Happy Earth Day thanks to fossil fuels — Farmington, with TWO coal plants has nation’s cleanest air!

Today is Earth Day. And, no matter what you might prefer to think, fossil fuels have helped to dramatically improve and lengthen human lives. As the chart below shows, we will continue to rely on those fossil fuels for much of our energy consumption for decades into the future.

Interestingly while radical environmentalists love to trash coal as a “dirty” source of energy, Farmington, NM, which is adjacent to not one, but two power plants (Navajo and San Juan Generating Stations, was recently given extremely high marks for air quality by the American Lung Association. In fact, Farmington was:

• Ranked 1 for cleanest metropolitan areas in the country for 24-hour particle pollution
• Ranked 2 for cleanest metropolitan areas in the country for annual particle pollution

So, fossil fuels aren’t going anywhere. The good news is that living in close proximity to them doesn’t have a significant, negative impact on some major measures of air quality. And, these fossil fuels have probably been the single-largest factor in improving and lengthening human life on planet earth.