The biomass industry is demanding that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) revamp newly proposed standards (pdf) that would impose strict emissions limits on boilers in wood-burning plants, claiming the new standards would require billions in equipment upgrades that would “endanger” the “entire renewable energy industry,” reports SolveClimate News.

The Biomass Power Association said on Wednesday it is appealing to EPA for special protections under a series of maximum achievable control technology (MACT) standards for industrial boilers.

Two rules – the boiler MACT and the area source MACT – are at the heart of BPA’s concerns.

The association said they would impose unnecessary regulatory burden on a $1 billion industry that it says causes no environmental harm or public health threats.

“The problem is that EPA is trying to create this one-size-fits-all-approach — not distinguishing among fuels, and not distinguishing among boilers,” Bob Cleaves, BPA president told SolveClime News. “A one size fits all will not move the [biomass] industry forward.”

Cleaves said the rules would impact all of the nation’s current 100 biomass facilities. For potential new projects, he said, just the prospect of having to install state-of-the-art pollution controls is having a “chilling effect.”

Enesta Jones, an EPA spokesperson, told SolveClimate News that the agency intends to take the association’s concerns into account “along with all public comments as we prepare our final regulations.”

EPA expects to finalize the regulation in December.

The biomass industry burns organic waste material — mainly wood — to make electric power, generating pollution, including particulate matter. Advocates say it is a proven carbon-neutral alternative to fossil fuels. But opponents cite an increase in biomass facilities would cause more air pollution and could lead to the destruction of carbon-absorbing forests.

EPA’s MACT standards set limits on hazardous air emissions across 28 large industry sectors. Under the Clean Air Act, the agency must review them every eight years.

The proposed standards would reclassify the boiler units at biomass plants as incinerators. The designation would subject them to stricter emissions limits for several toxic pollutants, including mercury, hydrogen chloride, manganese, carbon monoxide and dioxin.

The limits are impossible to meet, according to Cleaves. They would require installation of a non-existent “super boiler,” Cleaves told Biomass Magazine, borrowing the best emissions standards from different kinds of boilers and combining them.

Even if the standards could be achieved, Cleaves told SolveClime News it would cost “billions of dollars” and would force many plants to close, putting the nation’s effort to combat global warming in jeopardy.”

Cleaves said the assocation wants EPA to provide the biomass industry with “some type of flexibility” in meeting the boiler MACT restrictions.

It also wants facilities to have the opportunity to meet the standards at reasonable costs and to demonstrate that emissions of certain pollutants do not pose a public health threat.

The EPA standards would affect a number of additional industries involved in the combustion of forest products and agricultural waste. On August 2, 100 members of Congress  sent a letter to EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson, expressing their concern with the proposed boiler MACT rule.

“EPA should use a method to set emissions standards that is based on what real world best performing units actually can achieve,” the lawmakers wrote, adding that the regulations should “be crafted in a balanced way that sustains both the environment and jobs.”

Tesco has chosen Ortec’s planning and optimization software to help manage its supply chain. It will use he software to help to drive down operational costs, and ensure that the supply chain operations

Here’s a roundup of some of the most recent businesses that have earned the U.S. Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification. These include luxury hotel Fairmont Pittsburgh, office building Bank of America Tower, Frito-Lay, education services provider Pearson, and multi-tenant building Atlantic Center Plaza.

Here are highlights for each LEED certification project.

Atlantic Center Plaza:  The plaza is the first multi-tenant building in Midtown Atlanta and the first managed by Colonial Properties Trust to earn LEED Gold as an existing building. The building implemented several programs to save water, improve energy efficiency, and reduce waste, reports Earth Times. As an example, a condensate water recovery system used for supplementing cooling tower water and irrigation saved more than 200,000 gallons of water during its first year of use.

Other projects include the installation of a CO2 demand control system, lighting occupancy controls and lighting retrofits. The use of single stream recycling has resulted in 50 percent less waste going to the landfill.

Because of these energy-efficient and conservation strategies Atlantic Center Plaza earned a 92 Energy Star rating and was recently named a Bronze Partner by The Partnership for a Sustainable Georgia.

Bank of America Tower:  The 55-story office building at One Bryant Park officially has achieved Platinum LEED certification for the core and shell of the building, reports Sustainable Business.

