increased mortality rates.
Ohio House Rep. Tristan Rader, Parma-D, said fossil fuel companies have had a stranglehold over Ohio’s politicians, on both sides of the aisle.
“I think it's just total utility capture," Rader said. "Total utility regulatory capture and then their ability to just throw enough money around to always get politicians on their side to get done whatever they need to get done until whatever they don't like.”
Rader said energy companies have been too cozy with lawmakers in the past.
“I look at it as just way too much money influence with the utilities here in Ohio," Rader said.
Ohio’s energy users only get 4% of their energy from renewable sources, putting it 44th in the country.
Renewable sources produce less particle emissions and have less energy loss.
Jeff Bielicki is the research lead at Ohio State University’s Sustainability Institute. He said the state hasn’t balanced the environmental and health concerns with the economics of its energy policies, but has only focused on the ability of utility companies to make a profit.
“We need to consider the air that we breathe, the water that we drink, and so on, and how that sustains our well-being. The environment is an important component of our well being. The economy is also an important component of well being, the ability to make money, have a job, is an important component of well being too," Bielicki said.
Bielicki warns that climate change is also putting more demand on our energy usage.
“It's clear that temperatures are getting hotter on average over time, which leads to more demand for cooling, air conditioning, for example, and all else equal less demand for heating. Because temperatures are warmer. And that, in essence, shifts the demand profile from heating," Bielicki said.
Energy sources like natural gas are easily converted into heat, but more resources are needed to create electricity to power cooling systems.
Restrictions on the renewable energy industry in some states have prevented the generation of much needed electricity by alternative sources, prompting states like Pennsylvania to delay closing coal power plants.
Demands on the power grid are growing, and Ohio lawmakers say they’re now embracing all energy sources.
“I think there's this new willingness to push back the utilities that have gone way too far for way too long, and we need to make sure that we represent the people that live in our districts, (and) that deserve protection and deserve monopolies be held accountable,” Rader said.
Rader is supporting a Republican-backed effort to introduce more community renewable energy projects in Ohio.
“The economics of these projects being kind of efficient, not having to rely on the transmission grid, or not having you bid into this giant system, there's a little bit of savings that folks can get," Rader said.