The office building, touted as the first in the world designed and constructed to LEED Platinum standards, has implemented several features that protect indoor air quality, prevent mold, conserve water, save energy and reduce waste. However, the 4.6-megawatt co-generation plant installed in One Bryant Park, which provides approximately 65 percent of the building’s energy, was a key component in achieving enough points to win LEED Platinum certification, according to the article.

Fairmont Pittsburgh:  The new luxury hotel, touted as the only LEED certified hotel in the city, received LEED certification at the Gold level.

Fairmont Pittsburgh is part of Three PNC Plaza, a 23-story high-rise owned by The PNC Financial Services Group. Three PNC Plaza is said to be one of the nation’s largest green, mixed-use buildings.

The hotel has implemented several energy-saving features, including the use of LED and compact fluorescent bulbs, guestroom occupancy sensors, and access to natural light, which are expected to cut the hotel’s annually lighting energy use by 75,000 kWh and CO2 emissions by 97,500 lbs (45 metric tons) annually.

In addition, approximately 80 percent of all equipment and appliances used in the project are Energy Star compliant, which will annually reduce energy use by about 100,000 kWh and CO2 emissions by 130,000 lbs (60 metric tons). By installing water conserving fixtures, including low-flow toilets, aerators and automatic sensors on the public restroom sinks, the hotel will save about 930,000 gallons of water annually.

Pearson’s Sandy, Utah, facility: Pearson’s facility achieved its LEED certification for Commercial Interiors through several environmentally friendly construction and development practices. The facility was designed with high-efficiency lighting and controls to reduce energy use and used materials and a configuration that maximize natural lighting and maintain optimal air flow throughout the building.

The project also used mostly recycled furniture and construction materials, fabricated finishes from sustainable sources as well as installed plumbing that conserves water.

PepsiCo’s Frito-Lay Perry facility: The Perry, Ga., facility became the state’s first building to be awarded LEED for Existing Buildings (EB) Gold certification. To achieve certification, the Perry facility implemented a number of green design and construction features, as well as water reduction technologies and practices.

As an example, Perry facility has reduced its natural gas consumption by 35 percent and its electricity use by 27 percent per pound of product since 2000 by implementing changes such as installing waste heat recovery boilers, improved maintenance systems, and upgraded oven burners.

It also has reduced its water consumption by 38 percent per pound of product since 2000 through a company-wide low water corn cook process, and installing low-flow solar-powered faucets and flush valves. In addition, none of the site’s process wastewater goes to the sewer. All of the process wastewater is used to irrigate the facility’s 1,500-acre lot.

It also improved waste management. Less than 1 percent of the Perry facility’s solid waste goes to landfill as of July 2010.

Air Products has agreed to pay nearly $1.5 million in civil penalties to resolve hazardous waste mismanagement violations at its Pasadena, Texas, chemical manufacturing facility, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the U.S. Justice. The settlement resolves Air Products’ Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) violations in transferring spent acid to the Agrifos fertilizer manufacturing plant.

EPA says this case is related to the agency’s National Enforcement Initiative for Mining and Mineral Processing although Air Products does not conduct mining or mineral processing. However, the chemical company sent the spent acid stream to a facility that does — the Agrifos fertilizer plant, which is located on the adjacent property to the Air Products facility.

Mining and mineral processing facilities generate more toxic and hazardous waste than any other industrial sector, based on EPA’s Toxic Release Inventory. If not properly managed, wastes from these facilities may pose a high risk to human health and the environment, according to the agency.

Air Products has purchased acid product from Agrifos for many years, returning its spent acid to the fertilizer facility, according to the EPA. In April 2006, inspectors from EPA and the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) observed that the return acid stream was a spent acid that was being used to make land-applied fertilizer.

EPA says Agrifos is not authorized to accept hazardous waste from other facilities.

As part of the settlement, Air Products has agreed to manage the spent acid on-site and not ship it to Agrifos or any other facility not authorized to accept it. The company is currently in compliance with the RCRA requirements specified in the settlement.

Air Products implemented modifications that will reduce the levels of contamination in the spent acid, and will build a $60-million regeneration plant that will stop the acid waste stream altogether. The company also has agreed to notify EPA and TCEQ in the event that the spent acid is either disposed of or sent off site.

Since 2003, EPA has been investigating 20 phosphoric acid facilities in seven states because of the high risk of releases of acidic wastewaters at these facilities, which can cause groundwater contamination and fish kills, according to the EPA.

One of the most recent investigations includes CF Industries’ hazardous waste violation. Earlier in August, CF Industries agreed to spend approximately $12 million to reduce and manage hazardous wastes generated at its Plant City, Fla. phosphoric acid and ammoniated fertilizer manufacturing facility.

In the wake of out-of-state oil companies spending millions of dollars to oppose California’s AB32 climate law, an alliance of California businesses as well as labor, environmental and community leaders have partnered to create the California Apollo Program, which provides a strategy on how the state can continue to create clean energy jobs through a number of initiatives ranging from renewable energy use to retrofitting buildings for energy efficiency.

The group says the California Apollo Program is a blueprint for moving California toward “broadly shared economic prosperity, energy security and climate stability while reinforcing the state’s commitment to a new clean energy future.”

If California’s climate law withstands the attacks from these out-of-state oil companies and is implemented as scheduled, it alone is expected to generate up to $104 billion in economic activity by 2020, according to the alliance.

Some of the program’s strategies include generating 33 percent of California’s power from renewable sources by 2020 and prioritizing in-state production, upgrading California’s existing buildings to world class energy-efficiency standards, ensuring that new construction is “green,” and modernizing the power grid to support clean energy generation and smart-grid technology.

It also includes revitalizing California by expanding environmentally sustainable renewable energy and carbon sequestration projects, helping manufacturers retool their factories and retrain their employees to produce clean energy products, and revamping California’s transportation manufacturing industry to meet growing demand for high-efficiency vehicles.

Some endorsers of the program include SunPower, Natural Resources Defense Council, State Building & Construction Trades Council of California and California Energy Efficiency Industry Council.

Lime Energy and 4tell Solutions have formed a strategic partnership to deliver an integrated energy solution platform that provides a solution that enables businesses to quickly evaluate their energy efficiency and carbon footprints. The new solution is aimed at delivering results that show reduced energy costs and improved environmental performance in buildings, facilities and infrastructure.

The new partnership will leverage Lime Energy’s expertise in the development and installation of solutions that reduce energy consumption for businesses, government agencies and utilities, and 4tell’s technology solutions that capture, manage, model and analyze critical data for sustainable energy practices.

4tell’s proprietary Sustainable Performance Governance technology platform is said to improve efficiencies and is expected to enhance Lime’s ability to deliver energy savings to customers through several ways including reducing risk and costs, streamlining project execution, identifying higher quality projects and verifying the results.

One of Lime Energy’s most recent projects include energy-efficient upgrades at the U.S. Postal Service. In January, the Postal Service awarded three contracts worth $29 million to Lime Energy to make its facilities on the East Coast more energy efficient.

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Royal Dutch Shell Plc has started a demonstration project to test a new method of speeding up reclamation of toxic waste ponds at oil sands operations, reports Reuters.

Shell, which operates the 155,000 barrel a day Athabasca Oil Sands Project in northern Alberta, told Reuters it received regulatory approval this month for a commercial-scale test of its “atmospheric fines drying” (AFD) technique for cleaning up tailings ponds, according to the article.

Reuters describes the tailings ponds as man-made lakes that hold water, leftover bitumen, clay and heavy metals from the oil sands production process. These waste ponds have become a major source of contention between environmentalists and oil companies.

Shell’s new technology converts oil sands tailings the consistency of motor oil into solid soil, reports The Globe and Mail.  The technology, which cost the company $30-million to develop, can process somewhere between 1 and 20 percent of the company’s mature fine tailings.

Clean-up has become a challenge for the industry since it has already produced more than 170 square kilometers of tailings lakes, according to the article.

Another driving factor behind the development of new clean-up processes is new rules that call for oil companies to dry out some of the effluent so it can be planted into forests and wetlands.

Shell is offering all the technical data on the new process for free to anyone, including competitors, reports The Globe and Mail.

John Abbott, Shell executive vice-president of heavy oil, said in the article that AFD is not a “silver bullet” but will be one of its solutions. The company hopes this commercial plant will provide more answers as to the effectiveness of AFD.

Suncor Energy, which has developed its own new drying technology, said it will both reduce its tailings pond requirements and save money. The company also has pledged to meet the requirements of Alberta’s Directive 74, which requires oil sands companies to dry out 50 percent of their fine tailings by 2013, according to The Globe and Mail.

Suncor said in its latest sustainability report that the company expects to see more land available for reclamation more quickly with the introduction of its TRO (Tailings Reduction Operations) process.

Imperial Oil was recently granted approval for a clean-up plan that won’t comply with Alberta’s rules until 2018 and Shell’s plan has not yet been approved.

Limited transparency around corporate sustainability risks can lead to investments that are bad for the environment, and investors’ bottom lines.
 

More U.S. coal-waste disposal sites have contaminated drinking or surface water with arsenic and other heavy metals, according to a study by Earthjustice, the Environmental Integrity Project and the Sierra Club, reports The Wall Street Journal.

The report, “In Harm’s Way: Lack Of Federal Coal Ash Regulations Endangers Americans And Their Environment” (PDF), based on data available through state agencies, reveals that contaminants at 39 coal-waste sites across 21 states have leached into the groundwater. This is in addition to 67 cases already identified by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

A February 2010 EIP/Earthjustice report documented 31 coal-ash dump sites in 14 states. The 39 additional sites in this report, along with the 67 already identified by the EPA, brings the total number of known toxic contamination sites from coal ash pollution to 137 in 34 states, according to the researchers.

Of the 39 problem sites, 35 had groundwater-monitoring data available, which showed that wells located at or near the coal-waste disposal sites contained pollutants such as arsenic, selenium, lead and chromium, according to the article. The four other sites involved surface water discharges and spills.

But there could be a bigger problem, according to the report. The study indicates that large coal ash-generating states like Alabama, Arizona, Georgia, Indiana, Ohio, Mississippi, Missouri, New Mexico and Tennessee, require no monitoring by law at coal ash ponds, at least while they are still in operation.

The coalition says the survey indicates that the EPA needs to regulate the waste produced by coal-fired power plants instead of leaving oversight to the states, according to the article.

The report is intended to influence the EPA as the agency begins public hearings next week on whether to regulate coal ash as a hazardous waste, put enforcement into the hands of federal and state officials, or institute new restrictions under which enforcement would come through lawsuits by states and individuals, reports the newspaper.

Depending on how those regulations are crafted, coal ash could be regulated like a hazardous waste, a move that has raised concerns among small and large businesses alike. Utilities have already begun lobbying the White House on the potential effect of the EPA’s proposed rules.

And some recyclers have said that a hazardous waste classification carries a stigma and would raise liability fears, making it difficult to use coal ash in building materials.

More than 40 percent of coal waste is recycled, added to products such as cement and drywall, a practice known as “beneficial reuse,” while the remainder is disposed of in landfills or retention ponds, according to The Wall Street Journal.

The EPA’s proposed rules support beneficial reuse or recycling of coal ash in the manufacture of materials such as cement, concrete and asphalt.

Kirk Van Dussen, manager at one of Holsum Dairy farms, discusses the dairy’s use of an anaerobic methane digester to recycle, reduce and reuse waste products produced by its cows. The methane digester converts the methane gas into 750 kW of electricity, which produces some revenues for the farm. It also results in cheaper fertilizer for local farms and helps control odors.

Second quarter operating profit at Agility was down 50 per cent on last year despite a three per cent rise in sales

Transport companies that do not have a carbon reduction strategy are exposing themselves to risk – particularly regulatory risk, according to a report by the Carbon Disclosure Project

Container line OOCL has launched a new Atlantic Express Shuttle offering a weekly sprint service between Antwerp and New York

The air freight forwarding market grew by 38 per cent in the first half of the year, while ocean forwarding was up 13 per cent, according to a report on the global forwarding market by Transport Intelligence

The World Food Programme, a UN organisation, is implementing Chevin’s fleet management system in all of the 82 countries the WFP operates in

Rainforest Alliance welcome the plan and are looking forward to collaborating

Handling Bosch’s road transport services until 2013

Reduced supply of export quality containers available in Ireland

Revenues saw strongest growth in Asia, rising 27.0%, to €127.3 million